The Construction of Collective Game Structure from Children’s Partial Understandings

The Construction of Collective Game Structure from Children’s Partial Understandings | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article The Construction of Collective Game Structure from Children’s Partial Understandings Alfonso García-Monge, Henar Rodríguez-Navarro, Ana Escudero, Gustavo González-Calvo, and 1 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8989664/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 7 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract This study conceptualised collective motor game rules as cultural artefacts negotiated in and through action. It analysed how a classroom game emerged and stabilised from children’s individual understandings of a rule-governed structure, focusing on processes of negotiation and adjustment in shared activity. A qualitative case study was conducted with 140 primary pupils (Grades 3–4) who transformed invasion chasing games into invasion games with ball possession during physical education. The design contrasted group design talk, individual pre-game understandings, enacted play (video observation), and post-game narratives, using mediated action and a “collectividual” dialectic as analytical lenses. Three processes were identified: differential salience of rules, practical coordination despite uneven understanding, and stabilisation in action through retrospective reconstruction. Game structure functioned simultaneously as constraint and outcome, and collective play emerged as situated cultural production with implications for educational research and practice. Play Physical Education Qualitative Research School Games Education Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 1. Introduction and theoretical framework 1.1. From individual interpretations to collective play: the problem As in other cultural practices, games require participants to sustain a shared normative order that renders their own actions and those of others intelligible. Yet a paradox emerges in such situations. Even when rules are explicitly agreed upon, each participant understands and experiences different “zones” of the game structure. Rules are not appropriated uniformly, nor do they become relevant in the same way for everyone. The central problem addressed in this article follows from this paradox. How does a collective game emerge and stabilise from partial and situated individual interpretations? Rather than treating rules as a text that is transmitted and then applied, we conceptualise them as a cultural artefact that becomes operative in action, through an ongoing dialogue among expectations, explicit agreements, implicit regulations, prior experiences, and interactional adjustments (Cole, 2003; De la Mata & Cubero, 2003). This shift allows us to divert attention away from “the formal structure of the game” and towards the processes through which that structure becomes shared, contested, and practically workable in situ. To ground this approach, we bring into dialogue two traditions that often run in parallel within physical education. The first is motor praxeology and structural approaches to game analysis, which are useful for describing how game structures constrain and channel action. The second is cultural and cultural-historical psychology, which help explain how shared meanings are constructed, how agency is enacted, and how normative order is negotiated and stabilised in activity (Brescó et al., 2019; Cole, 2003; Stetsenko, 2013; Waermö, 2016a). 1.2. Game structure: internal and external logics From the perspective of praxeology, games and sports can be understood as relational systems that organise motor action and the interactions among participants. The notion of internal logic refers to the system of features relevant to a given motor situation and to the consequences these features entail for the execution of an action (Parlebas, 2001). This concept enables the description of how certain structural elements—such as forms of cooperation and opposition, roles, rules of interaction and passing, scoring criteria, and the use of space and time—channel what is possible and what is likely to occur in the game. Parlebas also emphasises that traditional games function as “small societies” imbued with socio-emotional vicissitudes, alliances, and antagonisms, which naturally opens a bridge to questions of social order, communication, and conflict as they unfold in practice (Parlebas, 2020). In this regard, play is not merely a technical device. It is also a scene in which a social order of communication and conflict is produced and contested; a site where the collective is expressed and reorganised. However, if game structure is interpreted solely as a set of external constraints, teachers may fall into the illusion that, once the structure is defined, pupils will immediately appropriate it and act accordingly. However, in the context of school physical education, even when rules appear clear, the structure is often incomplete because many details are not explicitly agreed upon and the practical relevance of each rule depends on how it is lived in concrete situations (i.e., under pressure, when facing the risk of being tagged, etc.) (García-Monge & Rodríguez-Navarro, 2013). In this context, distinguishing between the internal logic and external logic of the game is essential for interpreting how play unfolds. Alongside structural constraints (i.e., external logic), games are traversed by cultural, group-based, and individual dimensions, such as the search for recognition, avoidance of failure, attachments, rivalries, or biases, which could reorganise action and reorient how the game is interpreted (Parlebas, 2001; García-Monge & Rodríguez-Navarro, 2013). This perspective helps us to understand that normative disagreement is not simply a matter of “error” or “inattention”. It signals that different frameworks of meaning—personal, relational, and cultural—are coming into contact with the game structure. It also allows us to examine how the enacted game is sustained through a coexistence, sometimes tension-laden, between what the structure “demands” and what players prioritise or can do under specific circumstances. Consequently, game structure should not be assumed to be a “closed” object that determines action in a linear way. Rather, it is a field of possibilities whose concrete realisation depends on situated processes of interpretation, coordination, and regulation. 1.3. Normativity as situated production: mediation, agency, and negotiation in activity Cultural psychology starts from the premise that mind and culture mutually constitute one another, and that psychological processes are best understood by attending to the practices, tools, and semiotic mediations through which they develop (Brescó et al., 2019; Cole, 2003; De la Mata & Cubero, 2003). From this perspective, the meaning of a rule cannot be reduced to an individual mental representation. It is constructed through participation. In the analysis of games, this perspective allows rules to be approached as mediational means. A rule does not operate only as a pre-established restriction imposed on the player. Rather, it can be understood as a semiotic artefact that becomes progressively shared, and that orients action by turning into a public criterion for coordination (e.g., “this counts/this does not”), for evaluation (e.g., “you did it wrong”), and for retrospective interpretation (e.g., “what happened was that…”). In this respect, a game can be analysed as an activity in which participants produce and stabilise normative meanings under changing conditions, thereby also stabilising a shared version of the game structure. Along these lines, it is important to examine how some rules become central for certain players while others remain vague. The Vygotskian concept of lived experience, or perezhivanie , helps explain why the same situation is not experienced uniformly, since it integrates cognitive and affective dimensions that organise attention, memory, and action (Veresov, 2017). Applied to play, it helps account for why certain constraints are later remembered as self-evident after being encountered first-hand. García-Monge (2011) or Colliver and Veraksa (2019) invite us to distinguish normative hierarchies and suggest that what children come to value in play tends to condense into the main rule, understood as the goal or aim of the game, while other rules sustain the imaginary situation. This distinction helps interpret why certain norms become particularly salient for some participants and peripheral for others, and why play becomes destabilised when there is insufficient convergence around what the game is trying to achieve. From a cultural-historical perspective, activity unfolds through mediated actions oriented towards an object, which has a dual character. It is simultaneously a material production and a collective idea or shared image of what the activity is or ought to be. Within this dynamic, demands and motives generate tensions and dilemmas that are not anomalies of the system but are constitutive of its unfolding, and negotiation is precisely the work through which participants address those tensions (Waermö, 2016a). In this vein, Waermö’s microgenetic analyses of break-time play (Waermö, 2016a, 2016b) show that rule negotiation is not a step that follows a prior agreement. Rather, it is the very process through which the group expands its collective interpretation of the rules and makes micro-adjustments to align courses of action. Waermö conceptualises this practical capacity as a form of situated, collectively embedded agency, linking it to the idea of the “collectividual” (Stetsenko, 2013), which highlights the deeply social constitution of individual agency and people’s participation in transforming collective practices. Stetsenko (2013) proposes moving beyond the individual–collective dichotomy through a collectividual dialectic, according to which each person is shaped by shared historical practices while also materially contributing to their transformation. In a school game, this can be observed when an individual's initiative, interpretation, infraction, or proposal reorients the activity of the group, and also when the emerging collective order redefines what each participant considers possible or legitimate to do. Similarly, Müller, Marques, and Nascimento (2024) show how children, when facing disputes, adapt rules and develop linguistic and multimodal resources to sustain the dynamics of play. This lens allows us to reinterpret reprimands, discussions, and interpretive conflicts as practices of repair, legitimation, and normative stabilisation that are part of the very process through which collective play is constructed. This conception of normativity as situated production connects with the classic structure–agency debate in the social sciences. In structuration theory, social practices reproduce and transform structures in their everyday enactment (Giddens, 1984). In the morphogenetic critique, emphasis is placed on the need to analytically distinguish between structure and agency to explain how inherited conditions open up or constrain possibilities for action and change (Archer, 2003; King, 2010). From a relational sociology perspective, attention shifts towards processes and relational configurations as sources of regularities (Emirbayer, 1997). In our case, these debates translate into an operative claim: game structure is simultaneously a constraint and an outcome. It constrains because it delimits possibilities for action, yet it is also an outcome because it is reaffirmed or redefined by what is actually done, corrected, argued over, and remembered. A micro-analytic focus on rule negotiation is especially useful to capture in detail how such interpretations stabilise (Waermö, 2016a, 2016b). Building on the framework outlined above, this article analyses how a collective classroom game emerges and stabilises from children’s partial individual understandings of the structure of a rule-governed game, attending to the processes of negotiation and adjustment that occur in and through shared action. Specifically, we address the following question: What interactional processes enable a group to sustain “the same game” when participants do not initially share a complete or equivalent understanding of its rules, roles, and action possibilities? To this end, our study was designed as a qualitative case study, following Stake’s (2010) logic of inquiry, which begins with an issue or tension to understand a phenomenon in context. The organising tension of this study was the articulation of collective play alongside participants’ personal perspectives on that play, focusing on the negotiation and adjustment processes that occurred in and through shared action. 2. Methodology 2.2. Context, participants, and fieldwork organisation The study was conducted during physical education lessons in a primary school located in a provincial capital city in Spain. A total of 145 pupils participated (77 girls and 68 boys) from Grades 3 and 4. Grade 3 included three classes of 22, 25, and 24 pupils, and Grade 4 included two classes of 25 pupils and one class of 24 pupils. Data were collected over three lessons in which pupils were asked to modify a game that was already familiar to them. The fieldwork was conducted over three consecutive years, with two groups participating each year: one Grade 3 class and one Grade 4 class. The lessons were part of the second-year undergraduate course Physical Education for Primary Education majors and were delivered through the “Extended Classroom” approach, in which pre-service teachers designed, taught, and revised a lesson sequence with the same school groups (García-Monge et al., 2020). The task aligns with the “inventing games” strand within TGfU (Teaching games for understanding), in which learners modify known games by reworking rules and roles to make play possible (Butler, 2013). In this case, the teaching proposal was as follows. Pupils were asked to transform a chasing game (an invasion game without a ball called “the spider”, similar to “British Bulldog” or “Sharks and Minnows”) into an invasion game with ball possession. Chasing games involve a basic offensive intention - “to avoid being tagged”- that is often more psychologically entrenched than the basic intention of invasion games with ball possession - “to carry an object to a target space” (García-Monge, 2011). The transformation was designed to create tension between two “basic intentions” or primary rules (García-Monge, 2011). The possible anchoring bias could reveal personal differences. As an initial challenge, groups were asked to design a game in which an attacking team had to cross a zone defended by four defenders. Pupils had to decide the size of that zone. The attackers’ goal was to ensure that a ball reached the opposing team's back line. Pupils also had to make normative decisions about whether passes were required within the rectangle, whether running with the ball was permitted, whether defenders could immobilise the ball carrier by tagging them, as in tag rugby, or whether defenders could immobilise attackers without the ball, as in American football. Grabbing or tackling was not permitted; a touch to any part of the body, or the removal of a handkerchief hanging from the waist (they decided), was sufficient. To make these decisions, pupils met in groups of four or five on a firm mat. To support dialogue and decision-making, each group used a worksheet listing the alternative rule options from which to define their game. Throughout the unit, and in reflective discussions with the teacher, pupils became increasingly aware that each rule has practical implications and that rules that advantage the attacking team, such as allowing running with the ball, need to be counterbalanced by rules that advantage the defence, such as allowing defenders to tag the ball carrier to regain possession. The data collection strategy was built around tracing personal trajectories within the collective process. Within each small group, each child was followed in a focused manner through observation and individual interviews by a researcher who was a pre-service teacher, with the aim of capturing the “bridge” between understanding, intention, action, and subsequent reconstruction. To follow each child and hear the game-design talk, the student-researchers sat next to the mat where the children designed their games (Figure 1.A). Data collection was organised as a repeated cycle over the three lessons. In each iteration, the group negotiated and designed a new variant of the game, and the design conversations were recorded (Figure 1.B). Next, before implementation, each participant was interviewed individually to elicit their version of the game and what they expected to do during play, with attention to the role they anticipated adopting and their expectations about their own participation (Figure 1.D). During gameplay, video recordings captured play sequences to contrast participants' reports with their actual behaviour (Figure 1.F-G). After play, a second individual interview was conducted to reconstruct what each participant believed they had done, what they intended to try in the next iteration, and what changes they considered necessary to make the game more playable (Figure 1.H). In addition to the audio and video records, the design process was supported by the game-design worksheets used by each group (Figure 1.C). The study was conducted with the authorisation of the school and the relevant consents, in accordance with applicable regulations and the institutional procedures in place at the time of the research. Pupils’ confidentiality was protected by using pseudonyms and removing identifying information from transcripts and working materials. Audiovisual records and associated documents were stored and managed in accordance with data-protection and restricted-access procedures, and used exclusively for research and scholarly purposes. A favourable report was obtained from the Ethics Committee of the University of Valladolid. 