Rethinking conceptualisations of adult-imposed restriction and children's experiences of autonomy in outdoor space

This paper calls for more sensitive understandings of children's experiences of autonomy and restriction in outdoor space. The study with children and adults living in a suburban area of Cape Town, South Africa, suggests that the imposition of adult structure and surveillance on childhood should not be automatically perceived as negative. The children's experiences were more nuanced and must be contextualised with reference to the predominant concern with (in)security in these suburban geographies. The notion of accompanied mobility is then considered to suggest how children's outdoor mobility might be framed as a collective or community responsibility, as opposed to an individualistic concern of parents.     

Childhood in the shadow of war: filled with work and play

This study was focused on war-time childhood. The target period covers the war years 1939–1945 and the years of post-war reconstruction. The research was based on memories of 13 participants who lived in the countryside in northern Finland during the Second World War. The purpose of the study was to find out what children's everyday life was like during the war. According to the results, children did play regardless of the war situation. Children also participated in household work actively. By highlighting children's experiences and perspectives, this study provided important information about children's survival during war time. The study also helps understanding the effects of wars from children's point of view.     

Values and assumptions underpinning policy for children and young people in England

This paper provides an account of current ideas about English childhood that seem to underpin policies ‘for’ children. New Labour values the future adulthood of children more than their childhoods, and stresses children's responsibilities over their rights. Generally, child protection and provision for children has higher status than children's participation. Children are excluded from participation in social life. Traditional psychological formulations remain powerful in their stress on childhood as a preparatory stage of life, where children are socialised into conformity with the norms of social life. However, the last 15 years have seen greater respect for children's own views and experiences, for their rights and for the idea that childhood is socially constructed. But the idea that children are contributors to society is still rarely recognised and they continue to suffer from low social status accordingly.     

Home and away: constructing family and childhood in the context of working parenthood

Little is known about children's views and experiences of their parents’ work?life reconciliation and how these are negotiated in everyday family practices. This article examines families' experiences of work?life reconciliation from both children's and parents' perspectives, drawing on a qualitative longitudinal study with 14 families in Scotland. Such experiences have implications for the spatial and temporal construction of family and childhood in the UK, where working parenthood is increasingly the norm.     

Sameness or Difference? Exploring Girls' Use of Recreational Spaces

Recent publications within childhood studies have advocated the use of the concept of generation in understanding children's everyday lives. In this paper meanings of generation are explored and the benefit of such an approach to childhood research is debated. Drawing upon recent research with a cohort of teenage girls in rural south Northamptonshire, it is shown that what may appear from an adult perspective as a zone of 'sameness' may, from a young person's point of view, be a realm of difference and diversity. It is argued that childhood research which 'looks up' from young people's perspectives can illuminate important issues and generate valuable data for studies of specific generations.     

‘A dog who I know quite well’: everyday relationships between children and animals

Adult discourses often represent relationships between children and animals as beneficial for children's psycho-social development or as reflecting a ‘natural’ connection between children and animals. In contrast, this paper draws on recent work in sociology and geography where human–animal relationships are seen as socially situated and where conventional constructions of the human–animal boundary are questioned. Focussing on children's own perspectives on their connections with animals, it is argued that these relationships can also be understood within the social and relational context of children's lives. It is argued that this ‘relational’ orientation to children's relationships with animals might significantly enhance our understanding of children's lives and also open up ways of thinking about the place of animals in children's (and adults') social lives.     

'Creating a Place to Belong': Girls' and Boys' Hut-building as a Site for Understanding Discourses on Childhood and Generational Relations in a Norwegian Community

The empirical focus of this article is children's huts as a particular place for constructions of identities and peer relations among children in a Norwegian local community. Building huts can be seen as children's construction of special places during childhood. Often these places are seen as secret places, reflecting a separate 'children's culture' developed within a particular microcosm. I argue that the social practices developed among girls and boys are related in complex ways to local cultural practices and the construction of gendered generational relations in the community. The title 'Creating a place to belong' refers not only to children's attachment to particular physical places, but also to children's place within a field of age-related as well as inter-generational relations.     

