A proper place for a proper childhood? Children’s spatiality in a play centre

In prosperous Western countries children’s everyday urban experience is characterized by a general tendency towards a separation from adults’ space and by a high degree of spatial and temporal differentiation functional to meeting the children’s needs (Zeiher, 2003). Children fluctuate continuously between spatially demarcated places designed specifically for them and the wider adult space. In particular, we have recently witnessed the significant expansion of children’s play centers (outdoor and indoor afterschool clubs, sport and leisure organizations and so on), planned and sponsored as safe sites for their play activities in recognition of their right to the city. The aim of this chapter, which is written from the perspective of the new sociology of childhood (Jenks, 1982; James and Prout, 1990; Qvortrup, 1991; Corsaro, 1997; Alanen and Mayall, 2001) and which adopts the concept of spatial justice as an analytical tool (Soja, 2010; Philippoupolos, 2014), is to explore how children’s spatiality is constructed within these ‘play institutions’. To what extent do they meet children’s desires and promote their agency? To what extent do they establish the basis for constructing equal opportunities between adults and children in public space? Far from being a secondary detail, the fact that the mission of these places is to ‘make’ children play may have implications for the interpretation of the nature of child–adult relationships fostered in society.