2.3. Corpus organisation and preparation for analysis Data were organised sequentially in order to capture each participant’s development in relation to the collective process of designing and enacting the game. Rather than treating each data source in isolation, we constructed integrated sequences for each child that brought together moments of group deliberation, individual accounts prior to play, what occurred during action, and subsequent reflections. This organisation supported a process-oriented analysis. To operationalise this diachronic logic, each participant’s data were arranged into continuous “dialogue–action” trajectories in Prezi to make visible the bridge between the individual and the collective. Each episode was represented by articulating, within a single analytical record, what was stated during the design phase as the agreed rule , what each participant reported understanding as the understood rule , what was observed during gameplay as the rule-in-use , and what the participant later recounted as the reconstructed rule . This mode of organisation facilitated the identification of mismatches and convergences among understanding, intention, action, and retrospective accounts, as well as the detection of critical moments in which particular rules became especially salient or were stabilised within the group. 2.4. Analytic strategy, units of analysis, analytic tools, and coding process The analytic strategy aimed to capture the transition from partial, situated interpretations to a collectively playable game by integrating the individual perspective with the dynamics of the group in action. Rather than assessing participants’ “accuracy” against an idealised rule set, the focus was on describing how understandings and courses of action were aligned, put under tension, and readjusted as the game unfolded and was discussed. To make this transition visible, the corpus was analysed through a sequential logic. For each episode, we related what was agreed during group design, what each child reported understanding before play, what actually occurred during action, and what each participant subsequently narrated. This organisation enabled us to trace personal trajectories within a collective process while retaining the interactional context that produced them. The unit of analysis was inspired by cultural-historical theory and centred on goal-oriented, mediated action. Operationally, each unit was defined as a segment of activity in which a participant acts with a recognisable purpose under conditions of cooperation and/or opposition, using the cultural means available in the situation. In the context of school play, these mediational means include explicit rules, implicit norms, roles, goals, scoring criteria, material artefacts, and, crucially, the language through which action is coordinated and evaluated. This unit allowed us to analyse play as an activity in which rules do not appear only as prior texts but as practical resources activated in experience and transformed through interaction. Building on this unit of analysis, we used analytic tools understood as lenses or sensitising concepts. These tools did not operate as closed, predefined categories; rather, they served as resources for interrogating the activity and guiding attention during coding. First, we drew on Stetsenko’s (2013) collectividual dialectic to describe how individual initiatives can reorient a shared order and how the emerging order of the group delimits what each participant considers possible or legitimate to do. Second, we used Waermö’s distinction between an individual course of action and the collective course of action (Waermö, 2016a, 2016b) to describe alignments, mismatches, and readjustments that sustained play even in the absence of full convergence in participants’ stated understandings. When the material required a finer-grained account, we also drew on notions such as micro-negotiations, demands and motives, tensions and reorientations, and micro-adjustments as descriptive tools for specifying subtle shifts in participants’ orientation and in the organisation of interaction (Edwards, 2005; Fleer, 2014; Hedegaard, 2014; Zittoun, 2009). Coding proceeded iteratively. First, we conducted open coding on mediated action units within each episode. Next, we reorganised codes through axial coding into three analytic axes aligned with the thesis of the article. Axis A grouped normative saliences and partial understandings of game structure, including anchoring in rules from prior games, normative gaps, and elements that remained peripheral for particular participants. Axis B grouped forms of coordination and enacted agency that made play possible even when understandings were not equivalent, including role adoption, leadership and followership, peer support, and relational sub-goals that reorganised action. Axis C grouped processes through which action and interaction produced and stabilised normativity, including in-game precedents, explicit corrections, reprimands, interpretive conflicts, and subsequent narrative closures. Finally, on the basis of recurring patterns and their sequential chaining across individual and collective trajectories, we constructed interpretive processes. These processes did not constitute a new set of codes; rather, they provided an integrative account that connected categories in order to explain the unfolding of the phenomenon. 3. Results: From partial understanding to shared play To address the central problem of the article —how a collectively playable game emerges from partial and situated individual interpretations—the results are organised around three interwoven processes. The findings show that the transition towards collective play does not depend on reaching an identical understanding of the rules first. Rather, it unfolds through a process in which different zones of the game structure become salient for different participants, the group achieves practical coordination despite these differences, and interaction itself produces and stabilises normativity both during play and in subsequent reconstructions. 3.1. Differential salience: the structure is incomplete at the outset, and each participant foregrounds different zones A first regularity is that, when transforming a chasing game (invasion without ball possession) into an invasion game with ball possession, not all normative details are closed, and even when they are made explicit, they are not integrated in an equivalent manner by all group members. As a result, each participant acts and talks from a partial version of the game in which some elements become central while others remain peripheral. Within this process, three recurring phenomena were observed: the carry-over of primary rules from the chasing game, the affective hierarchisation of certain norms, and the construction of rules from one’s own action perspective, including one’s perceived role and action possibilities. Vignette 1. Carry-over of primary rules: crossing as an achievement even when the ball is not in play In situations where the group agrees that players may be immobilised only by tagging the ball carrier, gameplay exhibits an orientation inherited from the chasing game, in which the central challenge is to cross while avoiding capture. The field record describes how “ Atalanta (an attacker without the ball) starts making feints to enter the defenders’ space. Taking advantage of a defender’s distraction, she manages to cross the field and reach the other side. Once there, she celebrates by raising her arms and jumping happily. She disengages from the game and from the ball.” What is analytically substantial here is not the “mistake” as such, but the evidence that, for Atalanta , the salient zone of the structure is not the ball-oriented objective but the bodily and emotionally charged achievement of crossing, characteristic of the chasing game. The same carry-over is starker in episodes in which ball-based collective play unfolds for the group, yet one participant remains oriented toward individual “salvation” through crossing. In one scene, Phaedra repeatedly attempts to cross without seeing a clear gap. While the rest of her team passes the ball to advance, Phaedra “doesn’t even look at where the ball is; she is only focused on finding a gap to get through.” Eventually, “almost in desperation,” she pushes a teammate into a defender and uses the opening to cross. This action shows that the invasion structure has not yet fully displaced the primary logic of “saving oneself” by crossing. Vignette 2. Limited understanding and a simplified role: the game understood as “crossing without getting tagged” In Penelope ’s group, the design specifies that players may run with the ball, there is no compulsory passing, and defenders may immobilise any attacker by tagging them. However, when Penelope is interviewed individually before play, her description reduces the game to a chase frame. She explains, “There are lots of spiders and the rest of us have to get to the other side without getting tagged. One person has a ball”. When asked about her role, her plan is likewise formulated in terms of finding an opportunity to cross, rather than contributing to collective progression with the ball. Penelope states, “I’m going to wait until the spiders are distracted by my teammates and then I’ll take the chance to cross”. In the video, her conduct aligns with this partial understanding. Penelope stays behind, alternates steps forward and backward, switches sides and, when she detects a gap, she crosses and celebrates. The episode shows how the agreed structure can operate as a backdrop while action is oriented by a simplified understanding of the object of play. This does not necessarily prevent collective play, but it anticipates tensions, because the group acts as if invasion with ball possession requires circulation and support, whereas she positions herself as if success were individual “survival”. Vignette 3. Rules designed from one’s own action perspective: imagining play to produce normativity In this process, some normative proposals do not originate in an abstract definition of the game, but in the anticipation of “what I would do” in a concrete situation. This situated construction of normativity becomes particularly visible when groups articulate rules through physically enacted or diagrammed strategies while speaking. In the group formed by Polimnia , Iris , Icara and Eunomo , after encountering problems with passing in a previous version, Polimnia proposes directly in the second version, “You can run with the ball”, and Eunomo confirms, “Yes, of course, you can”. Polimnia then sketches a strategy, articulating a plan of action rather than merely a rule. She says, “Let’s see, Iris carries it hidden. A bump on her back” (everyone laughs). “ Icara , you try to move forward without the ball, and Iris goes around on the right. The rest of us try to distract the ones here, and Iris goes through with the ball”. Here, allowing running is inseparable from a concrete imagination of success and a distribution of roles that makes the rule playable for those who propose it. A similar dynamic appears in Teseo and Perseo ’s group, where they agree that running with the ball is allowed but that at least two passes are required. Teseo formulates this in dialogue with Temis , who sets a limit on the “cost” of the rule. Teseo states, “We have to make passes”. Temis replies, “But not many,” and Teseo specifies, “Two passes minimum”. Teseo then draws a sketch and assigns actions: “The three of you go to the centre to distract the spiders. I pass to Perseo and he crosses along the side. I go down the other side and he passes to me”. Again, the rule is not presented as an external requirement but as an anticipated solution that enables a tactical script. A personal perspective also becomes visible when rules are designed from one’s own perceived action possibilities. In Cirene’s case, given some limitations in running mobility, the design is organised from her perspective as a defender. Cirene proposes that running with the ball should not be allowed and justifies it as follows: “You shouldn’t run with the ball, because then you have to make more passes and it’s harder”. She adds, “You can tag the ones without the ball too, and that way we eliminate them.” When Idmon asks whether tagging requires taking a flag, Cirene responds, “No, without a flag, because otherwise it’s harder to tag”. Before play, when asked what she would do, Cirene offers a defensive plan: “We’ll stand in two lines. We’ll let them come up to the middle, and then we’ll surround them”. In gameplay, her actions confirm this orientation: she creates a “false gap” by appearing distracted and then tags the attacker who tries to pass through, thereby immobilising them. In the post-play interview, Cirene reconstructs her performance in defensive terms: “I stayed at the back, watching in case any ‘flies’ escaped, to catch them”. Even when asked about her role in the attack, her account remains framed around being tagged: “I was trying not to get tagged, but they tagged me both times”. This trajectory shows that game structure is not understood homogeneously but is filtered through action possibilities and the position one occupies or claims within the game. 3.2. Practical coordination despite partial understandings A second regularity is that play does not necessarily break down when participants lack a fully shared normative understanding. Even when understandings are partial or divergent, forms of coordination emerge that make play possible. This coordination is sustained through local leadership and followership, the importation of familiar cultural patterns, affective ties, and relational sub-goals