When players all acted
as though the ball landed on a line when it clearly did not, or acted as though
a "slam" was accidental when it was clearly quite deliberate, they were of-
ten dealing with a critical boundary beyond which strict enforcement of the
game rules would have threatened continuation of the episode, and ultimately
IO8 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND GAMING
?
as though the ball landed on a line when it clearly did not, or acted as though
a "slam" was accidental when it was clearly quite deliberate, they were of-
ten dealing with a critical boundary beyond which strict enforcement of the
game rules would have threatened continuation of the episode, and ultimately
IO8 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND GAMING
?
Childens - Folklore
For example, players who played the game according
to its rules, competing as individuals, were treated as though they were act-
ing in a totally inappropriate and unacceptable way. They were quickly elimi-
nated from the game. This was because the gaming rules among these play-
ers required that they sustain the impression that they were "mean" only to
help and support their friends, not for their own personal gain. Players them-
selves were quite clear about this discrepancy between how the game was
supposed to be played and how it actually was played.
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? ? Amanda:7 It's supposed to be that you treat everyone equal and
no one's your friend and no one's your enemy. . .
Everyone is just all for yourself. That's the way it's
supposed to be. It's like one on one. It's not supposed
to be team on team.
Janet: It's not supposed to be (laughs).
Author: You make it sound like lots of times it is team on
team, though.
Chorus: It is! (laughter) (Fieldnotes 4/27/81. Emphasis in
original)
Regardless of what the game rules said, these players still played foursquare
like a team game, with groups of friends vying for control of the game. In
fact, much of what happened in the playing of this game would be totally
inexplicable in the context of individual competition, even though this game
has long been categorized that way.
Activities and Episodes
Just as players need not always be primarily oriented toward game-prescribed
procedures and outcomes, what happens during gaming episodes need not
always be primarily defined by the game. An episode defined as "playing
the game" may incorporate a great deal of action that is in no way defined
by the activity itself, even though it may be strongly shaped by its occur-
rence within one type of social episode rather than another. There are many
possible breaks in, or overlays upon, the action specified by the game. There
may be time-outs, fights, discussions, interruptions, interference, stalemates,
"side-plays" and "side-involvements," changes in "keying" or "footing"
(Goffman 1963, 1974, 1981). Some are woven into and concurrent with
action that is primarily defined by the game. Others are perceived as clear
breaks or interruptions in the game (Denzin 1977).
All of this can be ignored when the purpose is to describe games and
their rules. When the purpose is to describe how players understand and
collectively negotiate a particular instance of gaming, however, close atten-
tion must be paid to all of the activity that is woven into and around the
game. Players need to understand and manage transitions among activities
that are defined primarily by the game and those that are not, and they need
to integrate the flow of action across those boundaries in meaningful ways.
Many important gaming rules deal with these issues, and a great deal of
communicative activity among players concerns their management.
Incidents of this type tend to cluster around transitional junctures in
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? ? the game, (Erickson and Shultz 1981), as players partition it into emic units
(Clarke 1982) of game-related and non-game-related action, and then inte-
grate these units into a single episode of play. Systematic mapping of what
can and must occur at these various slots and nodes (R. Lindsay 1977; von
Cranach 1982) provides critical information concerning basic principles
underlying play in particular settings. Figure 1, for example, illustrates the
basic episodic units defined by the game of foursquare. In contrast, Figure
2 more closely approximates the episodic structure as I saw it played in the
setting I observed.
Mapping the structure of the gaming episode is critical because it cre-
ates highly repetitive units for analysis and because players often display their
understandings of actions and events more explicitly during breaks in the
game itself (Collett 1977; Grimshaw 1980; R. Lindsay 1977; Marsh 1982).
When things go smoothly, the principles organizing an exchange may not
be apparent at all. When something goes wrong from players' perspectives,
however, or when interpretations of actions seem to require a great deal of
management, those principles may become the explicit topic of discussion.
When players are accused of inappropriate conduct and must defend or ex-
cuse their actions, or when players stop play to fight over the finer points
of what did or did not happen in a particular exchange, they provide a win-
dow on their own interpretations of actions and events, and on the processes
by which they collectively negotiate and renegotiate those interpretations as
new circumstances arise.
The players I observed very clearly illustrated the methodological
importance of identifying and attending to such "contexts of justification"
(Harre and Secord 1972; Much and Shweder 1987), many of which occurred
outside of what players perceived to be "playing the game. " Challenges to
actions under different types of rules, for example, only occurred at certain
junctures. Players only selectively challenged actions under some types of
rules and not others. And they employed only a few types of responses to
such challenges: "I couldn't help it," "I didn't mean to," and "I didn't know. "
Analysis of the types of accusations that were made or not made and under
what circumstances, and especially of the conditions under which they suc-
ceeded or failed, provided a very important entree into the basic principles
underlying play in this setting. They were an important clue, for example,
to the underlying concern for motive noted above, and they illustrated very
clearly how the difficulties inherent in assessing motive could be managed
and manipulated to a variety of ends.
The form of accusations, denials, and excuses, and especially their
contexts of use, for example, helped explain why players were called out for
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? ? FIGURE 1. Structural model of the game of foursquare
PROPS
SETTING
(court)
PLAYERS
(five)
(yes)
tt
(no)
wait
(no) -4
wait
explain/ -
demonstrate
t
(no)
(yes)
(no) -
(yes)
4
DON'T PLAY FOURSQUARE
(no) - PLAY A VARIANT OF
FOURSQUARE
"practice"
"three square"
"two square"
king has ball?
(yes)
players are "ready"?
(yes)
"KING" CALLS THE RULES
,
- players understand/accept rules?
- players are "ready"?
4, 4
wait (yes)
wait " "KING" SERVES THE BALL
44
apologize (yes)
(no)= -- - no one is out on the serve?
(yes)
PLAY THE GAME
PLAYERS
ROTATE
OUT
(yes) ambiguity? -- (yes)
(yes)
responsible -- (no)
for actions?
leaves court? 4-----(yes)
(no)
give "chances"? -
(no)
(no) - STALIEMATIE
4
(yes)
(yes)
"KING" CALLS
A TAKEOVER
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? ? FIGURE 2. Structural model of an episode of playing foursquare
PROPS
(ball)
SETTING
(court)
PLAYERS
(five)
(yes)
"KING" CALLS THE RULES
YERS "KING" SERVES THE BALL
PLA'
ROTATE
PLAY THE
OUT-
4'
GAME
4
violating only some types of rules and not others, despite players' stubborn
insistence that they would be out for violating any of them. It seems useful
to develop this example in somewhat greater detail here, because the prin-
ciples involved are so fundamental to gaming in this setting and thus criti-
cal to further discussion.
