Typology and Predictors of Parental Perceptions of the Play Environment for Promoting a Play Culture

Recent years have seen the growth of a social movement to guarantee children’s right to play and to revitalize play culture as essential components of a healthy and happy childhood. This study categorizes parental perceptions of play environments and identifies the factors influencing these perceptions, providing foundational data to promote community-based play culture. To this end, data were collected from 300 parents (103 fathers and 197 mothers) of elementary school-aged children residing in Ulsan metropolitan city through regionally stratified quota sampling. The collected data were analyzed using a three-step latent profile analysis (LPA) with SPSS 27.0 and Mplus 8.11. Socio-demographic and play-related variables of the parents were explored as predictors of latent profile membership. This study’s main findings are as follows. First, two distinct latent profiles of parental perceptions were identified: the focused demand group, which emphasized the need for indoor and outdoor play spaces and professional play staff in the community, and the comprehensive demand group, which expressed a broader need for play spaces, time, staff, and other related elements. Second, significant differences were found in profile membership according to the parents’ sociodemographic characteristics and play-related variables. Based on these results, this study highlights the need for strategic planning of play environments that considers each community’s demographic and household characteristics. It also emphasizes the importance of improving physical play infrastructure, raising awareness, and training professionals to strengthen the play capacities of both parents and children.