Percepción de los maestros sobre el derecho al juego libre en educación infantil y educación primaria. Estudio desarrollado en Barcelona (España)

INTRODUCTION. From a constructivist and ecological perspective, a child’s free play is considered a right and a need in a child comprehensive development. This study aims to find out the teachers’ perception on the children’s right to free play and to identify how this right is met at school. METHOD. This is a descriptive study with a mixed method. An ad hoc questionnaire was designed for the research using the qualitative analysis of results from different focus groups (FG). Then, the questionnaire was validated and administered to Early Childhood Education and Primary Education teachers in Barcelona. RESULTS. The analysis of the final results show the teachers’ beliefs concerning the incorporation of free play into the educational intervention, and the influences that the educational and social context have on the implementation. The difficulties in schools to promote the incorporation of free play are apparent in some of the data connected with the teachers’ beliefs, strict school schedules, curricular pressure, and the school’s managing team and/or ownership. DISCUSSION. The study concludes by highlighting that, if the aim is to improve the quality of educational experiences, then it is necessary to reclaim the value of play at school through the expansion of the teachers’ initial training.