Judy McKinty is an independent children's play researcher, folklorist and ethnographer, with a special interest in children's playlore, traditional games and the play culture of the schoolyard. The main focus of her work has been studying, collecting and sharing children's play and traditional games from different countries and cultures.

Her interest in play began in the late 1980s while working as an 'explainer', or exhibition interpreter, in 'You're IT!', a hands-on exhibition about children's traditional games at the Children's Museum, in the Museum of Victoria. She saw how the common play experiences of childhood often stayed in people's memories well into adult life, and usually brought enjoyment in the remembering. Later, these shared memories became a way for her to bring together children and adults from different backgrounds, countries and cultures to revisit their childhood play. Through her play programs, presentations and 'pop-up' festival stalls, she learned that play, like music, can be an international language.

While with the Children's Museum, Judy was also a co-ordinator of 'Tops, Tales and Granny's False Teeth', a ground-breaking participatory exhibition about children's play, which was installed in the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne in 1990. Initiated by June Factor and designed by eminent designer Mary Featherston, 'Tops, Tales and Granny's False Teeth' brought the games, rhymes and playlore of the schoolyard into the hospital wards, to be shared with children who were separated from their school friends, sometimes for long periods. In 2020, Judy and Mary Featherston completed an illustrated catalogue of the history of the Children's Museum and its pioneering exhibitions, which is on the Museums Victoria website: https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/content/media/5/1300255.pdf

Judy's work as an independent researcher includes playground surveys for primary schools; string games and multicultural games workshops; documenting children's play in England, Papua New Guinea, Thailand and Vietnam; an oral history project recording Aboriginal children's play for the Australian Children's Folklore Collection; and field research for Childhood, Tradition and Change, a four-year national study of play funded by the Australian Research Council: https://ctac.esrc.unimelb.edu.au. For six years she was a co-editor, with June Factor and Gwenda Davey, of Play and Folklore, published online by Museums Victoria: https://museumsvictoria.com.au/collections-research/journals/play-and-folklore/

A special project, in partnership with oral historian and musician Ruth Hazleton, was the Pandemic Play Project, an independent study to collect, from Australian children and families, information about the games they played, and the ways they found to stay playful, during the covid-19 pandemic: https://pandemicplayproject.com/

Ruth and Judy published some of their findings from the project in the International Journal of Play (2022) and wrote a chapter, together with playworker Danni von der Borch, in an international publication, Play in a Covid Frame: Everyday Pandemic Creativity in a Time of Isolation (2023). Play in a Covid Frame was awarded the American Folklore Society's 2024 Iona and Peter Opie Prize.

Judy has been closely involved in research, exhibitions and other projects for some of Australia's significant cultural and educational organisations, including Museums Victoria, the University of Melbourne, Deakin University, the National Library of Australia and the National Museum of Australia. She has a Master of Cultural Heritage from Deakin University and is an Honorary Associate of Museums Victoria, an Honorary Life Member of Play Australia and an Honorary Life Member of the Reggio Emilia Australia Information Exchange. In 2017 she was the recipient of Play Australia's Joan Matheson Distinguished Service Award, which recognises significant contribution to the development, promotion and advocacy of play in Australia.

Her favourite games are Marbles, Jacks and making string figures.


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