Call for papers 2027 Volumen 11 (2) Publication: Second semester of 2027
Volume 11(2)
Publication: Second semester of 2027
Dimensions in children's and youth cultures
Deadline for article submissions: June 15, 2027
In the collective imagination, play and childhood are two closely linked concepts. It could be said that there is almost universal consensus that play is an essential part of human life, but that it is most clearly and evidently manifested in the early stages. This is so much the case that play is recognized as a right protected by the States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Children’s play has been studied from historical, cultural, educational and social perspectives, with particular emphasis placed on its value for the physical and mental wellbeing of children and adolescents, their developmental progress and their socialisation. Despite this, adult perspectives shape the observations, classifications, and evaluations of children's play that predominate in most available studies. In contrast, it is crucial to understand children's and adolescents' perceptions of the play activities in which they participate, as well as the meaning they attribute to them. Both of these perceptions may differ from those held by adults and thus constitute objects of research supported by different hypotheses about the role of play in their lives. The new childhood studies, whether from a sociological or an ethnographic perspective, offer opportunities to conduct research in this way, taking the viewpoint of children and adolescents as a starting point and involving them in the research as informed participants.
Although research on childhood play tends to consider it a universal phenomenon, the truth is that the forms, instruments, rules, settings and what is or is not considered acceptable as play have varied historically, and its expression depends on people's sociocultural living conditions. With the "discovery of childhood" as a distinct phase, children's play began to be recognized as a human developmental need, as a tool for learning, and as a healthy activity when performed outdoors, which was also reflected in the development of conducive environments such as parks and playgrounds in cities.
However, this expansion has been slowing down as a result of various factors of different kinds, notably, on the one hand, the proliferation of cars, which encroaches on spaces that were once communal, cuts off communication between towns or between neighbourhoods, and erects barriers to communication and social interaction. Furthermore, new technologies have transformed the nature and requirements of play practices, also influencing the spatial dimension and the needs for connectivity and access. On the other hand, play tends to develop in structured settings, such as sports facilities, supervised recreation, nurseries, programmed leisure activities or extracurricular educational activities, where dependence, control and instrumentalization of children's practices by adults increases.
The culture of children’s play has undergone changes characterised by a hybrid ecosystem, in which traditional games are nurtured whilst digital environments are utilised and even adapted to them. Digitalisation drives individualisation, whilst the internet enables children to move beyond their immediate social sphere and establish new frameworks for play and interaction, both within and across generations. Although access to digital media is not equally distributed amongst all children and adolescents worldwide, this does not prevent children everywhere from engaging in free play, in which they invent their own rules, test them out, collaborate as well as compete with one another, and create and recreate social reality as they see fit.
Sociedad e Infancias invites researchers studying childhood to participate in the monographic section of this issue with essays or research articles that explore the various dimensions of play in contemporary children’s and adolescents’ cultures, focusing on topics such as:
• How play over time influences conceptions and representations of childhood
• How children and adolescents construct reality through play
• How socioeconomic and cultural contexts affect children's play
• What is the concept and meaning of play for children and adolescents
• How adults attempt to define "good play" and "bad play"
• Generational relationships between adults and children through play
• Evolution and transformation of play in childhood: Adaptations and reformulations of games from the past to the present.
Open call with no dealine for other sections:
➢Miscellaneous ➢Reviews ➢Other contributions
Submissions:
Contributios written for in Spanish, Portuguese, and English will be accepted.
Guidelines for authors: https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/SOCI/about/submissions
Submission method: registration on the jounal’s website http://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/SOCI
Contact: Journal’s Secretariat: sociedadeinfancia@ucm.es
Sociedad e Infancias thanks all those who, as authors, reviewers, or advisors of the journal, are contributing to making it a reference for childhood studies, especially in the Ibero-American sphere.