The players I observed recognized a number of different types of game
rules. Motive was essential to assessing the status of actions under only some
of them, and their ways of responding to perceived violations varied accord-
ingly. The game rule "no holding" will illustrate the basic workings of this
system and how it affected play at many levels in this setting, though all of
what these players called the "real rules" of their game operated in much
the same way (see L. Hughes 1989 for a full description of rule taxonomy
and use among these players).
Players generally understood that there was "no holding. " That is,
players were supposed to hit the ball, not catch it and throw it to another
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? ? player. In practice, however, this was interpreted to refer not to the action
of catching and throwing but to its context of use. As one player put it, "no
holding" means "you can't just stand there and decide who to throw it to"
(Fieldnotes 5/5/81. Emphasis in original).
Randi: (In my rules) you can't hold the ball. . . . You have to hit
it. You can't pick it up.
Author: Do you really call people out if they throw the ball in-
stead of hitting it?
Randi: Uh huh.
Author: I didn't see that happen too much.
Randi: Well, like if they. . . just grab it for a second and then
throw (that's okay). But if they hold onto it, . . . just do it
deliberately, like then they're out.
Author: It's okay if you just do it quick, but you're not really sup-
posed to?
Randi: Instead of hitting it like this (demonstrates tapping the
ball with her fingertips), they sort of pick it up, sweep it
up like this. But you can't really call that holding because
they didn't really hold it. (Fieldnotes 5/7/81. Emphasis in
original)
These players' treatment of "holding" is reminiscent of the NHL referee's
treatment of "hooks. " The same action could be variously interpreted as
"holding," "not holding," or "holding that was not really holding," depend-
ing upon its context of use and especially on a player's reason for "hold-
ing. " The "no holding" rule did not prohibit "holding" per se, but only
"holding" for particular purposes.
The only type of "holding" that was of serious concern among these
players was "holding" that was "really mean," that is, "holding" for the pur-
pose of deliberately eliminating another player from the game. Actions that
had the effect of getting another player out were "really mean" only if they
were also intentional, and "purpose stuff" was "really mean" only if it was
directed at getting a player out. To complicate matters even further, players
also interpreted "holding" differently depending upon whether it was used
against a friend or a nonfriend. While it was expected that such "moves"
would be directed toward nonfriends, their use in exchanges with friends was
an extremely serious violation of gaming rules among these players.
In practice, as noted above, distinctions among "moves" based on the
perceived motives of players are highly ambiguous. For this reason, players
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? ? had to monitor and manage their actions very carefully. This was a power-
ful constraint on what players could do in the game, but it was also a po-
tent resource for play. Ambiguity of intent was actively generated and ma-
nipulated to a variety of ends.
For example, the issue in trying to call someone out for violating rules
like "no slams" or "no holding" was not simply what a player had or had
not done, but whether it was "really mean. " Would-be accusers were very
aware of the likely outcome of making such a serious charge, even implic-
itly. "Meanness" would surely be denied, and accusers then had only two
choices for further action, neither of which was very appealing. They could
either suffer the embarrassment of backing down, and appear "mean" them-
selves for having falsely accused another, or they could risk a serious esca-
lation of conflict by further accusing the offender of lying. Needless to say,
players who understood this system rarely, if ever, took the risk of directly
calling someone out for violating these types of rules.
Players who "slammed" or "held" the ball, in turn, routinely worked
this system to their own advantage. They acted with relative impunity be-
cause they knew that if they were challenged, they did not have to deny that
they had done something (though this often was the apparent topic of dis-
course). They only had to deny that they had a "mean" purpose ("I didn't
mean to"), a "mean" intent ("I couldn't help it"), or the kind of foreknowl-
edge necessary for a truly intentional act ("I didn't know"). 9 Often they only
had to express sufficient outrage that someone could think so "meanly" of
them to quite effectively stave off the challenge.
Would-be accusers were clearly at a disadvantage here, and one re-
sult was that these players almost never attempted to call someone "out"
for violating rules like "no holding" or "no slams" that incorporated an
assessment of underlying intent. They were not lying, however, when they
steadfastly maintained that players would be out for using these actions in
"mean" ways. It was the mode or style of enforcement, not the principle,
that was ultimately at issue. Rather than trying to call a player "out" for
"slams" or "holding," players usually tried to precipitate a less ambiguous
"out" under a different kind of rule, like failing to hit the ball into another
square. Since this did not involve an exchange among players and motive
thus was not an issue, this was the preferred mode of enforcing the rules.
Even if such actions were challenged, the player(s) who precipitated the "out"
had recourse to the same highly effective set of excuses and denials: "Gee,
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. "
A full explication of this scheme is clearly impossible here. This brief
introduction, however, will illustrate how criteria for evaluating actions in
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? ? the social world, like motive, can constrain and shape player actions in ways
that the game rules alone do not, while also providing players with signifi-
cant resources for playful and strategic manipulation. Games, as they are
actually played, invoke multiple frames of reference. Players' choices among
various courses of action will be explained only rarely by reference to a single
rule or principle. Their decisions usually involve a process of weighing, bal-
ancing, and finally integrating a variety of concerns and agendas.
COMPETITION AND COOPERATION
Another important issue arises in the relative emphasis given to competition
and cooperation in studies of games and gaming. Games are prototypically
competitive, but social life is prototypically cooperative (Hymes 1980). Co-
operation, therefore, is taken as the more fundamental organizing principle
in gaming episodes. Participants in face-to-face interaction must coordinate
their actions to sustain the exchange and the projected definition of the situ-
ation upon which it is based, even though their expected roles, underlying
purposes, and motives may be quite different (Goffman 1959). Simply put,
a great deal of cooperation is required to sustain a competitive exchange.
I have found this notion to be particularly useful in resolving appar-
ent contradictions between what players say and what they do. Statements
may be true about the game yet false about the process of playing it, as well
as the reverse. For example, I observed many instances when players col-
lectively ignored violations of game rules or consistently failed to pursue ef-
fective strategies for "winning," even though they insisted that this was not
what they did or were supposed to do. If I had interpreted these observa-
tions purely in terms of the game, I would have concluded (as Gilligan 1982;
Kohlberg 1966; Lever 1976, 1978; Piaget 1965; and others have) that these
girls cared very little about games and their rules.
When viewed in the context of the gaming episode, however, these
same actions were actually indicative of what Borman and Lippincott (1982,
139) have called the "press to maintain the game. " Players understood that
continuing the game depended on sustaining the social episode in which it
was embedded, and further that threats to the episode arose primarily from
perceived failures to fulfill responsibilities to friends. They thus cooperated
in framing competition in a way that would not threaten the episode, even
when this meant bending the stated rules of the game.
When players all acted
as though the ball landed on a line when it clearly did not, or acted as though
a "slam" was accidental when it was clearly quite deliberate, they were of-
ten dealing with a critical boundary beyond which strict enforcement of the
game rules would have threatened continuation of the episode, and ultimately
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? ? the game itself.
