#Playrevolution: Engaging Equity through the Power of Play

Abstract

This special issue continues a two-year conversation about a #playrevolution in literacies research, theory, and practice. The juxtaposition of play and revolution is intentional, highlighting the tension between play's prosocial benefits and collaborative production and the rapid change, uncertainty, and violence in today's schools, where we desperately need more humanizing elements that build people's connections to one another. The #playrevolution calls educators and researchers to explore the (un)predictable, (un)expected knots emerging through the coalescence of play and literacies, while also considering the possibilities play holds for educational equity in contemporary times. Bringing together twelve educational researchers across the United States, Canada, and Australia, this #playrevolution special issue explores the lively ecology of play-literacies in a variety of spaces—traditional writing and storytelling workshops, digital dialogues, video games, teacher-education courses, makerspaces, and playgrounds—with learners from preschools and kindergartens to high schools and universities.