that coexist with the formal objective of the game. Vignette 4. Leadership and cultural transfer: a familiar technique becomes a coordinating pattern In one group, while completing the design sheet, a girl acknowledges that they still do not have a clear way of passing and states this explicitly: “We’re going to create some techniques to pass between all of us. We still haven’t seen which one we’re going to use. We have to practice, so I can’t answer you now. Wait, I’m going to look at the sheet.” After an unsuccessful attempt in which the ball is intercepted and roles are swapped, in the next round Carla introduces a previously learned cultural resource and turns it into a coordinating solution. Carla exclaims: “I’ve just thought of something! In basketball they taught me a passing technique. You take the ball, you stop, you pass, and you move. You take the ball, you stop, and you pass.” The group enacts the proposed pattern, moving the ball while “doing a weave.” Crucially, after the action, when asked what they had done, all participants report that they passed the ball “in a weave.” Coordination is not driven by a detailed understanding of every rule, but by adopting a practical pattern that structures action and is subsequently stabilised in participants’ retrospective accounts. Vignette 5. Sub-games and relational logics: personal goals that coexist with collective play During several episodes, coordination is sustained despite the emergence of personal goals that divert attention from an “ideal” version of the game, without halting the ongoing game. A simple case occurs when Diana , under pressure and unsure what to do, “passes the ball to her friend who is playing as a defender.” Here, the affective tie becomes a more salient criterion for action than the conventional attacker–defender role division. A second case involves Aída in a game in which the group has agreed that the ball must circulate among all attackers within the defenders’ area, that the ball carrier cannot be tagged, and that attackers without the ball can be tagged and immobilised. During play, Aída focuses on a specific opponent until she tags him. She celebrates by jumping and, when asked afterwards what she had decided to do, she replies: “I wanted to tag Peter so he wouldn’t cross to the other side.” This suggests that her personal aim is anchored in a relational history and that this “sub-game” runs alongside the collective game. The same pattern appears when a personal challenge persists even after the team has already scored. In Chema ’s case, the rules specify that the attacking team must complete a minimum of three passes inside the defenders’ area. The team advances and scores via a long pass to Pilar , who crosses the goal line and everyone celebrates. However, Chema remains focused on beating Santiago . He feints, manages to cross without being tagged, and celebrates his personal success. In scenes like these, collective coordination does not eliminate personal aims. Rather, it incorporates them as parallel micro-goals that sometimes pull against the formal objective and sometimes coexist with it without undermining the playability of the game. Vignette 6. Peer support and “we-oriented” coordination: saving everyone as a higher-order criterion In another sequence, Prometeo displays a form of coordination oriented towards collective “saving” by exploiting a normative gap. The rule stated that the ball carrier could not be tagged, but running with the ball was allowed. Prometeo crosses and throws the ball to a teammate. She passes it on, and they repeat the action with the other two teammates. Under a strict reading, the game should end when the ball reaches the other side, because a point is scored when the ball crosses the defenders’ back line. However, the group reorients the practical object towards “saving all of us”, and the ball becomes a mediational means for chaining successive crossings. This vignette shows a form of coordination that does not require a complete shared understanding of all rules, but it does depend on a practical alignment that sustains the collective in shared action. 3.3. Process of stabilisation in action: action produces normativity and interaction fixes it in real time and in retrospective accounts This section groups the processes through which normativity is generated, stabilised, and becomes a shared criterion during play, and is then consolidated in subsequent interviews as if it had been a prior rule. Two features are key. First, many parts of the structure remain open and are closed through precedents, corrections, and discussions in the course of action. Second, this stabilisation tends to become a retrospective reconstruction, such that the group later narrates the norm as if it had been agreed from the outset. Vignette 7. In-action precedent and retrospective closure: “you cannot run” as a rule that emerges after the fact A particularly clear example occurs when something not explicitly agreed upon is reported as a rule in later interviews. In one round, Clio receives the first pass and stays in place, looking for someone to pass to. The group had not previously agreed whether running with the ball was permitted, but from that moment on, no one did so. When asked afterward, all participants state that running with the ball was not allowed. Within a single episode, we can see the trajectory from an initial action that produces a pattern, through the pattern becoming a shared expectation, to the expectation being formulated retrospectively as a rule. Vignette 8. Peer reprimand as a mechanism of normative closure Normative stabilisation does not rely only on precedents, but also on the ongoing maintenance work of the group when a transgression occurs. In a situation in which the group had agreed that running with the ball was not allowed, Hermes enters the defenders’ area, sees a defender approaching, and begins running to escape. The field record notes that “a couple of teammates stop him and reprimand him, saying that you cannot run. We do not see him run again during the game”. This scene shows how the norm ceases to be an individual interpretation and becomes a public criterion in real time. The game is, in effect, “educated” by participants themselves through situated repairs. Vignette 9. Interpretive conflict: the discussion makes a zone of the structure visible and shared Interpretive conflict operates as a tool for clarification and stabilisation. Under the passing rule, the group has agreed that attackers must make two passes inside the defenders’ area before the final pass to a player on the far side to score. After two passes, Eris makes a third pass inside the defenders’ area, and a discussion emerges about whether two passes constituted a maximum or a minimum. After debating, they agree that it requires at least two passes. From that point onward, play continues with sequences of two, three, and even four passes, indicating that the rule is being enacted as an enabling threshold rather than as a rigid count. An analogous process occurs when a technical detail must be specified during action. The rule requires at least 2 passes within the area. The attacking team makes the first pass. On the second, the ball drops to the ground about a meter in front of the receiver, who quickly picks it up. The defending team protests that the pass does not count. The teacher asks whether the pass must be direct or if bouncing the ball is acceptable. After hesitating, the group decides that it must be a direct pass. This type of closure shows how parts of the structure that were not made explicit become fixed when a concrete situation forces participants to decide what counts as a pass. Vignette 10. Refining structure through iterations: from initial imbalance to a playable norm and a shared tactic The process of normative production and stabilisation extends beyond micro-episodes within a single round of play. It also operates through redesign iterations. Anfiloco , Temis , Ariadna , and Calipso ’s group tests an initial version with a 5×7-metre field, allowing running with the ball, a minimum of five passes, and the ability to immobilise any attacker by tagging them, whether or not they have the ball. After two tries, they recognise how difficult attacking is. They enlarge the field to 9×9 metres and reduce the required number of passes to two, yet they still struggle to move without being tagged and immobilised. In the third version, they introduce a change to rebalance play. Attackers wear a scarf tucked into their waistband. To eliminate an attacker, defenders must pull out the scarf, and scarves can be pulled only from the ball carrier. This new norm is accompanied by an emergent practical rule that serves as a coordinating criterion: “we have to pass the ball quickly; when they come to pull your scarf, you pass it quickly.” In the interview, Anfiloco also articulates a shared tactic, showing how the norm is translated into a coordination scheme that reorganises the game: “We decided to use a tactic. We have to choose whom each of us wants to pass to, and we go in zig-zag. One runs to the right and another to the left, and we keep crossing over all the time and passing the ball. They can only pull your scarf when you have the ball, and when they come to pull our scarf, we pass it to someone else”. This case illustrates how gameplay experience reveals unforeseen implications, forces rule revision, and culminates in a form of coordination that is not only normative but tactical. 4. Discussion This study examines how a collectively playable game emerges when the rule structure is initially open and unevenly understood. Rather than treating rules as fixed texts applied uniformly, we conceptualise them as cultural means that gain normative force when they become public criteria for coordination, evaluation, and repair in action (Cole, 2003; De la Mata & Cubero, 2003; Waermö, 2016a, 2016b). In what follows, we interpret the findings in relation to our research question and situate them within relevant work on normativity, coordination, and meaning-making in play. Differential salience process A first contribution of the study is to show that, in contexts of inventing and transforming games, game structure does not function as an intact “script” that children uniformly appropriate. Instead, structure initially appears as a set of fragments unevenly distributed among participants. Each child foregrounds certain normative zones while leaving others in the background, depending on prior play trajectories, the practical difficulty posed by the situation, and the affective relevance that particular episodes acquire (Cole, 2003; Esteban-Guitart, 2008). This pattern aligns with a central assumption of cultural psychology, namely that meaning is not located in the rule as a verbal formulation but in its situated use. What is “understood” about a norm is inseparable from the concrete experience that makes it relevant and from the way that experience organises attention and memory (De la Mata & Cubero, 2003; Esteban-Guitart, 2008). From this standpoint, initial differences in understanding should not be read only as cognitive deficits, but as an effect of an activity that remains open, in which norms are still in the process of becoming meaningful in relation to a practical object. A complementary nuance emerges from dialogue with motor praxeology. By asking pupils to transform a game whose internal logic is based on chasing into an invasion game with ball possession, the pedagogical power of the design lies partly in altering the cooperation–opposition network and the scoring objective (Parlebas, 2001, 2020). Yet this structural change does not translate immediately into a homogeneous shift in orientation. From a learning perspective, we observe carry-over intentions and prior patterns that continue to organise action even when the explicitly stated norm points in a different direction. In our framework, this persistence is conceptualised as primary rules or basic intentions that compete with the new organisation of the game (García-Monge, 2011). The most relevant finding here is that the “new” structure does not instantly displace the “old” one. Rather, both coexist for a time as partial orientations that are activated differently in different situations. This generative process, therefore, suggests that shared structure is not a prerequisite for activity. On the contrary, the game begins from an incomplete and plural structure, and that plurality is the point of departure from which collective play is constructed. Practical coordination process A second decisive finding is that activity does not stop even when participants’ understandings diverge. Groups achieve coordination through role-taking, peer support, situational leadership, and relational and motivational sub-goals that coexist with the formal objective of the game. Our data suggest an almost inverse process. Practical coordination partly precedes consensus, and when consensus does emerge, it is often grounded in patterns that have already been tried out in action. This finding aligns with a view of agency as situated and relational. Agency is not reducible to an individual property but is produced within webs of interdependence in which some participants’ actions become resources for others (Edwards, 2005). From a cultural-historical standpoint, the collectividual dialectic highlights precisely that collective activity is not an aggregate of individual actions. Rather, it is a process in which personal initiatives can reorient the common course of action while, at the same time, the emerging order of the group reshapes what each participant considers possible or legitimate to do (Stetsenko, 2013). Here, ethnographic and micro-analytic work on play is especially illuminating. Waermö (2016a) shows that in children’s play, rules are broadened and made operative through action alignments that do not require all participants to share an identical verbal formulation. Likewise, her work on negotiating involvement describes how children manage belonging, roles, and inclusion, modulating who participates and how through situated adjustments (Waermö, 2016b). This lens invites us to interpret coordination as interactive work that produces playability, rather than as the straightforward implementation of a prior agreement. A further nuance is provided by the notion of demands and motives. Through the transitions from design talk to gameplay and to post-play interviews, situational demands change, and so do the motives that become functional for sustaining participation. Coordination then relies on orientations that may be tactical, but also affective and relational, and these orientations are reconfigured as children move through practices (Fleer, 2014; Hedegaard, 2014). This helps explain why, even with partial understandings, groups maintain continuity. Motives such as affiliation, recognition, or avoidance of failure can sustain actions that remain compatible with the game, even when they do not fully align with an “ideal” normative logic. Practical coordination processes, therefore, suggest that the construction of collective play does not depend on everyone sharing “the same idea” in their heads, but rather on producing sufficient coordination for the game to proceed. This coordination, in turn, creates the conditions for certain zones of the structure to become more visible and more readily shareable. Process of stabilisation in action (Action produces normativity, and interaction fixes it) The third generative process captures the movement from an initial plurality of interpretations towards a more stable normative order. The results show clearly that many norms are not fully closed through verbal design alone. Instead, they emerge during play as precedents. A way of acting is repeated; someone challenges it; a reprimand or an interpretive conflict arises; and the group then adjusts, clarifies, and stabilises an