Educating beyond the emergency. A preliminary overview on the use of play for children in disasters

The study provides a literature review on play in "emergency situations" (humanitarian/natural/man-made disasters) with a specific focus on the situation of children with disabilities (CwD). Even if literature on the child’s play is immense and internationally acknowledged, little evidence exists on the use of play in disasters, especially related to CwD (Giraldo 2020). From the Nineties, a new discipline, emergency pedagogy (Kagawa 2005), deals with education-related issues during/after disasters (Sinclair 2002) but not concerning play and especially disability (Giraldo 2020). Bridging this lack, the paper offers a literature review gathering main primary/secondary sources (from ERIC, EBSCO, PsycINFO, Science Direct, SocINDEX) in a coherent/critical corpus the research on this topic in order to reflect on the pedagogical value of play for all the children in disasters. The review adopts a rigorous procedure (Levy & Ellis 2006) following a multiphase analysis (Galvan 2006). The review highlights the main declinations of play in disasters where it is often included and subordinated to a therapeutic-rehabilitation framework. This “ludomatics” perspective prevails over a use of play as “play for the sake of play”, that is generally replaced (implicitly/explicitly) with the risk to overshadow its genuinely fun/recreational dimension. Despite the lack of data and the consequent need for further in-depth analysis, play is more important than ordinary for all the children living such extraordinary lives. Policy makers who are sensitive to children’s play needs in the planning, design and management of programs and related education practices to support such children would create more desirable environments alleviating the possible effects of lack of play.