Boxberger, Clémence
Playground Fights, Child Socialization and Regulation of Violence
- 2014.
20
The playground is often seen as a place of gratuitous violence where the law of the jungle rules. Empirical data collected by observing the playground and also from schoolchildren leads however to another analysis. Primary school violence appears then as a form emerging from the games and power struggles between schoolchildren within the child universe. It pertains to both a logic of domination and one of cohesion where the stakes are those of peer group recognition. The working of the school can contribute to this recognition by building on certain of the values at the basis of child socialization and contribute to defining the place of each one within child hierarchies. By taking into consideration the specificity of the logic of child justice a calmer regulation of child relations could be facilitated.