operational criterion. This dynamic connects with two complementary traditions. On the one hand, it resonates with structuration theory, which treats rules as both the medium and the outcome of practices. Normative stability does not reside only in explicit agreement, but in the recursivity of doing, through which certain solutions become expectations and, in turn, delimit future action (Giddens, 1984). At the same time, an approach that analytically distinguishes between structural conditions and agency helps explain why certain solutions become more likely or costlier depending on inherited constraints from the initial game form, participants’ prior repertoires, and asymmetries in competence or initiative (Archer, 2003; King, 2010). In short, “structure” is not limited to the pre-game period. It is also within the game, as the cumulative effect of what is done, corrected, and remembered. On the other hand, this generative process aligns with cultural psychology and micro-analytic studies of play that document how rules are completed and reconfigured through interactional repair. In Waermö’s work (2016a, 2016b), rules stabilise when they become shared resources for resolving friction, allocating turns, adjusting interpretations, and sustaining involvement in the activity. A particularly relevant feature of our data is that normative stabilisation not only reduces ambiguity, but also makes the criteria public. A norm ceases to be a personal interpretation and becomes a common point of reference for the group. In this regard, reprimands, interpretive conflicts, and repairs operate as micro-institutionalisations through which a practical order is produced and reinforced in real time. Similar processes have been described in ethnographies of break-time play, where normativity is negotiated and maintained through alliances, legitimacy claims, and episodes of controversy that redefine what counts as fair or valid (Müller et al., 2024). Overall, this process shows that collective play becomes possible because the group produces normativity in practice. Rather than merely applying rules, participants institute rules as they encounter boundary cases, tensions, and disruptions that require decisions. Retrospective reconstruction and the production of coherence Comparing what participants said before playing, what they did during play, and what they narrated afterwards yields an additional implication that strengthens the overall coherence of the model. Post-play interviews do not function only as a measure of recall. They also operate as a device for producing coherence. After action, participants tend to reorganise experience into a meaningful account, and this account often closes normative gaps, clarifies the game schema, and retrospectively legitimises criteria that may still have been ambiguous during play (Cole, 2003; Esteban-Guitart, 2008). This phenomenon can be interpreted as semiotic mediation work that accompanies transitions between practices. Moving from gameplay to an interview shifts participants from a practical register to one of explicit articulation and justification, and this transition invites them to stabilise meanings, attribute intentions, and produce a more “closed” version of the game that is communicable to others (Hedegaard, 2014; Zittoun, 2014). From this perspective, retrospective reconstruction is not an epiphenomenon but a constitutive component of how normativity persists. The game consolidates not only in what is done, but also in what is later said to have been done. This detail shows that the emergence of collective play is based on two complementary planes: a plane of practical coordination and real-time repair, and a plane of narrative stabilisation that fixes what the game was and what is considered normative. Synthesis and implications Taken together, the generative processes situate the study within the structure–agency debate while avoiding both structuralist determinism and individualist voluntarism. On the one hand, praxeology foregrounds that the internal logic of the game delimits a field of possibilities that orients action and renders some structural changes more “resistant” than others (García-Monge, 2011). On the other hand, our data show that structure does not operate as a mould that is automatically imposed, but as a practical order under construction that depends on situated interpretation, relational coordination, and the stabilisation of normativity in the course of play (Cole, 2003; Stetsenko, 2013; Waermö, 2016a, 2016b). This proposal also resonates with relational sociology by focusing on processes and relational configurations as sources of regularities. The order of play appears as a dynamic relational accomplishment rather than as the sum of individual mental states, and normativity as a situated production through which interaction organises what counts as valid action (Emirbayer, 1997). At the same time, the collectividual dialectic helps conceptualise the emergence of collective play as a process in which the group not only coordinates actions but transforms the shared frame through individual initiatives that become socially effective (Stetsenko, 2013). Building on this, we propose that a useful way of translating this dialectic into the analysis of school games is to distinguish between potential structure , enacted structure , and narrated structure . The first refers to what the game could become if normativity were fully closed. The second refers to what the group actually does and sustains through precedents, repairs, and tacit agreements. The third refers to the retrospective version, which stabilises coherence and legitimises the criteria. Figure 2. Conceptual distinction between potential structure, practised structure, and narrated structure in the emergence of a collective game. The figure illustrates that the shared game structure is not fully given in advance but is progressively shaped through action and interaction, and later stabilised through retrospective narration. Game invention provides a natural laboratory for observing microgenetic processes of normativity, coordination, and learning-in-interaction. For teachers, the findings support maintaining a stable game structure long enough for pupils to explore its implications and participate in negotiation and stabilisation; rapid task switching may prevent many children from reaching this level of shared play. Declarations Ethics approval The project was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Valladolid (Spain). The procedures used in this study adhere to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki. Consent to Participate Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. Written informed consent was obtained from the parents or legal guardians of the child participants. The participants gave their informed consent for the publication of photographs in which they appear designing the games in groups. Additionally, assent was obtained from the child participants prior to their involvement in the study. Consent for Publication The authors affirm that human research participants provided informed consent and assent for publication of the data collected during the study. Parents or legal guardians of the child participants signed informed consent regarding publishing their children's data. Data availability The data collected in the study are available to readers upon prior request. Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests. Funding Statement This work did not receive any funding. References Archer, M. S. (2003). Structure, agency and the internal conversation . Cambridge University Press. Brescó, I., Roncancio, M., Branco, A., & Mattos, E. (2019). Cultural psychology: A two-way path between mind and culture / Psicología cultural: Un camino de ida y vuelta entre la mente y la cultura. Estudios de Psicología / Studies in Psychology, 40 (1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1080/02109395.2019.1565388 Butler, J. (2013). Stages for children inventing games. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 84(4), 48–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/07303084.2013.773828 Cole, M. (2003). Psicología cultural . Morata. Colliver, Y., & Veraksa, N. (2019). The aim of the game: A pedagogical tool to support young children's learning through play. 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Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 3 (3), 232–236. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lcsi.2014.02.010 Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Reviewers agreed at journal 04 May, 2026 Reviews received at journal 01 Apr, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 16 Mar, 2026 Reviewers invited by journal 16 Mar, 2026 Editor assigned by journal 13 Mar, 2026 Submission checks completed at journal 11 Mar, 2026 First submitted to journal 11 Mar, 2026 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8989664","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":607138165,"identity":"c50ed584-54b5-4180-b117-8a3211333947","order_by":0,"name":"Alfonso García-Monge","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of Valladolid","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Alfonso","middleName":"","lastName":"García-Monge","suffix":""},{"id":607138166,"identity":"95a1e3a1-6bbe-484f-96d7-5636fcd702c6","order_by":1,"name":"Henar Rodríguez-Navarro","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Complutense University of Madrid","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Henar","middleName":"","lastName":"Rodríguez-Navarro","suffix":""},{"id":607138167,"identity":"364c39c6-81fd-45be-8b15-ee2bb54c042b","order_by":2,"name":"Ana Escudero","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Complutense University of Madrid","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Ana","middleName":"","lastName":"Escudero","suffix":""},{"id":607138168,"identity":"fcc68cdd-cda2-4829-8df4-94db5aaf691e","order_by":3,"name":"Gustavo González-Calvo","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of Valladolid","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Gustavo","middleName":"","lastName":"González-Calvo","suffix":""},{"id":607138169,"identity":"92863dd7-508c-44d3-89c2-69cff0153c4a","order_by":4,"name":"Daniel Bores-García","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA40lEQVRIie2RvQrCMBRGrwTqEsza0Je4IBQE9VkiQqe2CAVxFIS6FGcfw0doyeDiz+rk0rVDoIuDg9oq4hLqJpJDlgwn34EAGAy/SPo4ExDVRQGQhgrWSmvdVIGXQmiTrs52n6UKIWSOlOUgPrfZnEilU/guFNkaIeIrz3OCOCJ2anm2TsHUR0kRRpsddUkQC4JAXW0YHguU10phZdmrFFZqw/B0X4F6BZxWvQLaMH4qMEvQjnhiuTw5CGJLy9UqnaPfVZdZP2SU5OoyFWO2XOTasCfvZ8dNPvOT4beCwWAw/D839yBGS865jt8AAAAASUVORK5CYII=","orcid":"","institution":"King Juan Carlos University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Daniel","middleName":"","lastName":"Bores-García","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2026-02-27 15:25:49","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8989664/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8989664/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":104995384,"identity":"400560bb-275a-4961-af87-96d01e2c2a65","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-19 16:09:15","extension":"png","order_by":1,"title":"Figure 1","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":479273,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eImages (based on photographs) that show the game design and data collection process.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"1.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8989664/v1/584a5b17a1985b93ef0026ec.png"},{"id":104995301,"identity":"9519244f-a74e-4b70-bf5a-3bed4de3ac40","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-19 16:09:05","extension":"png","order_by":2,"title":"Figure 2","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":159396,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eConceptual distinction between potential structure, practised structure, and narrated structure in the emergence of a collective game. The figure illustrates that the shared game structure is not fully given in advance but is progressively shaped through action and interaction, and later stabilised through retrospective narration.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"2.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8989664/v1/e764dc3071abe9e8f499ed0a.png"},{"id":104995625,"identity":"b3a6d917-be04-475c-a7b4-1db3695df9cd","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-19 16:10:19","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":2317284,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8989664/v1/e12f8157-2304-4796-83f2-183159228884.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"The Construction of Collective Game Structure from Children’s Partial Understandings","fulltext":[{"header":"1. Introduction and theoretical framework","content":"\u003cp\u003e1.1. \u003cstrong\u003eFrom individual interpretations to collective play: the problem\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs in other cultural practices, games require participants to sustain a shared normative order that renders their own actions and those of others intelligible. Yet a paradox emerges in such situations. Even when rules are explicitly agreed upon, each participant understands and experiences different “zones” of the game structure. Rules are not appropriated uniformly, nor do they become relevant in the same way for everyone. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe central problem addressed in this article follows from this paradox. How does a collective game emerge and stabilise from partial and situated individual interpretations? Rather than treating rules as a text that is transmitted and then applied, we conceptualise them as a cultural artefact that becomes operative in action, through an ongoing dialogue among expectations, explicit agreements, implicit regulations, prior experiences, and interactional adjustments (Cole, 2003; De la Mata \u0026amp; Cubero, 2003). This shift allows us to divert attention away from “the formal structure of the game” and towards the processes through which that structure becomes shared, contested, and practically workable in situ.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo ground this approach, we bring into dialogue two traditions that often run in parallel within physical education. The first is motor praxeology and structural approaches to game analysis, which are useful for describing how game structures constrain and channel action. The second is cultural and cultural-historical psychology, which help explain how shared meanings are constructed, how agency is enacted, and how normative order is negotiated and stabilised in activity (Brescó et al., 2019; Cole, 2003; Stetsenko, 2013; Waermö, 2016a).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1.2. \u003cstrong\u003e Game structure: internal and external logics\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the perspective of praxeology, games and sports can be understood as relational systems that organise motor action and the interactions among participants. The notion of \u003cstrong\u003einternal logic\u003c/strong\u003e refers to the system of features relevant to a given motor situation and to the consequences these features entail for the execution of an action (Parlebas, 2001). This concept enables the description of how certain structural elements—such as forms of cooperation and opposition, roles, rules of interaction and passing, scoring criteria, and the use of space and time—channel what is possible and what is likely to occur in the game.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eParlebas also emphasises that traditional games function as “small societies” imbued with socio-emotional vicissitudes, alliances, and antagonisms, which naturally opens a bridge to questions of social order, communication, and conflict as they unfold in practice (Parlebas, 2020). In this regard, play is not merely a technical device. It is also a scene in which a social order of communication and conflict is produced and contested; a site where the collective is expressed and reorganised.