Family migration decision-making,step-migration and separation: children's experiences in European migrant worker families

Intra-European family migration has extended the realm in which families live and work in Europe. This paper joins a limited number of recent attempts to analyse family migration using a children-in-families approach [Bushin, N. 2009. Researching Family Migration Decision-Making: A Children-in-Families Approach.” Population, Space and Place, 15: 429–443]. In contrast to existing studies on this theme, our focus is on children's migration decision-making, experiences of step-migration and experiences of separation from parents during processes of intra-European family migration. Little is known about children's views and experiences of step-migration and separation from their parent(s) during family migration. Such experiences have implications for the spatial and temporal construction of family and childhood in Europe, where transnational mobility is increasing. This paper discusses children's experiences of separation in two research contexts, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland, to illustrate common features of the phenomena. The paper analyses family relationships relevant to migration decisions and explains their effects on children's agency, as well as on family integrity itself.     

After-school Hours and the Meanings of Home: Re-defining Finnish Childhood Space

School children's use of their home during the after-school hours has become a controversial question in Finnish society. The article discusses cultural conceptions and uses of home as a specific space for children by comparing two different sets of empirical data: children's accounts of their after-school spaces and media debate on the same topic. Activated public concern in media accounts is analysed as a process of re-defining the properties of ‘proper places’ for children, whereas children's accounts are interpreted as expressions of local cultures. For the children, home is an ideal place for spending after-school time, while the public debate portrays the home as empty and children as lonely and unsafe. Definitions of home in after-school time are considered as part of a broader cultural process of re-defining contemporary Finnish childhood in which control turns out to be a crucial dimension of children's ‘proper places’.     

When nature nurtures children: nature as a containing and holding space

Contemporary theories of childhood recognize children as experts in their own lives, individuals whose perspectives are worthy of study. Immigrant and refugee children riding waves of historical, geographical, political, cultural and familial changes are likewise recognized as ‘socially competent actors’, anchored in part by their capacity to express personal interests and to form opinions. In a Montreal-based 2012 phenomenological study, 19 of these socially competent actors representing 5 continents were invited to share their perspectives concerning the role of the natural world in their socio-cultural adaptation process. Data provided information concerning children's lived experiences of nature. Research findings provided strong evidence that children entered into relationship with nature. Within this relationship, nature nurtured children by providing a space not unlike that of Winnicott's ‘holding’ or Bion's ‘containment’.     

The Genesis of the British Hosiery Industry 1600–1750

Abstract

This article examines the historiography of children's dress, arguing that it has been limited by an unreflexive, uncritical conceptualisation of children and childhood. Drawing on insights afforded by the emergent field of childhood studies, by socially inflected perspectives on fashion and dress and by theories of consumption and consumer culture, the discussion turns toward ways of reconfiguring the historical study of children. It is suggested that future work may do well by embracing the ambiguities of children's identities, rather than trying to attenuate them.     

Examining elements of children's place attachment

ABSTRACT

The quality of children's attachments to people has claimed considerable scrutiny in research and practice. Children's attachment to place, however, has received less attention despite its relevance to childhood experiences. This paper explores childhood place attachment and applies Chawla's theory as a guiding framework. This theory delineates places by three forms of fulfillment: security and belonging, social affiliation, and creative expression and exploration. Research from within schools and hospitals cites evidence of children's varied interpretations and their responses to adult domination that drive creativity. Acknowledging the significance of place attachments can inform research, policy and professional practice.     

Changing children's geographies

This keynote explores the changing nature of children's geographies as an academic project. It proceeds in four parts. Part 1 considers the shift away from research on children's spatial cognition which envisaged the child in largely biological terms, and contemplates contemporary efforts to rework the nature/culture dualism. Part 2 traces the incorporation of new social studies of childhood into geography, emphasising the importance of children's voices, their positioning within axes of power, and the need for quantitative and qualitative methods. Part 3 explores how feminist research led to interest in parents, educators and other actors/institutions which shape, and are shaped by, children's lives. Part 4 ponders what children's geographies might add to, and learn from, broader interdisciplinary debates, and the benefits and pitfalls of research impact. The conclusion argues that a well-informed appreciation of sub-disciplinary history provides a strong vantage point from which to engage with new ways of thinking.     

