Three related studies reflecting three perspectives on children's interpersonal relationships, playground games, and social cognitive skills are reported. Subjects for each of the studies were children enrolled in third and sixth grades at three elementary schools in Cincinnati during the 1979-1980 school year. The first study documents the ecology of children's free play behavior during lunch recess. Particular attention is given to the physical setting in terms of equipment, time available for play, and supervision provided, as well as children's reports of play activities and the structural properties of play. The thrust of study two is to explore relationships between and among social cognitive skills, intellectual functioning, age, sex, socioeconomic status, and several social/behavioral measures (such as friendship ratings, popularity, and game-playing status). The second study aims to provide a developmental-psychological and longitudinal perspective on internalized sets of abilities, skills, and characteristics seen as important elements of children's negotiation of play. Study three describes children's behavior during recess for lunch; results reported in this study are based on the analysis of transcriptions of audiotaped field notes recording children's spontaneous playground behavior. Differing theoretical frameworks relevant to the three studies are discussed in the literature review sections of each of the three investigations. (Author/RH)