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHowever, if game structure is interpreted solely as a set of external constraints, teachers may fall into the illusion that, once the structure is defined, pupils will immediately appropriate it and act accordingly. However, in the context of school physical education, even when rules appear clear, the structure is often incomplete because many details are not explicitly agreed upon and the practical relevance of each rule depends on how it is lived in concrete situations (i.e., under pressure, when facing the risk of being tagged, etc.) (García-Monge \u0026amp; Rodríguez-Navarro, 2013).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this context, distinguishing between the internal logic and external logic of the game is essential for interpreting how play unfolds. Alongside structural constraints (i.e., external logic), games are traversed by cultural, group-based, and individual dimensions, such as the search for recognition, avoidance of failure, attachments, rivalries, or biases, which could reorganise action and reorient how the game is interpreted (Parlebas, 2001; García-Monge \u0026amp; Rodríguez-Navarro, 2013). \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis perspective helps us to understand that normative disagreement is not simply a matter of “error” or “inattention”. It signals that different frameworks of meaning—personal, relational, and cultural—are coming into contact with the game structure. It also allows us to examine how the enacted game is sustained through a coexistence, sometimes tension-laden, between what the structure “demands” and what players prioritise or can do under specific circumstances.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eConsequently, game structure should not be assumed to be a “closed” object that determines action in a linear way. Rather, it is a field of possibilities whose concrete realisation depends on situated processes of interpretation, coordination, and regulation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1.3. \u003cstrong\u003e Normativity as situated production: mediation, agency, and negotiation in activity\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCultural psychology starts from the premise that mind and culture mutually constitute one another, and that psychological processes are best understood by attending to the practices, tools, and semiotic mediations through which they develop (Brescó et al., 2019; Cole, 2003; De la Mata \u0026amp; Cubero, 2003). From this perspective, the meaning of a rule cannot be reduced to an individual mental representation. It is constructed through participation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the analysis of games, this perspective allows rules to be approached as mediational means. A rule does not operate only as a pre-established restriction imposed on the player. Rather, it can be understood as a semiotic artefact that becomes progressively shared, and that orients action by turning into a public criterion for coordination (e.g., “this counts/this does not”), for evaluation (e.g., “you did it wrong”), and for retrospective interpretation (e.g., “what happened was that…”). In this respect, a game can be analysed as an activity in which participants produce and stabilise normative meanings under changing conditions, thereby also stabilising a shared version of the game structure.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlong these lines, it is important to examine how some rules become central for certain players while others remain vague. The Vygotskian concept of lived experience, or \u003cem\u003eperezhivanie\u003c/em\u003e, helps explain why the same situation is not experienced uniformly, since it integrates cognitive and affective dimensions that organise attention, memory, and action (Veresov, 2017). Applied to play, it helps account for why certain constraints are later remembered as self-evident after being encountered first-hand. García-Monge (2011) or Colliver and Veraksa (2019) invite us to distinguish normative hierarchies and suggest that what children come to value in play tends to condense into the main rule, understood as the goal or aim of the game, while other rules sustain the imaginary situation. This distinction helps interpret why certain norms become particularly salient for some participants and peripheral for others, and why play becomes destabilised when there is insufficient convergence around what the game is trying to achieve.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom a cultural-historical perspective, activity unfolds through mediated actions oriented towards an object, which has a dual character. It is simultaneously a material production and a collective idea or shared image of what the activity is or ought to be. Within this dynamic, demands and motives generate tensions and dilemmas that are not anomalies of the system but are constitutive of its unfolding, and negotiation is precisely the work through which participants address those tensions (Waermö, 2016a). In this vein, Waermö’s microgenetic analyses of break-time play (Waermö, 2016a, 2016b) show that rule negotiation is not a step that follows a prior agreement. Rather, it is the very process through which the group expands its collective interpretation of the rules and makes micro-adjustments to align courses of action. Waermö conceptualises this practical capacity as a form of situated, collectively embedded agency, linking it to the idea of the “collectividual” (Stetsenko, 2013), which highlights the deeply social constitution of individual agency and people’s participation in transforming collective practices.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStetsenko (2013) proposes moving beyond the individual–collective dichotomy through a \u003cem\u003ecollectividual\u003c/em\u003e dialectic, according to which each person is shaped by shared historical practices while also materially contributing to their transformation. In a school game, this can be observed when an individual's initiative, interpretation, infraction, or proposal reorients the activity of the group, and also when the emerging collective order redefines what each participant considers possible or legitimate to do.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSimilarly, Müller, Marques, and Nascimento (2024) show how children, when facing disputes, adapt rules and develop linguistic and multimodal resources to sustain the dynamics of play. This lens allows us to reinterpret reprimands, discussions, and interpretive conflicts as practices of repair, legitimation, and normative stabilisation that are part of the very process through which collective play is constructed.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis conception of normativity as situated production connects with the classic structure–agency debate in the social sciences. In structuration theory, social practices reproduce and transform structures in their everyday enactment (Giddens, 1984). In the morphogenetic critique, emphasis is placed on the need to analytically distinguish between structure and agency to explain how inherited conditions open up or constrain possibilities for action and change (Archer, 2003; King, 2010). From a relational sociology perspective, attention shifts towards processes and relational configurations as sources of regularities (Emirbayer, 1997). In our case, these debates translate into an operative claim: game structure is simultaneously a constraint and an outcome. It constrains because it delimits possibilities for action, yet it is also an outcome because it is reaffirmed or redefined by what is actually done, corrected, argued over, and remembered. A micro-analytic focus on rule negotiation is especially useful to capture in detail how such interpretations stabilise (Waermö, 2016a, 2016b).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBuilding on the framework outlined above, this article analyses how a collective classroom game emerges and stabilises from children’s partial individual understandings of the structure of a rule-governed game, attending to the processes of negotiation and adjustment that occur in and through shared action. Specifically, we address the following question: \u003cstrong\u003eWhat interactional processes enable a group to sustain “the same game” when participants do not initially share a complete or equivalent understanding of its rules, roles, and action possibilities?\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTo this end, our\u003c/strong\u003e study was designed as a qualitative case study, following Stake’s (2010) logic of inquiry, which begins with an issue or tension to understand a phenomenon in context. The organising tension of this study was the articulation of collective play alongside participants’ personal perspectives on that play, focusing on the negotiation and adjustment processes that occurred in and through shared action. \u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"2. Methodology","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e2.2. Context, participants, and fieldwork organisation\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe study was conducted during physical education lessons in a primary school located in a provincial capital city in Spain. A total of 145 pupils participated (77 girls and 68 boys) from Grades 3 and 4. Grade 3 included three classes of 22, 25, and 24 pupils, and Grade 4 included two classes of 25 pupils and one class of 24 pupils. Data were collected over three lessons in which pupils were asked to modify a game that was already familiar to them. The fieldwork was conducted over three consecutive years, with two groups participating each year: one Grade 3 class and one Grade 4 class.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe lessons were part of the second-year undergraduate course \u003cem\u003ePhysical Education\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003efor Primary Education majors and were delivered through the “Extended Classroom” approach, in which pre-service teachers designed, taught, and revised a lesson sequence with the same school groups (García-Monge et al., 2020). The task aligns with the “inventing games” strand within TGfU (Teaching games for understanding), in which learners modify known games by reworking rules and roles to make play possible (Butler, 2013).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this case, the teaching proposal was as follows. Pupils were asked to transform a chasing game (an invasion game without a ball called “the spider”, similar to “British Bulldog” or “Sharks and Minnows”) into an invasion game with ball possession. Chasing games involve a basic offensive intention - “to avoid being tagged”- that is often more psychologically entrenched than the basic intention of invasion games with ball possession - “to carry an object to a target space” (García-Monge, 2011). The transformation was designed to create tension between two “basic intentions” or primary rules (García-Monge, 2011). The possible anchoring bias could reveal personal differences.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs an initial challenge, groups were asked to design a game in which an attacking team had to cross a zone defended by four defenders. Pupils had to decide the size of that zone. The attackers’ goal was to ensure that a ball reached the opposing team's back line. Pupils also had to make normative decisions about whether passes were required within the rectangle, whether running with the ball was permitted, whether defenders could immobilise the ball carrier by tagging them, as in tag rugby, or whether defenders could immobilise attackers without the ball, as in American football. Grabbing or tackling was not permitted; a touch to any part of the body, or the removal of a handkerchief hanging from the waist (they decided), was sufficient.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo make these decisions, pupils met in groups of four or five on a firm mat. To support dialogue and decision-making, each group used a worksheet listing the alternative rule options from which to define their game. Throughout the unit, and in reflective discussions with the teacher, pupils became increasingly aware that each rule has practical implications and that rules that advantage the attacking team, such as allowing running with the ball, need to be counterbalanced by rules that advantage the defence, such as allowing defenders to tag the ball carrier to regain possession.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe data collection strategy was built around tracing personal trajectories within the collective process. Within each small group, each child was followed in a focused manner through observation and individual interviews by a researcher who was a pre-service teacher, with the aim of capturing the “bridge” between understanding, intention, action, and subsequent reconstruction. To follow each child and hear the game-design talk, the student-researchers sat next to the mat where the children designed their games (Figure 1.A).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eData collection was organised as a repeated cycle over the three lessons. In each iteration, the group negotiated and designed a new variant of the game, and the design conversations were recorded (Figure 1.B). Next, before implementation, each participant was interviewed individually to elicit their version of the game and what they expected to do during play, with attention to the role they anticipated adopting and their expectations about their own participation (Figure 1.D). During gameplay, video recordings captured play sequences to contrast participants' reports with their actual behaviour (Figure 1.F-G). After play, a second individual interview was conducted to reconstruct what each participant believed they had done, what they intended to try in the next iteration, and what changes they considered necessary to make the game more playable (Figure 1.H). In addition to the audio and video records, the design process was supported by the game-design worksheets used by each group (Figure 1.C).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe study was conducted with the authorisation of the school and the relevant consents, in accordance with applicable regulations and the institutional procedures in place at the time of the research. Pupils’ confidentiality was protected by using pseudonyms and removing identifying information from transcripts and working materials. Audiovisual records and associated documents were stored and managed in accordance with data-protection and restricted-access procedures, and used exclusively for research and scholarly purposes. A favourable report was obtained from the Ethics Committee of the University of Valladolid.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e2.3. Corpus organisation and preparation for analysis\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eData were organised sequentially in order to capture each participant’s development in relation to the collective process of designing and enacting the game. Rather than treating each data source in isolation, we constructed integrated sequences for each child that brought together moments of group deliberation, individual accounts prior to play, what occurred during action, and subsequent reflections. This organisation supported a process-oriented analysis.