Shaping childhood risk in post‐conflict rural Northern Ireland

The realities of the ethno‐sectarian conflict have dominated the analysis of social problems within the context of Northern Ireland (NI). As a result of this, issues such as non‐conflict related childhood risk have received less attention than in the remainder of the UK. However, with the rapidly changing agenda of the Peace Process there is now the momentum to take a broader approach to examining Northern Irish society. This paper examines children's own experiences of growing up in rural NI and explores their own and adults' perceptions of the risks that they encounter and the resulting constraints placed on children's activity outside the home. It is evident that the legacy and reproduction of ethno‐sectarian conflict still influences notions of fear and mistrust of ‘an ethno‐sectarian other’. However, as shown within this paper these fears run in parallel with other fears that are constructed around concerns over ‘everyday’ risks that are evident in the range of outdoor play practices reported by the children involved in the study.     

Stories in Space: The Geographies of Children's Literature

This paper argues for the uses of children's literature in the study of children's geographies. It focuses in particular on the nature of representations of urban space in children's literature, a genre more usually connected with the pastoral and explores the narrative strategies and approaches of children's literature which does venture into the city. I propose five modes in which the city is written for children and ask, from the position of literary criticism which distrusts children's stories' ability to speak for children, how far these modes can be said to coincide with children's lived experience of the city.     

Pram mobilities: affordances and atmospheres that assemble childhood and motherhood on-the-move

The child-friendly city advocates for children's ‘right to the city’. Much of this advocacy focuses on the independent child, with little attention paid to the accompanied experiences of younger children, such as those travelling in prams. This paper draws on a material feminist perspective to help address this gap. We offer the concept of mother–child–pram assemblage to bring to the fore the corporeal dimensions of everyday pram journeys. By analysing sensory ethnographic materials collected with mothers and young children living in Wollongong, Australia, this paper highlights how the ‘affective affordances’ and ‘affective atmospheres’ of pram mobilities shape urban experience by reference to how motherhood and childhood are achieved on-the-move. We conclude with policy-relevant insights for the child-friendly city.     

Unpacking children in migration research

In the light of calls for children's geographers to attend to happenings beyond the localised perception of children themselves, this piece considers the state of migration studies when it comes to the experiences of children and young people. It provides an overview of existing research and suggests that in the context of migration, more could be done to foreground the perspectives of children in their own right. Given that attending to everyday experience is an endeavour of concern to adult-centric migration research, the paper concludes by suggesting that this might be an area in which children's geographers could contribute to another sub-discipline.     

‘My Journey to School …’: Foregrounding the Meaning of School Journeys and Children's Engagements and Interactions in their Everyday Localities

This paper gives prominence to children's own accounts of school journeys. The characteristics of school journeys in Fife, Scotland are outlined, and the nature of children's school journey experiences discussed. The focus is on children in the latter years of primary school, concentrating mainly on the experiences of those who walk without adult accompaniment on their school journeys. By drawing attention to the meaning of these journeys to children this paper brings to the fore children's active and imaginative engagements in and with their environments. This situates school journeys as an integral part of children's geographies indicative of the regulation of the child's realm and the active part which children play in redefining this.     

Growing up in the shadow of the Second World War: European perspectives

In this Special Issue, the authors explore the various ways in which the Second World War shaped children's experiences in the post-war period. They map the multifaceted interest or non-interest of states all over Europe for children in the years after the war, filter out groups of children who recall that the consequences of the Second World War significantly influenced their childhood, and investigate the childhood policies directed towards them, as well as their childhood experiences and the memories they foster about their childhood. In addition, they have included case studies from Western, Central and Eastern Europe with the aim of sparking a debate as to whether it was only a similar lifecycle that war children in early post-war Europe shared, or if they also had some life experiences in common.     

Situating (Young) teenagers in geographies of children and youth

The past decade has been an exciting and productive period in the study of children's and young people's geographies. The principal aim of this paper is to contribute to this field of research by presenting the arguments for a more substantive focus on teenagers' geographies. Firstly, the terms ‘children’ and ‘young people’ are constructed as synonymous and used interchangeably and the complex transitional positioning of young teenagers—situated between childhood, youth and adulthood—has been relatively neglected. Secondly, many researchers have been engaged in developing methods, which aim to challenge unequal power relations between adult researchers and young participants but little focus has been placed on utilizing participants' own constructions of themselves. The final argument for a more coherent focus on teenagers' geographies rests on the contribution that geographers can make to challenging negative stereotypes of teenagers within policy and the media. The paper concludes by outlining what form an emphasis on teenagers' geographies may take.