Defense Thesis Martin van Rooijen
Martin van Rooijen succesfully defended his PhD thesis “That We Get More Trust, We Just Want So Much More” Professional Attitudes and Children’s Practices Enhancing Risky Play: Towards a Model of Influencing Factors.Short summary
When playing, children are naturally attracted to challenges. They spontaneously engage in activities that tests their boundaries and offer new experiences. The possibilities for children’s risky play have seriously decreased over the last few decades, due to the overprotective tendency in society. In response to this shift, research has increasingly focused on influencing factors on professional attitudes towards risk-taking in children’s play. This dissertation addresses the sometimes conflicting interests of various stakeholders in facilitating risky play in after-school childcare.
These stakeholders include professionals, playing children, parents, and the organization, each serving as a potential agent of change. A model is presented, to identify factors that influence Dutch professionals supervising children’s risk-taking in their play. Through a qualitative field study in seven Dutch after-school childcare settings, the model’s factors are verified in practice. The study generates an advanced understanding of how children experience opportunities for risky play and provides new and improved approaches for policy and practice. The results reported suggest that the outdoor environment needs increased attention, children must be taken seriously in their risk-taking play, and their guiding practitioners need support in their autonomy to make enriched risk assessments. Short Bio
Martin van Rooijen (1966) obtained a bachelor’s degree in social work and worked as manager in after-school childcare, was a community worker for youth in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and worked as a playground worker and coordinator in ‘building playgrounds’ in the city of Utrecht. He obtained his master’s degree in educational theory with honours at the Institute of Ecological Pedagogy and combined his work with a part-time PhD project at the University of Humanistic Studies. He has been involved in Dutch networks of outdoor play and children’s play rights and has built an international network on the subject of risky play. In the last three years, he propagates his vision of children’s risk-taking in play by training professionals, informing parents, conducting research, and facilitating children’s risky play practices.
There was an article in De Volkskrant, Risicovol buitenspelen (8 juni 2024, behind a paywall).
You can download his thesis here.
Foto 'brückensägen': Toni Anderfuhren
| Contact person | Yamit Gutman, pedel@uvh.nl |
| Location | De Leeuwenbergh, Servaasbolwerk 1A, Utrecht |
| Yamit Gutman, pedel@uvh.nl | |
| Date | 8-7-2024 |
| Opening hours | 10.00 hrs |