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo operationalise this diachronic logic, each participant’s data were arranged into continuous “dialogue–action” trajectories in Prezi to make visible the bridge between the individual and the collective. Each episode was represented by articulating, within a single analytical record, what was stated during the design phase as the \u003cstrong\u003eagreed rule\u003c/strong\u003e, what each participant reported understanding as the \u003cstrong\u003eunderstood rule\u003c/strong\u003e, what was observed during gameplay as the \u003cstrong\u003erule-in-use\u003c/strong\u003e, and what the participant later recounted as the \u003cstrong\u003ereconstructed rule\u003c/strong\u003e. This mode of organisation facilitated the identification of mismatches and convergences among understanding, intention, action, and retrospective accounts, as well as the detection of critical moments in which particular rules became especially salient or were stabilised within the group.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e2.4. Analytic strategy, units of analysis, analytic tools, and coding process\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe analytic strategy aimed to capture the transition from partial, situated interpretations to a collectively playable game by integrating the individual perspective with the dynamics of the group in action. Rather than assessing participants’ “accuracy” against an idealised rule set, the focus was on describing how understandings and courses of action were aligned, put under tension, and readjusted as the game unfolded and was discussed. To make this transition visible, the corpus was analysed through a sequential logic. For each episode, we related what was agreed during group design, what each child reported understanding before play, what actually occurred during action, and what each participant subsequently narrated. This organisation enabled us to trace personal trajectories within a collective process while retaining the interactional context that produced them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe unit of analysis was inspired by cultural-historical theory and centred on goal-oriented, mediated action. Operationally, each unit was defined as a segment of activity in which a participant acts with a recognisable purpose under conditions of cooperation and/or opposition, using the cultural means available in the situation. In the context of school play, these mediational means include explicit rules, implicit norms, roles, goals, scoring criteria, material artefacts, and, crucially, the language through which action is coordinated and evaluated. This unit allowed us to analyse play as an activity in which rules do not appear only as prior texts but as practical resources activated in experience and transformed through interaction.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBuilding on this unit of analysis, we used analytic tools understood as lenses or sensitising concepts. These tools did not operate as closed, predefined categories; rather, they served as resources for interrogating the activity and guiding attention during coding. First, we drew on Stetsenko’s (2013) \u003cem\u003ecollectividual\u003c/em\u003e dialectic to describe how individual initiatives can reorient a shared order and how the emerging order of the group delimits what each participant considers possible or legitimate to do. Second, we used Waermö’s distinction between an individual course of action and the collective course of action (Waermö, 2016a, 2016b) to describe alignments, mismatches, and readjustments that sustained play even in the absence of full convergence in participants’ stated understandings. When the material required a finer-grained account, we also drew on notions such as micro-negotiations, demands and motives, tensions and reorientations, and micro-adjustments as descriptive tools for specifying subtle shifts in participants’ orientation and in the organisation of interaction (Edwards, 2005; Fleer, 2014; Hedegaard, 2014; Zittoun, 2009).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCoding proceeded iteratively. First, we conducted open coding on mediated action units within each episode. Next, we reorganised codes through axial coding into three analytic axes aligned with the thesis of the article. \u003cstrong\u003eAxis A\u003c/strong\u003e grouped normative saliences and partial understandings of game structure, including anchoring in rules from prior games, normative gaps, and elements that remained peripheral for particular participants. \u003cstrong\u003eAxis B\u003c/strong\u003e grouped forms of coordination and enacted agency that made play possible even when understandings were not equivalent, including role adoption, leadership and followership, peer support, and relational sub-goals that reorganised action. \u003cstrong\u003eAxis C\u003c/strong\u003e grouped processes through which action and interaction produced and stabilised normativity, including in-game precedents, explicit corrections, reprimands, interpretive conflicts, and subsequent narrative closures.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFinally, on the basis of recurring patterns and their sequential chaining across individual and collective trajectories, we constructed interpretive processes. These processes did not constitute a new set of codes; rather, they provided an integrative account that connected categories in order to explain the unfolding of the phenomenon.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"3. Results: From partial understanding to shared play","content":"\u003cp\u003eTo address the central problem of the article —how a collectively playable game emerges from partial and situated individual interpretations—the results are organised around three interwoven processes. The findings show that the transition towards collective play does not depend on reaching an identical understanding of the rules first. Rather, it unfolds through a process in which different zones of the game structure become salient for different participants, the group achieves practical coordination despite these differences, and interaction itself produces and stabilises normativity both during play and in subsequent reconstructions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e3.1. Differential salience: the structure is incomplete at the outset, and each participant foregrounds different zones\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA first regularity is that, when transforming a chasing game (invasion without ball possession) into an invasion game with ball possession, not all normative details are closed, and even when they are made explicit, they are not integrated in an equivalent manner by all group members. As a result, each participant acts and talks from a partial version of the game in which some elements become central while others remain peripheral. Within this process, three recurring phenomena were observed: the carry-over of primary rules from the chasing game, the affective hierarchisation of certain norms, and the construction of rules from one’s own action perspective, including one’s perceived role and action possibilities.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVignette 1. Carry-over of primary rules: crossing as an achievement even when the ball is not in play\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn situations where the group agrees that players may be immobilised only by tagging the ball carrier, gameplay exhibits an orientation inherited from the chasing game, in which the central challenge is to cross while avoiding capture. The field record describes how “\u003cem\u003eAtalanta\u003c/em\u003e (an attacker without the ball) starts making feints to enter the defenders’ space. Taking advantage of a defender’s distraction, she manages to cross the field and reach the other side. Once there, she celebrates by raising her arms and jumping happily. She disengages from the game and from the ball.” What is analytically substantial here is not the “mistake” as such, but the evidence that, for \u003cem\u003eAtalanta\u003c/em\u003e, the salient zone of the structure is not the ball-oriented objective but the bodily and emotionally charged achievement of crossing, characteristic of the chasing game.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe same carry-over is starker in episodes in which ball-based collective play unfolds for the group, yet one participant remains oriented toward individual “salvation” through crossing. In one scene, \u003cem\u003ePhaedra\u003c/em\u003e repeatedly attempts to cross without seeing a clear gap. While the rest of her team passes the ball to advance, \u003cem\u003ePhaedra\u003c/em\u003e “doesn’t even look at where the ball is; she is only focused on finding a gap to get through.” Eventually, “almost in desperation,” she pushes a teammate into a defender and uses the opening to cross. This action shows that the invasion structure has not yet fully displaced the primary logic of “saving oneself” by crossing.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVignette 2. Limited understanding and a simplified role: the game understood as “crossing without getting tagged”\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003ePenelope\u003c/em\u003e’s group, the design specifies that players may run with the ball, there is no compulsory passing, and defenders may immobilise any attacker by tagging them. However, when \u003cem\u003ePenelope\u003c/em\u003e is interviewed individually before play, her description reduces the game to a chase frame. She explains, “There are lots of spiders and the rest of us have to get to the other side without getting tagged. One person has a ball”. When asked about her role, her plan is likewise formulated in terms of finding an opportunity to cross, rather than contributing to collective progression with the ball. \u003cem\u003ePenelope\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003estates, “I’m going to wait until the spiders are distracted by my teammates and then I’ll take the chance to cross”. In the video, her conduct aligns with this partial understanding. Penelope stays behind, alternates steps forward and backward, switches sides and, when she detects a gap, she crosses and celebrates. The episode shows how the agreed structure can operate as a backdrop while action is oriented by a simplified understanding of the object of play. This does not necessarily prevent collective play, but it anticipates tensions, because the group acts as if invasion with ball possession requires circulation and support, whereas she positions herself as if success were individual “survival”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVignette 3. Rules designed from one’s own action perspective: imagining play to produce normativity\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this process, some normative proposals do not originate in an abstract definition of the game, but in the anticipation of “what I would do” in a concrete situation. This situated construction of normativity becomes particularly visible when groups articulate rules through physically enacted or diagrammed strategies while speaking.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the group formed by \u003cem\u003ePolimnia\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eIris\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eIcara\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eEunomo\u003c/em\u003e, after encountering problems with passing in a previous version, \u003cem\u003ePolimnia\u003c/em\u003e proposes directly in the second version, “You can run with the ball”, and \u003cem\u003eEunomo\u003c/em\u003e confirms, “Yes, of course, you can”. \u003cem\u003ePolimnia\u003c/em\u003e then sketches a strategy, articulating a plan of action rather than merely a rule. She says, “Let’s see, \u003cem\u003eIris\u003c/em\u003e carries it hidden. A bump on her back” (everyone laughs). “\u003cem\u003eIcara\u003c/em\u003e, you try to move forward without the ball, and \u003cem\u003eIris\u003c/em\u003e goes around on the right. The rest of us try to distract the ones here, and \u003cem\u003eIris\u003c/em\u003e goes through with the ball”. Here, allowing running is inseparable from a concrete imagination of success and a distribution of roles that makes the rule playable for those who propose it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA similar dynamic appears in \u003cem\u003eTeseo\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003ePerseo\u003c/em\u003e’s group, where they agree that running with the ball is allowed but that at least two passes are required. \u003cem\u003eTeseo\u003c/em\u003e formulates this in dialogue with \u003cem\u003eTemis\u003c/em\u003e, who sets a limit on the “cost” of the rule. \u003cem\u003eTeseo\u003c/em\u003e states, “We have to make passes”. \u003cem\u003eTemis\u003c/em\u003e replies, “But not many,” and \u003cem\u003eTeseo\u003c/em\u003e specifies, “Two passes minimum”. \u003cem\u003eTeseo\u003c/em\u003e then draws a sketch and assigns actions: “The three of you go to the centre to distract the spiders. I pass to \u003cem\u003ePerseo\u003c/em\u003e and he crosses along the side. I go down the other side and he passes to me”. Again, the rule is not presented as an external requirement but as an anticipated solution that enables a tactical script.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA personal perspective also becomes visible when rules are designed from one’s own perceived action possibilities. In \u003cem\u003eCirene’s\u003c/em\u003e case, given some limitations in running mobility, the design is organised from her perspective as a defender. \u003cem\u003eCirene\u003c/em\u003e proposes that running with the ball should not be allowed and justifies it as follows: “You shouldn’t run with the ball, because then you have to make more passes and it’s harder”. She adds, “You can tag the ones without the ball too, and that way we eliminate them.” When \u003cem\u003eIdmon\u003c/em\u003e asks whether tagging requires taking a flag, \u003cem\u003eCirene\u003c/em\u003e responds, “No, without a flag, because otherwise it’s harder to tag”. Before play, when asked what she would do, \u003cem\u003eCirene\u003c/em\u003e offers a defensive plan: “We’ll stand in two lines. We’ll let them come up to the middle, and then we’ll surround them”. In gameplay, her actions confirm this orientation: she creates a “false gap” by appearing distracted and then tags the attacker who tries to pass through, thereby immobilising them. In the post-play interview, \u003cem\u003eCirene\u003c/em\u003e reconstructs her performance in defensive terms: “I stayed at the back, watching in case any ‘flies’ escaped, to catch them”. Even when asked about her role in the attack, her account remains framed around being tagged: “I was trying not to get tagged, but they tagged me both times”. This trajectory shows that game structure is not understood homogeneously but is filtered through action possibilities and the position one occupies or claims within the game.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e3.2. Practical coordination despite partial understandings\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA second regularity is that play does not necessarily break down when participants lack a fully shared normative understanding. Even when understandings are partial or divergent, forms of coordination emerge that make play possible. This coordination is sustained through local leadership and followership, the importation of familiar cultural patterns, affective ties, and relational sub-goals that coexist with the formal objective of the game.