Attempts to directly enforce those types of rules that required an as-
sessment of motive provided a particularly clear example of players' need
to balance the demands of playing the game with the demands of sustain-
ing the episode. Competent players knew that such attempts were far more
likely to make players mad than they were to make them out. They also knew
that making players mad in certain kinds of ways could, in turn, easily es-
calate into an extended stalemate in the game (L. Hughes 1988). Regard-
less of their roles or interests in a particular exchange, therefore, they usu-
ally opted for courses of action that were more likely to accomplish the de-
sired outs without also bringing to the foreground inherently awkward is-
sues of who was being "really mean. " Those rare instances when a stale-
mate did occur, of course, were highly revealing of what was at stake in those
choices, and thus of what these players perceived to be beyond the limits of
negotiation.
Frames and Framings
Finally, it is important to make a general distinction between games as
frames, which mark off what occurs within their bounds from other pos-
sible realms of experience (Bateson 1972; Goffman 1974), and gaming as a
process of framing what occurs within that domain. I have already noted a
number of ways that games do act as interpretive frameworks for what oc-
curs within a gaming episode, as well as some important limits to the re-
sources they provide their players. It is still important, however, to place the
players, and not the activity they are engaged in, firmly at the center of the
gaming process.
The literature on games has often extended the notion that games
grant distinctive meanings to actions and events to suggest that they also
communicate an attitude toward those events. A shove on the basketball
court, for example, is not supposed to mean what it would normally mean
if we were not playing a game. This is a type of meta-communication about
how actions are to be interpreted that Bateson (1972) has called "the mes-
sage this is play. "
The distinctive domains of meaning constituted by games should not
be confused with gamers' communications about such things as "playful-
ness," however. They do not eliminate the need for players to communicate
their attitudes toward actions and events in the game. Games probably do
invoke a general expectation that events will not be taken too literally, but
frames are notoriously leaky affairs (Goffman 1974). There is nothing about
games per se that dictates players' attitudes toward events, whether they are
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? ? to be understood as fun or serious, competitive or cooperative, work or play,
"nice" or "mean," fair or unfair. This is a matter of framing, not the frame.
Regardless of the fact that they are playing a game, players must and
do communicate about how their actions are to be interpreted, about how
they understand the actions of others, and about the conditions under which
everyday meanings will and will not be allowed to permeate the game. While
the relative need for such communications will vary with circumstances and
events, they constitute another important entree into the principles players
use to organize their play. They also can be a highly significant factor in the
distinctive quality or style of gaming in different settings (Harre and Secord
1972).
A further elaboration of how the players I observed handled perfor-
mances of "slams" will illustrate. They often seemed to work very hard to
make their play look far more hectic and difficult than it actually was, es-
pecially when potentially "mean" moves were being used. Even rather easy
"slams" were often accompanied by very exaggerated reaching and bend-
ing, cries of "whew! " and mopping of brows. Either I did not understand
the physical demands of this game, or players perceived something very im-
portant to be at stake in the style of their performances.
Something very important was at stake. Players were very concerned
that if they got someone out (especially a friend), or even used a move that
could be interpreted as "mean stuff," this might be understood as a real act
of exclusion or personal affront. This could have very serious consequences
for the gaming episode, as well as for relationships among players more gen-
erally (L. Hughes 1988). They responded by orchestrating the style of their
performances toward alternative, more acceptable interpretations.
One way they did this was by overlaying rather easy exchanges with
the possibility that their exaggerated performances could be indicative of the
physical challenges of the game. The logic was rather simple, and again cen-
trally concerned with perceived motive. In the heat of a fast-paced exchange,
players might not be totally in control of their actions. If they were not in
control, their actions could not be truly intentional and they could not be
held fully accountable for their consequences. In short, they could not be
"really mean. "
Players constantly and redundantly reinforced this perspective on
events. They followed almost every instance of "outs" resulting from actions
that would be "mean" if deliberate with "Gee, I'm sorry. I couldn't help it.
I'll get you back in. " What might be understood as "meanness" was thus
recast as something very different and far more acceptable, an accident. Or
just before a "mean slam" they would call out to a friend in line, "Sally, I'll
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? ? get you in! " recasting that "slam" as "nice" to a friend rather than "mean"
to its recipient. Or they would frame accusations of unacceptable conduct
in extended "yes you did/no you didn't" exchanges, thus embedding "mean-
ness" in a playful frame. 1?
It is important to note that the purpose of these kinds of elaborate
framings of actions was not deceit. The real, and often patently "mean,"
motives of players were almost always totally transparent, regardless of the
style of performance, and highly likely to shape the exchanges that followed.
Instead, these elaborate framings of actions derived from the ambiguities
inherent in simultaneously applying multiple frames of reference to the same
action, and from the resulting need to carefully manage actions that, under
some circumstances, would constitute a serious breach of standards for ac-
ceptable conduct. As one of my players put it, "You have to do it with style. "
GIRLS' GAMES AND GIRLS' GAMING
Having outlined a number of important conceptual and methodological is-
sues in the study of children's gaming, I want to conclude by illustrating how
gaming studies might enrich our understanding how folklore functions in
the daily lives of children. Just as Goldstein (1971) found a "game of strat-
egy" in a "game of chance," I found some interesting counterpoints to the
prevailing wisdom concerning girls and their games in the stereotypically
feminine game of foursquare.
The foursquare study focused on a naturally occurring play group,
so it is not surprising that gender was a major factor in the gaming patterns
identified. This reflects an important bias in children's experiences during
the elementary-school years, when boys and girls tend to play in separate
play groups and also to play stereotypically different types of games (L.
Hughes 1988; Lever 1976, Maltz and Borker 1982; Sutton-Smith 1979c).
Since gender is also, and for the same reasons, a highly significant factor in
the more general literature on children's games, I will use this area of over-
lapping concern to briefly illustrate how gaming studies might enrich our
current understanding of children's traditional culture.
A variety of differences have long been noted between the types of
games preferred by boys and girls, and in the structure of boys' and girls'
play groups (L. Hughes 1989, 1993). Girls' games, for example, are often
characterized as less complex than boys' games in regard to rule and role
structures, and as less competitive than boys' games, more often involving
competition among individuals rather than teams. I have already illustrated
that at least one group of girls can generate a highly elaborate rule struc-
ture, and can play in groups larger than the dyads and triads commonly as-
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? ? sociated with girls' play. Some further comment is due, however, regarding
the notions that girls are not competitive, and that when they do compete,
they prefer individual over team competition.
It has been proposed that girls avoid the more highly competitive
games common among boys because their potential for conflict and divisive-
ness is incompatible with girls' concern for establishing and maintaining
close, intimate relationships with small groups of friends (Gilligan 1982).
