Breaking the generic mould? Grayson Perry, Channel 4 and the production of British arts television

© 2018, © The Author(s) 2018. This article examines Channel 4’s critically acclaimed series, Grayson Perry: Who Are You? (2014). Using interviews with those involved in making the series and textual analysis, we argue that the elements that contributed to the success of the series are inherently difficult to replicate due to the political economy of contemporary television production, thereby threatening the sustainability of the genre. However, while arts television rarely constitutes a commercial success in a traditional ratings sense, we outline the strategic value of the genre in contributing to Channel 4’s identity as Britain’s alternative public service broadcaster

Toddlers' emerging symbolic play : a first-born advantage?

The influence of older peers on younger children's emerging symbolic play was examined for 24 young children in eight participating long-day child-care centres. Toddler participants (aged from 17 to 31 months) were observed and video-taped in three conditions in free play in the outdoor environment as follows: condition one, with their same-age peers; condition two, with their older, preschool-aged peers; and condition three, in a dyad situation with a familiar often 'self-chosen' preschool-aged peer. Fourteen of the participants were first-borns and 10 were later-borns. The toddlers' symbolic play was coded in the four dimensions of symbolic play ('decontextualization', 'thematic content', 'organization of themes', and 'self-other relationships') in accordance with Westby's (1991) 'Symbolic play scale'. First-born participants exhibited higher levels of symbolic play in all four dimensions as identified by Westby (1991) in mixed-age free play sessions. Additionally, in mixed-age free play, first-borns scored significantly higher in three dimensions in the most frequently occurring levels of symbolic play than did later-born participants.12 page(s

The Long-day childcare context : implications for toddlers' pretend play

Forty-eight toddlers aged 17 to 31 months attending long-day childcare participated in this project, which examined some of the influences of the day-care context on their emerging pretend play. Ninety minutes of video-taped observations were collected for each participant as they engaged in free play with their same-age peers and their pre-school-aged peers. The play environment was assessed on a number of dimensions, including the provision of play materials, the quality of care and staff attitudes toward play. Additionally, the participants' weekly attendance pattern was taken into consideration. The complexity of pretend play was coded in accordance with Westby's Symbolic Play Scale (1991). Two components of the long-day childcare context - play with pre-school-aged peers and the unsatisfactory provision of play materials - were found to be significantly influential on the participants' complexity of pretend play. An attendance of four or more days in childcare was also found to be favourable. A number of implications for educational programming in the day-care context arise from these results.11 page(s

Promoting children's wellbeing and values learning in risky learning spaces

In this chapter, the author disrupts taken-for-granted definitions of learning spaces as she considers spaces that might support children’s wellbeing and values learning. She discusses learning spaces as thinking spaces, planning spaces, physical spaces and spaces for children’s active citizenship and values learning. Such spaces, whether highly designed or not, offer opportunities for supporting children’s wellbeing through risk-taking. Much has been written about the value of learning spaces that support physical risk-taking. In this chapter, the author proposes ‘emotional obstacle courses’ that support children’s social and emotional risk-taking. Risky social and emotional learning spaces offer children opportunities to explore issues such as social justice and sustainability. While such spaces might be risky for educators and children, they may support children’s learning to become change agents in a complex world. If educators aim to support the wellbeing of children and societies, then such risks are worth taking