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVignette 4. Leadership and cultural transfer: a familiar technique becomes a coordinating pattern\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn one group, while completing the design sheet, a girl acknowledges that they still do not have a clear way of passing and states this explicitly: “We’re going to create some techniques to pass between all of us. We still haven’t seen which one we’re going to use. We have to practice, so I can’t answer you now. Wait, I’m going to look at the sheet.” After an unsuccessful attempt in which the ball is intercepted and roles are swapped, in the next round \u003cem\u003eCarla\u003c/em\u003e introduces a previously learned cultural resource and turns it into a coordinating solution. \u003cem\u003eCarla\u003c/em\u003e exclaims: “I’ve just thought of something! In basketball they taught me a passing technique. You take the ball, you stop, you pass, and you move. You take the ball, you stop, and you pass.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe group enacts the proposed pattern, moving the ball while “doing a weave.” Crucially, after the action, when asked what they had done, all participants report that they passed the ball “in a weave.” Coordination is not driven by a detailed understanding of every rule, but by adopting a practical pattern that structures action and is subsequently stabilised in participants’ retrospective accounts.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVignette 5. Sub-games and relational logics: personal goals that coexist with collective play\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDuring several episodes, coordination is sustained despite the emergence of personal goals that divert attention from an “ideal” version of the game, without halting the ongoing game. A simple case occurs when \u003cem\u003eDiana\u003c/em\u003e, under pressure and unsure what to do, “passes the ball to her friend who is playing as a defender.” Here, the affective tie becomes a more salient criterion for action than the conventional attacker–defender role division.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA second case involves \u003cem\u003eAída\u003c/em\u003e in a game in which the group has agreed that the ball must circulate among all attackers within the defenders’ area, that the ball carrier cannot be tagged, and that attackers without the ball can be tagged and immobilised. During play, \u003cem\u003eAída\u003c/em\u003e focuses on a specific opponent until she tags him. She celebrates by jumping and, when asked afterwards what she had decided to do, she replies: “I wanted to tag \u003cem\u003ePeter\u003c/em\u003e so he wouldn’t cross to the other side.” This suggests that her personal aim is anchored in a relational history and that this “sub-game” runs alongside the collective game.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe same pattern appears when a personal challenge persists even after the team has already scored. In \u003cem\u003eChema\u003c/em\u003e’s case, the rules specify that the attacking team must complete a minimum of three passes inside the defenders’ area. The team advances and scores via a long pass to \u003cem\u003ePilar\u003c/em\u003e, who crosses the goal line and everyone celebrates. However, \u003cem\u003eChema\u003c/em\u003e remains focused on beating \u003cem\u003eSantiago\u003c/em\u003e. He feints, manages to cross without being tagged, and celebrates his personal success. In scenes like these, collective coordination does not eliminate personal aims. Rather, it incorporates them as parallel micro-goals that sometimes pull against the formal objective and sometimes coexist with it without undermining the playability of the game.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eVignette 6. Peer support and “we-oriented” coordination: saving everyone as a higher-order criterion\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn another sequence, \u003cem\u003ePrometeo\u003c/em\u003e displays a form of coordination oriented towards collective “saving” by exploiting a normative gap. The rule stated that the ball carrier could not be tagged, but running with the ball was allowed. \u003cem\u003ePrometeo\u003c/em\u003e crosses and throws the ball to a teammate. She passes it on, and they repeat the action with the other two teammates. Under a strict reading, the game should end when the ball reaches the other side, because a point is scored when the ball crosses the defenders’ back line. However, the group reorients the practical object towards “saving all of us”, and the ball becomes a mediational means for chaining successive crossings. This vignette shows a form of coordination that does not require a complete shared understanding of all rules, but it does depend on a practical alignment that sustains the collective in shared action.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e3.3. Process of stabilisation in action: action produces normativity and interaction fixes it in real time and in retrospective accounts\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis section groups the processes through which normativity is generated, stabilised, and becomes a shared criterion during play, and is then consolidated in subsequent interviews as if it had been a prior rule. Two features are key. First, many parts of the structure remain open and are closed through precedents, corrections, and discussions in the course of action. Second, this stabilisation tends to become a retrospective reconstruction, such that the group later narrates the norm as if it had been agreed from the outset.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVignette 7. In-action precedent and retrospective closure: “you cannot run” as a rule that emerges after the fact\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA particularly clear example occurs when something not explicitly agreed upon is reported as a rule in later interviews. In one round, \u003cem\u003eClio\u003c/em\u003e receives the first pass and stays in place, looking for someone to pass to. The group had not previously agreed whether running with the ball was permitted, but from that moment on, no one did so. When asked afterward, all participants state that running with the ball was not allowed. Within a single episode, we can see the trajectory from an initial action that produces a pattern, through the pattern becoming a shared expectation, to the expectation being formulated retrospectively as a rule.\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVignette 8. Peer reprimand as a mechanism of normative closure\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u0026nbsp;Normative stabilisation does not rely only on precedents, but also on the ongoing maintenance work of the group when a transgression occurs. In a situation in which the group had agreed that running with the ball was not allowed, Hermes enters the defenders’ area, sees a defender approaching, and begins running to escape. The field record notes that “a couple of teammates stop him and reprimand him, saying that you cannot run. We do not see him run again during the game”. This scene shows how the norm ceases to be an individual interpretation and becomes a public criterion in real time. The game is, in effect, “educated” by participants themselves through situated repairs.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVignette 9. Interpretive conflict: the discussion makes a zone of the structure visible and shared\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInterpretive conflict operates as a tool for clarification and stabilisation. Under the passing rule, the group has agreed that attackers must make two passes inside the defenders’ area before the final pass to a player on the far side to score. After two passes, \u003cem\u003eEris\u003c/em\u003e makes a third pass inside the defenders’ area, and a discussion emerges about whether two passes constituted a maximum or a minimum. After debating, they agree that it requires at least two passes. From that point onward, play continues with sequences of two, three, and even four passes, indicating that the rule is being enacted as an enabling threshold rather than as a rigid count.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAn analogous process occurs when a technical detail must be specified during action. The rule requires at least 2 passes within the area. The attacking team makes the first pass. On the second, the ball drops to the ground about a meter in front of the receiver, who quickly picks it up. The defending team protests that the pass does not count. The teacher asks whether the pass must be direct or if bouncing the ball is acceptable. After hesitating, the group decides that it must be a direct pass. This type of closure shows how parts of the structure that were not made explicit become fixed when a concrete situation forces participants to decide what counts as a pass.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eVignette 10. Refining structure through iterations: from initial imbalance to a playable norm and a shared tactic\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe process of normative production and stabilisation extends beyond micro-episodes within a single round of play. It also operates through redesign iterations. \u003cem\u003eAnfiloco\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eTemis\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eAriadna\u003c/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eCalipso\u003c/em\u003e’s group tests an initial version with a 5×7-metre field, allowing running with the ball, a minimum of five passes, and the ability to immobilise any attacker by tagging them, whether or not they have the ball. After two tries, they recognise how difficult attacking is. They enlarge the field to 9×9 metres and reduce the required number of passes to two, yet they still struggle to move without being tagged and immobilised. In the third version, they introduce a change to rebalance play. Attackers wear a scarf tucked into their waistband. To eliminate an attacker, defenders must pull out the scarf, and scarves can be pulled only from the ball carrier. This new norm is accompanied by an emergent practical rule that serves as a coordinating criterion: “we have to pass the ball quickly; when they come to pull your scarf, you pass it quickly.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the interview, \u003cem\u003eAnfiloco\u003c/em\u003e also articulates a shared tactic, showing how the norm is translated into a coordination scheme that reorganises the game: “We decided to use a tactic. We have to choose whom each of us wants to pass to, and we go in zig-zag. One runs to the right and another to the left, and we keep crossing over all the time and passing the ball. They can only pull your scarf when you have the ball, and when they come to pull our scarf, we pass it to someone else”. This case illustrates how gameplay experience reveals unforeseen implications, forces rule revision, and culminates in a form of coordination that is not only normative but tactical.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"4. Discussion","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis study examines how a collectively playable game emerges when the rule structure is initially open and unevenly understood. Rather than treating rules as fixed texts applied uniformly, we conceptualise them as cultural means that gain normative force when they become public criteria for coordination, evaluation, and repair in action (Cole, 2003; De la Mata \u0026amp; Cubero, 2003; Waerm\u0026ouml;, 2016a, 2016b). In what follows, we interpret the findings in relation to our research question and situate them within relevant work on normativity, coordination, and meaning-making in play.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eDifferential salience process\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA first contribution of the study is to show that, in contexts of inventing and transforming games, game structure does not function as an intact \u0026ldquo;script\u0026rdquo; that children uniformly appropriate. Instead, structure initially appears as a set of fragments unevenly distributed among participants. Each child foregrounds certain normative zones while leaving others in the background, depending on prior play trajectories, the practical difficulty posed by the situation, and the affective relevance that particular episodes acquire (Cole, 2003; Esteban-Guitart, 2008).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis pattern aligns with a central assumption of cultural psychology, namely that meaning is not located in the rule as a verbal formulation but in its situated use. What is \u0026ldquo;understood\u0026rdquo; about a norm is inseparable from the concrete experience that makes it relevant and from the way that experience organises attention and memory (De la Mata \u0026amp; Cubero, 2003; Esteban-Guitart, 2008). From this standpoint, initial differences in understanding should not be read only as cognitive deficits, but as an effect of an activity that remains open, in which norms are still in the process of becoming meaningful in relation to a practical object.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA complementary nuance emerges from dialogue with motor praxeology. By asking pupils to transform a game whose internal logic is based on chasing into an invasion game with ball possession, the pedagogical power of the design lies partly in altering the cooperation\u0026ndash;opposition network and the scoring objective (Parlebas, 2001, 2020). Yet this structural change does not translate immediately into a homogeneous shift in orientation. From a learning perspective, we observe carry-over intentions and prior patterns that continue to organise action even when the explicitly stated norm points in a different direction. In our framework, this persistence is conceptualised as primary rules or basic intentions that compete with the new organisation of the game (Garc\u0026iacute;a-Monge, 2011). The most relevant finding here is that the \u0026ldquo;new\u0026rdquo; structure does not instantly displace the \u0026ldquo;old\u0026rdquo; one. Rather, both coexist for a time as partial orientations that are activated differently in different situations.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis\u0026nbsp;generative process, therefore, suggests that shared structure is not a prerequisite for activity. On the contrary, the game begins from an incomplete and plural structure, and that plurality is the point of departure from which collective play is constructed.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePractical coordination process\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA second decisive finding is that activity does not stop even when participants\u0026rsquo; understandings diverge. Groups achieve coordination through role-taking, peer support, situational leadership, and relational and motivational sub-goals that coexist with the formal objective of the game. Our data suggest an almost inverse process. Practical coordination partly precedes consensus, and when consensus does emerge, it is often grounded in patterns that have already been tried out in action.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis finding aligns with a view of agency as situated and relational. Agency is not reducible to an individual property but is produced within webs of interdependence in which some participants\u0026rsquo; actions become resources for others (Edwards, 2005). From a cultural-historical standpoint, the \u003cem\u003ecollectividual\u003c/em\u003e dialectic highlights precisely that collective activity is not an aggregate of individual actions. Rather, it is a process in which personal initiatives can reorient the common course of action while, at the same time, the emerging order of the group reshapes what each participant considers possible or legitimate to do (Stetsenko, 2013).