The foursquare study suggests that game structure and social structure may
not be so simply related. While the players I observed did care a great deal
about "being friends" and "being nice," they also competed quite aggres-
sively and quite well. They did not fear or avoid competition, but they did
prefer certain ways of competing.
Given the current notion that girls avoid competition because of con-
cerns about friends and "niceness," it is interesting that the players I observed
used these same concerns to define acceptable, and even expected, competi-
tion among players. This was possible because foursquare, as I saw it played,
was a large-group activity, often involving a dozen or more players and thus
more than one group of close friends. This meant that while players ex-
pressed an ideal obligation to "be nice" to everyone, they were, in fact, ob-
ligated to "be nice" to only some of the other players. This social structure,
and not the structure of the game, provided the primary framework for com-
petition among players.
Appropriate ways of competing in this group rested on players' shared
understanding that close friends would "be nice" to each other, helping each
other get into the game and remain there. As long as "mean" actions were
perceived as primarily aimed at fulfilling these important obligations to
friends, and only incidentally at deliberately eliminating or excluding some-
one else from the game, players did not regard them as "really mean," but
as something far more acceptable, "nice-mean. " Appropriate ways of com-
peting among these players, therefore, were not a matter of "being really
nice. " They all knew that this was impossible because almost anything you
could do to "be nice" to friends was by definition also "mean" to someone
else. Rather, it was a matter of avoiding being perceived as "really mean. "
This required very careful management, especially when players' relative
obligations to others were subject to subtleties of interpretation.
The examples of players' framing their actions cited above, in which
they constantly and redundantly cued the preferred ("nice") interpretation
of their actions, reflect the importance of managing this important bound-
ary between "nice-mean" and "really mean. " When players shouted to a
friend in line just before slamming the ball, "Donna, I'll get you in! " the
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? ? message was: This "meanness" is not "really mean" because it is primarily
oriented toward helping a friend and only incidentally toward eliminating
another player.
The degree to which competition among these players depended upon
their relative obligations to friends and nonfriends is even more clearly il-
lustrated by the following excerpt from fieldnotes. Donna, the "king" in this
exchange, is a highly skilled and competent player. Under almost any other
circumstances, she would have played a very active role in determining who
was out. In this case, however, each of the remaining three squares was oc-
cupied by a player to whom she had important, though very different, so-
cial obligations outside of the context of the game. The effect was very strik-
ing. Donna was unable to compete at all.
Donna is king. Her younger sister, Pam, is in square #3; a boy she
has been trying to impress, John, is in square #2; and her best
friend, Sally, has just come into the game.
Donna calls, "times," and takes her sweater off. Her sister, Pam,
also calls, "times," and fixes her hair. Someone in line comments, in
a slightly sarcastic tone, "Everyone has times. "
Donna calls, "untimes," and bounces the ball back and forth with
John. Her friend, Sally, takes her sweater off and ties it around her
waist as Donna has just done. Her sister, Pam, does the same.
Donna finally calls, "Fairsquare," a call meaning that no one is
supposed to try to get anyone else out. She serves the ball to John,
and then immediately calls, "times. " She bends down to fix her
shoe laces, as the others bounce the ball among themselves. She
calls, "untimes," hits the ball once, and then calls, "times" again,
this time to fix a barrette.
Donna fiddles with her hair until Sally tries a slam past John, but the
ball lands outside his square. Donna calls, "untimes," and then turns
to Sally, "Sorry, Sally, I'll get you back in. " (Fieldnotes 4/30/81)
Donna and Sally's teacher cornered me in the lunchroom the next day to
ask if I had any idea why Sally was suddenly refusing to speak to her best
friend.
In this case, Donna had equal, though different, social obligations to
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? ? all of the other players. This deprived her of a framework of friends and
nonfriends, and she was left with no basis for appropriately competing with
the other players. Interestingly, she could not solve her dilemma by frequently
calling "times" to fix her hair and fiddle with her clothes. Within the logic
of play in this group, it was not simply acceptable to "be mean" in order to
"be nice" to your friends. It was expected that players would "be nice" to
their friends. It was "mean" not to "be mean," if, as a consequence, you
were not "nice" to your friends. Sally was angry because her best friend had
not affirmed their special relationship by eliminating someone else from the
game.
It is also interesting to note the implications of this way of compet-
ing for another common notion about girls and their games, that they pre-
fer games based upon competition among individuals rather than teams. The
nonteam structure of foursquare is typical of girls' games, but it would have
grossly distorted the social reality to describe its playing in terms of indi-
viduals vying with other individuals. The friends versus nonfriends frame-
work these players used to set the boundaries for appropriate and expected
ways of competing meant that all actions were embedded in, and evaluated
within, the context of groups vying with other groups. These may not con-
stitute teams proper, but neither are they entirely different, at least from the
players' perspective: "It's not supposed to be team on team . . . but that's
not the way they do it" (Fieldnotes 4/27/81).
This illustrates particularly clearly the significance of Goldstein's
(1971) distinction between "the rules by which people should play" and "the
ones by which they do play" with which we began this chapter. Any analy-
sis of play in this setting that was based purely upon the stated rules and
structure of the game of foursquare would have been highly misleading about
very fundamental qualities of its playing. Competition among individuals is
not the only alternative to competition between formal teams, and this is a
distinction that probably does make a difference. If I were to speculate about
girls' apparent preference for nonteam games based upon the current ob-
servations, for example, I might conclude that girls do not like competition
among individuals any more than they like competition among teams. In-
stead, I might propose that girls, perhaps unlike boys, prefer activities where
they, and not the activity, determine who will vie against whom, and where
competing parties represent meaningful social divisions rather than more
arbitrary or skill-determined groupings. This explanation would appear to
be at least as plausible as the rather convoluted argument that girls prefer
to act as individuals in their games because they value close friendships.
114 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND GAMING
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? ? CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I have outlined some conceptual and methodological issues
involved in shifting our attention from children's games to their playing.
Along the way, I have tried to provide support for Goldstein's (1971) con-
cern that studies of what children play, rather than how they play, have lim-
ited, and perhaps even distorted, our understanding of children's folk cul-
ture. I would add that gaming studies have much to recommend them, both
theoretically and practically, as highly useful vehicles for increasing the
subtlety and richness of our understanding of child culture. Folkgames are
not only both controlled by children and readily accessible to adult obser-
vation, they also possess a degree of explicitness in their stated rules that is
unusually conducive to comparative study. Few other genres of traditional
culture, at any stage in the lifespan, allow such ready access to variations
played on the same basic interactional structure across such broad stretches
of time and place. Nothing could be more central to the core issue of varia-
tion within tradition that stands at the heart of folklore studies.
NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE
1. Further discussion of interpretive approaches to game rules can be found
in Brenner (1982), Collett (1977), J. Evans (1986), Factor (1988), Fine (1987), Polgar
(1976), and Roberts (1987).
2. D. D. Clarke (1982) presents a more detailed discussion of probable, per-
missible, proper, and effective sequences of action.
to its rules, competing as individuals, were treated as though they were act-
ing in a totally inappropriate and unacceptable way. They were quickly elimi-
nated from the game. This was because the gaming rules among these play-
ers required that they sustain the impression that they were "mean" only to
help and support their friends, not for their own personal gain. Players them-
selves were quite clear about this discrepancy between how the game was
supposed to be played and how it actually was played.
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? ? Amanda:7 It's supposed to be that you treat everyone equal and
no one's your friend and no one's your enemy. . .
Everyone is just all for yourself. That's the way it's
supposed to be. It's like one on one. It's not supposed
to be team on team.
Janet: It's not supposed to be (laughs).
Author: You make it sound like lots of times it is team on
team, though.
Chorus: It is! (laughter) (Fieldnotes 4/27/81. Emphasis in
original)
Regardless of what the game rules said, these players still played foursquare
like a team game, with groups of friends vying for control of the game. In
fact, much of what happened in the playing of this game would be totally
inexplicable in the context of individual competition, even though this game
has long been categorized that way.
Activities and Episodes
Just as players need not always be primarily oriented toward game-prescribed
procedures and outcomes, what happens during gaming episodes need not
always be primarily defined by the game. An episode defined as "playing
the game" may incorporate a great deal of action that is in no way defined
by the activity itself, even though it may be strongly shaped by its occur-
rence within one type of social episode rather than another. There are many
possible breaks in, or overlays upon, the action specified by the game. There
may be time-outs, fights, discussions, interruptions, interference, stalemates,
"side-plays" and "side-involvements," changes in "keying" or "footing"
(Goffman 1963, 1974, 1981). Some are woven into and concurrent with
action that is primarily defined by the game. Others are perceived as clear
breaks or interruptions in the game (Denzin 1977).
All of this can be ignored when the purpose is to describe games and
their rules. When the purpose is to describe how players understand and
collectively negotiate a particular instance of gaming, however, close atten-
tion must be paid to all of the activity that is woven into and around the
game. Players need to understand and manage transitions among activities
that are defined primarily by the game and those that are not, and they need
to integrate the flow of action across those boundaries in meaningful ways.
Many important gaming rules deal with these issues, and a great deal of
communicative activity among players concerns their management.
Incidents of this type tend to cluster around transitional junctures in
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? ? the game, (Erickson and Shultz 1981), as players partition it into emic units
(Clarke 1982) of game-related and non-game-related action, and then inte-
grate these units into a single episode of play. Systematic mapping of what
can and must occur at these various slots and nodes (R. Lindsay 1977; von
Cranach 1982) provides critical information concerning basic principles
underlying play in particular settings. Figure 1, for example, illustrates the
basic episodic units defined by the game of foursquare. In contrast, Figure
2 more closely approximates the episodic structure as I saw it played in the
setting I observed.
Mapping the structure of the gaming episode is critical because it cre-
ates highly repetitive units for analysis and because players often display their
understandings of actions and events more explicitly during breaks in the
game itself (Collett 1977; Grimshaw 1980; R. Lindsay 1977; Marsh 1982).
When things go smoothly, the principles organizing an exchange may not
be apparent at all. When something goes wrong from players' perspectives,
however, or when interpretations of actions seem to require a great deal of
management, those principles may become the explicit topic of discussion.
When players are accused of inappropriate conduct and must defend or ex-
cuse their actions, or when players stop play to fight over the finer points
of what did or did not happen in a particular exchange, they provide a win-
dow on their own interpretations of actions and events, and on the processes
by which they collectively negotiate and renegotiate those interpretations as
new circumstances arise.
The players I observed very clearly illustrated the methodological
importance of identifying and attending to such "contexts of justification"
(Harre and Secord 1972; Much and Shweder 1987), many of which occurred
outside of what players perceived to be "playing the game. " Challenges to
actions under different types of rules, for example, only occurred at certain
junctures. Players only selectively challenged actions under some types of
rules and not others. And they employed only a few types of responses to
such challenges: "I couldn't help it," "I didn't mean to," and "I didn't know. "
Analysis of the types of accusations that were made or not made and under
what circumstances, and especially of the conditions under which they suc-
ceeded or failed, provided a very important entree into the basic principles
underlying play in this setting. They were an important clue, for example,
to the underlying concern for motive noted above, and they illustrated very
clearly how the difficulties inherent in assessing motive could be managed
and manipulated to a variety of ends.
The form of accusations, denials, and excuses, and especially their
contexts of use, for example, helped explain why players were called out for
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? ? FIGURE 1. Structural model of the game of foursquare
PROPS
SETTING
(court)
PLAYERS
(five)
(yes)
tt
(no)
wait
(no) -4
wait
explain/ -
demonstrate
t
(no)
(yes)
(no) -
(yes)
4
DON'T PLAY FOURSQUARE
(no) - PLAY A VARIANT OF
FOURSQUARE
"practice"
"three square"
"two square"
king has ball?
(yes)
players are "ready"?
(yes)
"KING" CALLS THE RULES
,
- players understand/accept rules?
- players are "ready"?
4, 4
wait (yes)
wait " "KING" SERVES THE BALL
44
apologize (yes)
(no)= -- - no one is out on the serve?
(yes)
PLAY THE GAME
PLAYERS
ROTATE
OUT
(yes) ambiguity? -- (yes)
(yes)
responsible -- (no)
for actions?
leaves court? 4-----(yes)
(no)
give "chances"? -
(no)
(no) - STALIEMATIE
4
(yes)
(yes)
"KING" CALLS
A TAKEOVER
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? ? FIGURE 2. Structural model of an episode of playing foursquare
PROPS
(ball)
SETTING
(court)
PLAYERS
(five)
(yes)
"KING" CALLS THE RULES
YERS "KING" SERVES THE BALL
PLA'
ROTATE
PLAY THE
OUT-
4'
GAME
4
violating only some types of rules and not others, despite players' stubborn
insistence that they would be out for violating any of them. It seems useful
to develop this example in somewhat greater detail here, because the prin-
ciples involved are so fundamental to gaming in this setting and thus criti-
cal to further discussion.
The players I observed recognized a number of different types of game
rules. Motive was essential to assessing the status of actions under only some
of them, and their ways of responding to perceived violations varied accord-
ingly. The game rule "no holding" will illustrate the basic workings of this
system and how it affected play at many levels in this setting, though all of
what these players called the "real rules" of their game operated in much
the same way (see L. Hughes 1989 for a full description of rule taxonomy
and use among these players).