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere, ethnographic and micro-analytic work on play is especially illuminating. Waerm\u0026ouml; (2016a) shows that in children\u0026rsquo;s play, rules are broadened and made operative through action alignments that do not require all participants to share an identical verbal formulation. Likewise, her work on negotiating involvement describes how children manage belonging, roles, and inclusion, modulating who participates and how through situated adjustments (Waerm\u0026ouml;, 2016b). This lens invites us to interpret coordination as interactive work that produces playability, rather than as the straightforward implementation of a prior agreement.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA further nuance is provided by the notion of demands and motives. Through the transitions from design talk to gameplay and to post-play interviews, situational demands change, and so do the motives that become functional for sustaining participation. Coordination then relies on orientations that may be tactical, but also affective and relational, and these orientations are reconfigured as children move through practices (Fleer, 2014; Hedegaard, 2014). This helps explain why, even with partial understandings, groups maintain continuity. Motives such as affiliation, recognition, or avoidance of failure can sustain actions that remain compatible with the game, even when they do not fully align with an \u0026ldquo;ideal\u0026rdquo; normative logic.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePractical coordination processes, therefore, suggest that the construction of collective play does not depend on everyone sharing \u0026ldquo;the same idea\u0026rdquo; in their heads, but rather on producing sufficient coordination for the game to proceed. This coordination, in turn, creates the conditions for certain zones of the structure to become more visible and more readily shareable.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eProcess of stabilisation in action (Action produces normativity, and interaction fixes it)\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe third generative process captures the movement from an initial plurality of interpretations towards a more stable normative order. The results show clearly that many norms are not fully closed through verbal design alone. Instead, they emerge during play as precedents. A way of acting is repeated; someone challenges it; a reprimand or an interpretive conflict arises; and the group then adjusts, clarifies, and stabilises an operational criterion.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis dynamic connects with two complementary traditions. On the one hand, it resonates with structuration theory, which treats rules as both the medium and the outcome of practices. Normative stability does not reside only in explicit agreement, but in the recursivity of doing, through which certain solutions become expectations and, in turn, delimit future action (Giddens, 1984). At the same time, an approach that analytically distinguishes between structural conditions and agency helps explain why certain solutions become more likely or costlier depending on inherited constraints from the initial game form, participants\u0026rsquo; prior repertoires, and asymmetries in competence or initiative (Archer, 2003; King, 2010). In short, \u0026ldquo;structure\u0026rdquo; is not limited to the pre-game period. It is also within the game, as the cumulative effect of what is done, corrected, and remembered. On the other hand, this generative process aligns with cultural psychology and micro-analytic studies of play that document how rules are completed and reconfigured through interactional repair. In Waerm\u0026ouml;\u0026rsquo;s work (2016a, 2016b), rules stabilise when they become shared resources for resolving friction, allocating turns, adjusting interpretations, and sustaining involvement in the activity.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA particularly relevant feature of our data is that normative stabilisation not only reduces ambiguity, but also makes the criteria public. A norm ceases to be a personal interpretation and becomes a common point of reference for the group. In this regard, reprimands, interpretive conflicts, and repairs operate as micro-institutionalisations through which a practical order is produced and reinforced in real time. Similar processes have been described in ethnographies of break-time play, where normativity is negotiated and maintained through alliances, legitimacy claims, and episodes of controversy that redefine what counts as fair or valid (M\u0026uuml;ller et al., 2024).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOverall, this process shows that collective play becomes possible because the group produces normativity in practice. Rather than merely applying rules, participants institute rules as they encounter boundary cases, tensions, and disruptions that require decisions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eRetrospective reconstruction and the production of coherence\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eComparing what participants said before playing, what they did during play, and what they narrated afterwards yields an additional implication that strengthens the overall coherence of the model. Post-play interviews do not function only as a measure of recall. They also operate as a device for producing coherence. After action, participants tend to reorganise experience into a meaningful account, and this account often closes normative gaps, clarifies the game schema, and retrospectively legitimises criteria that may still have been ambiguous during play (Cole, 2003; Esteban-Guitart, 2008).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis phenomenon can be interpreted as semiotic mediation work that accompanies transitions between practices. Moving from gameplay to an interview shifts participants from a practical register to one of explicit articulation and justification, and this transition invites them to stabilise meanings, attribute intentions, and produce a more \u0026ldquo;closed\u0026rdquo; version of the game that is communicable to others (Hedegaard, 2014; Zittoun, 2014). From this perspective, retrospective reconstruction is not an epiphenomenon but a constitutive component of how normativity persists. The game consolidates not only in what is done, but also in what is later said to have been done.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis detail shows that the emergence of collective play is based on two complementary planes: a plane of practical coordination and real-time repair, and a plane of narrative stabilisation that fixes what the game was and what is considered normative.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eSynthesis and implications\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTaken together, the generative processes situate the study within the structure\u0026ndash;agency debate while avoiding both structuralist determinism and individualist voluntarism. On the one hand, praxeology foregrounds that the internal logic of the game delimits a field of possibilities that orients action and renders some structural changes more \u0026ldquo;resistant\u0026rdquo; than others (Garc\u0026iacute;a-Monge, 2011). On the other hand, our data show that structure does not operate as a mould that is automatically imposed, but as a practical order under construction that depends on situated interpretation, relational coordination, and the stabilisation of normativity in the course of play (Cole, 2003; Stetsenko, 2013; Waerm\u0026ouml;, 2016a, 2016b).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis proposal also resonates with relational sociology by focusing on processes and relational configurations as sources of regularities. The order of play appears as a dynamic relational accomplishment rather than as the sum of individual mental states, and normativity as a situated production through which interaction organises what counts as valid action (Emirbayer, 1997). At the same time, the \u003cem\u003ecollectividual\u003c/em\u003e dialectic helps conceptualise the emergence of collective play as a process in which the group not only coordinates actions but transforms the shared frame through individual initiatives that become socially effective (Stetsenko, 2013). Building on this, we propose that a useful way of translating this dialectic into the analysis of school games is to distinguish between \u003cstrong\u003epotential structure\u003c/strong\u003e, \u003cstrong\u003eenacted structure\u003c/strong\u003e, and \u003cstrong\u003enarrated structure\u003c/strong\u003e. The first refers to what the game could become if normativity were fully closed. The second refers to what the group actually does and sustains through precedents, repairs, and tacit agreements. The third refers to the retrospective version, which stabilises coherence and legitimises the criteria.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFigure 2. Conceptual distinction between potential structure, practised structure, and narrated structure in the emergence of a collective game. The figure illustrates that the shared game structure is not fully given in advance but is progressively shaped through action and interaction, and later stabilised through retrospective narration.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGame invention provides a natural laboratory for observing microgenetic processes of normativity, coordination, and learning-in-interaction. For teachers, the findings support maintaining a stable game structure long enough for pupils to explore its implications and participate in negotiation and stabilisation; rapid task switching may prevent many children from reaching this level of shared play.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEthics approval\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe project was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Valladolid (Spain). The procedures used in this study adhere to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eConsent to Participate\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInformed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. Written informed consent was obtained from the parents or legal guardians of the child participants. The participants gave their informed consent for the publication of photographs in which they appear designing the games in groups. Additionally, assent was obtained from the child participants prior to their involvement in the study.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eConsent for Publication\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe authors affirm that human research participants provided informed consent and assent for publication of the data collected during the study. Parents or legal guardians of the child participants signed informed consent regarding publishing their children's data.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eData availability\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe data collected in the study are available to readers upon prior request.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCompeting interests\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe authors declare no competing interests.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFunding Statement\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis work did not receive any funding.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eArcher, M. S. (2003). \u003cem\u003eStructure, agency and the internal conversation\u003c/em\u003e. Cambridge University Press.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eBresc\u0026oacute;, I., Roncancio, M., Branco, A., \u0026amp; Mattos, E. (2019). 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Transitions as dynamic processes\u0026mdash;A commentary. \u003cem\u003eLearning, Culture and Social Interaction, 3\u003c/em\u003e(3), 232\u0026ndash;236. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lcsi.2014.02.010\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"discover-education","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"diedu","sideBox":"Learn more about [Discover Education](https://www.springer.com/journal/44217)","snPcode":"44217","submissionUrl":"https://submission.nature.com/new-submission/44217/3","title":"Discover Education","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"Discover Series","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Play, Physical Education, Qualitative Research, School Games, Education","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8989664/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8989664/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eThis study conceptualised collective motor game rules as cultural artefacts negotiated in and through action. It analysed how a classroom game emerged and stabilised from children\u0026rsquo;s individual understandings of a rule-governed structure, focusing on processes of negotiation and adjustment in shared activity. A qualitative case study was conducted with 140 primary pupils (Grades 3\u0026ndash;4) who transformed invasion chasing games into invasion games with ball possession during physical education. The design contrasted group design talk, individual pre-game understandings, enacted play (video observation), and post-game narratives, using mediated action and a \u0026ldquo;collectividual\u0026rdquo; dialectic as analytical lenses. Three processes were identified: differential salience of rules, practical coordination despite uneven understanding, and stabilisation in action through retrospective reconstruction. Game structure functioned simultaneously as constraint and outcome, and collective play emerged as situated cultural production with implications for educational research and practice.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"The Construction of Collective Game Structure from Children’s Partial Understandings","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2026-03-19 16:08:12","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8989664/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"188955525268970611664416335363858546745","date":"2026-05-04T08:54:34+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2026-04-01T20:41:57+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"37342681249554341122559246831006519458","date":"2026-03-16T18:48:18+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewersInvited","content":"","date":"2026-03-16T13:45:33+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorAssigned","content":"","date":"2026-03-13T12:47:53+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"checksComplete","content":"","date":"2026-03-12T02:51:10+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"submitted","content":"Discover Education","date":"2026-03-11T19:20:21+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"discover-education","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"diedu","sideBox":"Learn more about [Discover Education](https://www.springer.com/journal/44217)","snPcode":"44217","submissionUrl":"https://submission.nature.com/new-submission/44217/3","title":"Discover Education","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"Discover Series","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"bd0448e7-9be5-4ef9-b0af-355897cbead5","owner":[],"postedDate":"March 19th, 2026","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"188955525268970611664416335363858546745","date":"2026-05-04T08:54:34+00:00","index":70,"fulltext":""}],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"under-review","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-03-19T16:08:14+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2026-03-19 16:08:12","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-8989664","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-8989664","identity":"rs-8989664","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"8U1c8b4HqxoKbykW_rLl7","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}