Players generally understood that there was "no holding. " That is,
players were supposed to hit the ball, not catch it and throw it to another
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? ? player. In practice, however, this was interpreted to refer not to the action
of catching and throwing but to its context of use. As one player put it, "no
holding" means "you can't just stand there and decide who to throw it to"
(Fieldnotes 5/5/81. Emphasis in original).
Randi: (In my rules) you can't hold the ball. . . . You have to hit
it. You can't pick it up.
Author: Do you really call people out if they throw the ball in-
stead of hitting it?
Randi: Uh huh.
Author: I didn't see that happen too much.
Randi: Well, like if they. . . just grab it for a second and then
throw (that's okay). But if they hold onto it, . . . just do it
deliberately, like then they're out.
Author: It's okay if you just do it quick, but you're not really sup-
posed to?
Randi: Instead of hitting it like this (demonstrates tapping the
ball with her fingertips), they sort of pick it up, sweep it
up like this. But you can't really call that holding because
they didn't really hold it. (Fieldnotes 5/7/81. Emphasis in
original)
These players' treatment of "holding" is reminiscent of the NHL referee's
treatment of "hooks. " The same action could be variously interpreted as
"holding," "not holding," or "holding that was not really holding," depend-
ing upon its context of use and especially on a player's reason for "hold-
ing. " The "no holding" rule did not prohibit "holding" per se, but only
"holding" for particular purposes.
The only type of "holding" that was of serious concern among these
players was "holding" that was "really mean," that is, "holding" for the pur-
pose of deliberately eliminating another player from the game. Actions that
had the effect of getting another player out were "really mean" only if they
were also intentional, and "purpose stuff" was "really mean" only if it was
directed at getting a player out. To complicate matters even further, players
also interpreted "holding" differently depending upon whether it was used
against a friend or a nonfriend. While it was expected that such "moves"
would be directed toward nonfriends, their use in exchanges with friends was
an extremely serious violation of gaming rules among these players.
In practice, as noted above, distinctions among "moves" based on the
perceived motives of players are highly ambiguous. For this reason, players
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? ? had to monitor and manage their actions very carefully. This was a power-
ful constraint on what players could do in the game, but it was also a po-
tent resource for play. Ambiguity of intent was actively generated and ma-
nipulated to a variety of ends.
For example, the issue in trying to call someone out for violating rules
like "no slams" or "no holding" was not simply what a player had or had
not done, but whether it was "really mean. " Would-be accusers were very
aware of the likely outcome of making such a serious charge, even implic-
itly. "Meanness" would surely be denied, and accusers then had only two
choices for further action, neither of which was very appealing. They could
either suffer the embarrassment of backing down, and appear "mean" them-
selves for having falsely accused another, or they could risk a serious esca-
lation of conflict by further accusing the offender of lying. Needless to say,
players who understood this system rarely, if ever, took the risk of directly
calling someone out for violating these types of rules.
Players who "slammed" or "held" the ball, in turn, routinely worked
this system to their own advantage. They acted with relative impunity be-
cause they knew that if they were challenged, they did not have to deny that
they had done something (though this often was the apparent topic of dis-
course). They only had to deny that they had a "mean" purpose ("I didn't
mean to"), a "mean" intent ("I couldn't help it"), or the kind of foreknowl-
edge necessary for a truly intentional act ("I didn't know"). 9 Often they only
had to express sufficient outrage that someone could think so "meanly" of
them to quite effectively stave off the challenge.
Would-be accusers were clearly at a disadvantage here, and one re-
sult was that these players almost never attempted to call someone "out"
for violating rules like "no holding" or "no slams" that incorporated an
assessment of underlying intent. They were not lying, however, when they
steadfastly maintained that players would be out for using these actions in
"mean" ways. It was the mode or style of enforcement, not the principle,
that was ultimately at issue. Rather than trying to call a player "out" for
"slams" or "holding," players usually tried to precipitate a less ambiguous
"out" under a different kind of rule, like failing to hit the ball into another
square. Since this did not involve an exchange among players and motive
thus was not an issue, this was the preferred mode of enforcing the rules.
Even if such actions were challenged, the player(s) who precipitated the "out"
had recourse to the same highly effective set of excuses and denials: "Gee,
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. "
A full explication of this scheme is clearly impossible here. This brief
introduction, however, will illustrate how criteria for evaluating actions in
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? ? the social world, like motive, can constrain and shape player actions in ways
that the game rules alone do not, while also providing players with signifi-
cant resources for playful and strategic manipulation. Games, as they are
actually played, invoke multiple frames of reference. Players' choices among
various courses of action will be explained only rarely by reference to a single
rule or principle. Their decisions usually involve a process of weighing, bal-
ancing, and finally integrating a variety of concerns and agendas.
COMPETITION AND COOPERATION
Another important issue arises in the relative emphasis given to competition
and cooperation in studies of games and gaming. Games are prototypically
competitive, but social life is prototypically cooperative (Hymes 1980). Co-
operation, therefore, is taken as the more fundamental organizing principle
in gaming episodes. Participants in face-to-face interaction must coordinate
their actions to sustain the exchange and the projected definition of the situ-
ation upon which it is based, even though their expected roles, underlying
purposes, and motives may be quite different (Goffman 1959). Simply put,
a great deal of cooperation is required to sustain a competitive exchange.
I have found this notion to be particularly useful in resolving appar-
ent contradictions between what players say and what they do. Statements
may be true about the game yet false about the process of playing it, as well
as the reverse. For example, I observed many instances when players col-
lectively ignored violations of game rules or consistently failed to pursue ef-
fective strategies for "winning," even though they insisted that this was not
what they did or were supposed to do. If I had interpreted these observa-
tions purely in terms of the game, I would have concluded (as Gilligan 1982;
Kohlberg 1966; Lever 1976, 1978; Piaget 1965; and others have) that these
girls cared very little about games and their rules.
When viewed in the context of the gaming episode, however, these
same actions were actually indicative of what Borman and Lippincott (1982,
139) have called the "press to maintain the game. " Players understood that
continuing the game depended on sustaining the social episode in which it
was embedded, and further that threats to the episode arose primarily from
perceived failures to fulfill responsibilities to friends. They thus cooperated
in framing competition in a way that would not threaten the episode, even
when this meant bending the stated rules of the game.
When players all acted
as though the ball landed on a line when it clearly did not, or acted as though
a "slam" was accidental when it was clearly quite deliberate, they were of-
ten dealing with a critical boundary beyond which strict enforcement of the
game rules would have threatened continuation of the episode, and ultimately
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? ? the game itself.
Attempts to directly enforce those types of rules that required an as-
sessment of motive provided a particularly clear example of players' need
to balance the demands of playing the game with the demands of sustain-
ing the episode. Competent players knew that such attempts were far more
likely to make players mad than they were to make them out. They also knew
that making players mad in certain kinds of ways could, in turn, easily es-
calate into an extended stalemate in the game (L. Hughes 1988). Regard-
less of their roles or interests in a particular exchange, therefore, they usu-
ally opted for courses of action that were more likely to accomplish the de-
sired outs without also bringing to the foreground inherently awkward is-
sues of who was being "really mean. " Those rare instances when a stale-
mate did occur, of course, were highly revealing of what was at stake in those
choices, and thus of what these players perceived to be beyond the limits of
negotiation.
Frames and Framings
Finally, it is important to make a general distinction between games as
frames, which mark off what occurs within their bounds from other pos-
sible realms of experience (Bateson 1972; Goffman 1974), and gaming as a
process of framing what occurs within that domain. I have already noted a
number of ways that games do act as interpretive frameworks for what oc-
curs within a gaming episode, as well as some important limits to the re-
sources they provide their players. It is still important, however, to place the
players, and not the activity they are engaged in, firmly at the center of the
gaming process.
The literature on games has often extended the notion that games
grant distinctive meanings to actions and events to suggest that they also
communicate an attitude toward those events. A shove on the basketball
court, for example, is not supposed to mean what it would normally mean
if we were not playing a game. This is a type of meta-communication about
how actions are to be interpreted that Bateson (1972) has called "the mes-
sage this is play. "
The distinctive domains of meaning constituted by games should not
be confused with gamers' communications about such things as "playful-
ness," however. They do not eliminate the need for players to communicate
their attitudes toward actions and events in the game. Games probably do
invoke a general expectation that events will not be taken too literally, but
frames are notoriously leaky affairs (Goffman 1974). There is nothing about
games per se that dictates players' attitudes toward events, whether they are
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? ? to be understood as fun or serious, competitive or cooperative, work or play,
"nice" or "mean," fair or unfair. This is a matter of framing, not the frame.
Regardless of the fact that they are playing a game, players must and
do communicate about how their actions are to be interpreted, about how
they understand the actions of others, and about the conditions under which
everyday meanings will and will not be allowed to permeate the game. While
the relative need for such communications will vary with circumstances and
events, they constitute another important entree into the principles players
use to organize their play. They also can be a highly significant factor in the
distinctive quality or style of gaming in different settings (Harre and Secord
1972).
A further elaboration of how the players I observed handled perfor-
mances of "slams" will illustrate. They often seemed to work very hard to
make their play look far more hectic and difficult than it actually was, es-
pecially when potentially "mean" moves were being used. Even rather easy
"slams" were often accompanied by very exaggerated reaching and bend-
ing, cries of "whew! " and mopping of brows. Either I did not understand
the physical demands of this game, or players perceived something very im-
portant to be at stake in the style of their performances.
Something very important was at stake. Players were very concerned
that if they got someone out (especially a friend), or even used a move that
could be interpreted as "mean stuff," this might be understood as a real act
of exclusion or personal affront. This could have very serious consequences
for the gaming episode, as well as for relationships among players more gen-
erally (L. Hughes 1988). They responded by orchestrating the style of their
performances toward alternative, more acceptable interpretations.
One way they did this was by overlaying rather easy exchanges with
the possibility that their exaggerated performances could be indicative of the
physical challenges of the game. The logic was rather simple, and again cen-
trally concerned with perceived motive. In the heat of a fast-paced exchange,
players might not be totally in control of their actions. If they were not in
control, their actions could not be truly intentional and they could not be
held fully accountable for their consequences. In short, they could not be
"really mean. "
Players constantly and redundantly reinforced this perspective on
events. They followed almost every instance of "outs" resulting from actions
that would be "mean" if deliberate with "Gee, I'm sorry. I couldn't help it.
I'll get you back in. " What might be understood as "meanness" was thus
recast as something very different and far more acceptable, an accident. Or
just before a "mean slam" they would call out to a friend in line, "Sally, I'll
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? ? get you in! " recasting that "slam" as "nice" to a friend rather than "mean"
to its recipient. Or they would frame accusations of unacceptable conduct
in extended "yes you did/no you didn't" exchanges, thus embedding "mean-
ness" in a playful frame. 1?
It is important to note that the purpose of these kinds of elaborate
framings of actions was not deceit. The real, and often patently "mean,"
motives of players were almost always totally transparent, regardless of the
style of performance, and highly likely to shape the exchanges that followed.
Instead, these elaborate framings of actions derived from the ambiguities
inherent in simultaneously applying multiple frames of reference to the same
action, and from the resulting need to carefully manage actions that, under
some circumstances, would constitute a serious breach of standards for ac-
ceptable conduct. As one of my players put it, "You have to do it with style. "
GIRLS' GAMES AND GIRLS' GAMING
Having outlined a number of important conceptual and methodological is-
sues in the study of children's gaming, I want to conclude by illustrating how
gaming studies might enrich our understanding how folklore functions in
the daily lives of children. Just as Goldstein (1971) found a "game of strat-
egy" in a "game of chance," I found some interesting counterpoints to the
prevailing wisdom concerning girls and their games in the stereotypically
feminine game of foursquare.
The foursquare study focused on a naturally occurring play group,
so it is not surprising that gender was a major factor in the gaming patterns
identified. This reflects an important bias in children's experiences during
the elementary-school years, when boys and girls tend to play in separate
play groups and also to play stereotypically different types of games (L.
Hughes 1988; Lever 1976, Maltz and Borker 1982; Sutton-Smith 1979c).
Since gender is also, and for the same reasons, a highly significant factor in
the more general literature on children's games, I will use this area of over-
lapping concern to briefly illustrate how gaming studies might enrich our
current understanding of children's traditional culture.
A variety of differences have long been noted between the types of
games preferred by boys and girls, and in the structure of boys' and girls'
play groups (L. Hughes 1989, 1993). Girls' games, for example, are often
characterized as less complex than boys' games in regard to rule and role
structures, and as less competitive than boys' games, more often involving
competition among individuals rather than teams. I have already illustrated
that at least one group of girls can generate a highly elaborate rule struc-
ture, and can play in groups larger than the dyads and triads commonly as-
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? ? sociated with girls' play. Some further comment is due, however, regarding
the notions that girls are not competitive, and that when they do compete,
they prefer individual over team competition.
It has been proposed that girls avoid the more highly competitive
games common among boys because their potential for conflict and divisive-
ness is incompatible with girls' concern for establishing and maintaining
close, intimate relationships with small groups of friends (Gilligan 1982).
The foursquare study suggests that game structure and social structure may
not be so simply related. While the players I observed did care a great deal
about "being friends" and "being nice," they also competed quite aggres-
sively and quite well. They did not fear or avoid competition, but they did
prefer certain ways of competing.
Given the current notion that girls avoid competition because of con-
cerns about friends and "niceness," it is interesting that the players I observed
used these same concerns to define acceptable, and even expected, competi-
tion among players. This was possible because foursquare, as I saw it played,
was a large-group activity, often involving a dozen or more players and thus
more than one group of close friends. This meant that while players ex-
pressed an ideal obligation to "be nice" to everyone, they were, in fact, ob-
ligated to "be nice" to only some of the other players. This social structure,
and not the structure of the game, provided the primary framework for com-
petition among players.
Appropriate ways of competing in this group rested on players' shared
understanding that close friends would "be nice" to each other, helping each
other get into the game and remain there. As long as "mean" actions were
perceived as primarily aimed at fulfilling these important obligations to
friends, and only incidentally at deliberately eliminating or excluding some-
one else from the game, players did not regard them as "really mean," but
as something far more acceptable, "nice-mean. " Appropriate ways of com-
peting among these players, therefore, were not a matter of "being really
nice. " They all knew that this was impossible because almost anything you
could do to "be nice" to friends was by definition also "mean" to someone
else. Rather, it was a matter of avoiding being perceived as "really mean. "
This required very careful management, especially when players' relative
obligations to others were subject to subtleties of interpretation.
The examples of players' framing their actions cited above, in which
they constantly and redundantly cued the preferred ("nice") interpretation
of their actions, reflect the importance of managing this important bound-
ary between "nice-mean" and "really mean. " When players shouted to a
friend in line just before slamming the ball, "Donna, I'll get you in! " the
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? ? message was: This "meanness" is not "really mean" because it is primarily
oriented toward helping a friend and only incidentally toward eliminating
another player.
The degree to which competition among these players depended upon
their relative obligations to friends and nonfriends is even more clearly il-
lustrated by the following excerpt from fieldnotes. Donna, the "king" in this
exchange, is a highly skilled and competent player. Under almost any other
circumstances, she would have played a very active role in determining who
was out. In this case, however, each of the remaining three squares was oc-
cupied by a player to whom she had important, though very different, so-
cial obligations outside of the context of the game. The effect was very strik-
ing. Donna was unable to compete at all.
Donna is king. Her younger sister, Pam, is in square #3; a boy she
has been trying to impress, John, is in square #2; and her best
friend, Sally, has just come into the game.
Donna calls, "times," and takes her sweater off. Her sister, Pam,
also calls, "times," and fixes her hair. Someone in line comments, in
a slightly sarcastic tone, "Everyone has times. "
Donna calls, "untimes," and bounces the ball back and forth with
John. Her friend, Sally, takes her sweater off and ties it around her
waist as Donna has just done. Her sister, Pam, does the same.
Donna finally calls, "Fairsquare," a call meaning that no one is
supposed to try to get anyone else out. She serves the ball to John,
and then immediately calls, "times. " She bends down to fix her
shoe laces, as the others bounce the ball among themselves. She
calls, "untimes," hits the ball once, and then calls, "times" again,
this time to fix a barrette.
Donna fiddles with her hair until Sally tries a slam past John, but the
ball lands outside his square. Donna calls, "untimes," and then turns
to Sally, "Sorry, Sally, I'll get you back in. " (Fieldnotes 4/30/81)
Donna and Sally's teacher cornered me in the lunchroom the next day to
ask if I had any idea why Sally was suddenly refusing to speak to her best
friend.
In this case, Donna had equal, though different, social obligations to
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? ? all of the other players. This deprived her of a framework of friends and
nonfriends, and she was left with no basis for appropriately competing with
the other players. Interestingly, she could not solve her dilemma by frequently
calling "times" to fix her hair and fiddle with her clothes. Within the logic
of play in this group, it was not simply acceptable to "be mean" in order to
"be nice" to your friends. It was expected that players would "be nice" to
their friends. It was "mean" not to "be mean," if, as a consequence, you
were not "nice" to your friends. Sally was angry because her best friend had
not affirmed their special relationship by eliminating someone else from the
game.
It is also interesting to note the implications of this way of compet-
ing for another common notion about girls and their games, that they pre-
fer games based upon competition among individuals rather than teams. The
nonteam structure of foursquare is typical of girls' games, but it would have
grossly distorted the social reality to describe its playing in terms of indi-
viduals vying with other individuals. The friends versus nonfriends frame-
work these players used to set the boundaries for appropriate and expected
ways of competing meant that all actions were embedded in, and evaluated
within, the context of groups vying with other groups. These may not con-
stitute teams proper, but neither are they entirely different, at least from the
players' perspective: "It's not supposed to be team on team . . . but that's
not the way they do it" (Fieldnotes 4/27/81).
This illustrates particularly clearly the significance of Goldstein's
(1971) distinction between "the rules by which people should play" and "the
ones by which they do play" with which we began this chapter. Any analy-
sis of play in this setting that was based purely upon the stated rules and
structure of the game of foursquare would have been highly misleading about
very fundamental qualities of its playing. Competition among individuals is
not the only alternative to competition between formal teams, and this is a
distinction that probably does make a difference. If I were to speculate about
girls' apparent preference for nonteam games based upon the current ob-
servations, for example, I might conclude that girls do not like competition
among individuals any more than they like competition among teams. In-
stead, I might propose that girls, perhaps unlike boys, prefer activities where
they, and not the activity, determine who will vie against whom, and where
competing parties represent meaningful social divisions rather than more
arbitrary or skill-determined groupings. This explanation would appear to
be at least as plausible as the rather convoluted argument that girls prefer
to act as individuals in their games because they value close friendships.
114 CHILDREN'S GAMES AND GAMING
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? ? CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I have outlined some conceptual and methodological issues
involved in shifting our attention from children's games to their playing.
Along the way, I have tried to provide support for Goldstein's (1971) con-
cern that studies of what children play, rather than how they play, have lim-
ited, and perhaps even distorted, our understanding of children's folk cul-
ture. I would add that gaming studies have much to recommend them, both
theoretically and practically, as highly useful vehicles for increasing the
subtlety and richness of our understanding of child culture. Folkgames are
not only both controlled by children and readily accessible to adult obser-
vation, they also possess a degree of explicitness in their stated rules that is
unusually conducive to comparative study. Few other genres of traditional
culture, at any stage in the lifespan, allow such ready access to variations
played on the same basic interactional structure across such broad stretches
of time and place. Nothing could be more central to the core issue of varia-
tion within tradition that stands at the heart of folklore studies.
NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE
1. Further discussion of interpretive approaches to game rules can be found
in Brenner (1982), Collett (1977), J. Evans (1986), Factor (1988), Fine (1987), Polgar
(1976), and Roberts (1987).
2. D. D. Clarke (1982) presents a more detailed discussion of probable, per-
missible, proper, and effective sequences of action.
