'It's only as stupid as you are': Children's and adults' negotiation of ICT competence at home and at school

Contemporary discourses about children's use of information and communication technologies (ICT)—which both celebrate children's command of a technology which is seen to be our future, and raise fears that this technology is putting children's emotional well-being at risk—are problematic, resting as they do on essentialist ideas about children, and overt technological determinism. Drawing instead on work within the new social studies of childhood, and the sociology of science and technology, we identify a need for research which examines how children and technology come together in diverse communities of practice. The communities of practice we study are the home- and school-based ICT usage of British school children in the late 1990s. Our research identifies the different ways in which children and adults negotiate children's technical and emotional competence in relation to ICT, and uncovers the varied meanings of childhood and technology which emerge for adults and children in these two socio-spatial environments. These findings not only highlight the spatiality of children's and adults' performances and understandings of ICT competence, but also how these are constituted through the socio-spatial relations which shape the off-line spaces of home and school.     

Twenty-five years of children's geographies: a planner's perspective

ABSTRACT

This paper considers the key trends and changes that have taken place in my 25 years of children's geographies research. I reflect on the growing awareness of children in research but also the continued marginalisation of children and children's concerns in my own planning profession, and the continuing need for a greater presence for Majority world children in research. I ask if we as children's geographers can rise to the growing global challenges children face. To do so will require greater interdisciplinary work and recognition of the ever more complex and dynamic nature of societies if we are to create a robust forward-looking research agenda with and for children.     

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.     

'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.     

The Strange Situation of Attachment Research: A Review of Three Books

Attachment theory currently plays an important role in both research and practice concerned with children's healthy development, yet there is mounting criticism of its core assumptions and methods of investigation. Three recent books bring together a number of these criticisms, based on cross-cultural studies of children in diverse environments as well as an historical analysis of how attachment theory was created and sustained over time. The two cross-cultural books (Attachment Reconsidered, edited by Naomi Quinn and Jeannette Mageo, and Different Faces of Attachment, edited by Hiltrud Otto and Heidi Keller) include ethnographic observations of how infants and young children are cared for in many non-Western societies, as well as research on children's behavior in attachment-related situations. Common themes include multiple caregiving, maternal responsiveness, and autonomy versus relatedness, viewed from evolutionary, cross-cultural, and developmental perspectives. Marga Vicedo's historical study (The Nature and Nurture of Love) offers a scholarly account of the creators of attachment theory and the social-historical context of its development. Based on detailed documentation of the intellectual careers of these people, those who influenced them and those who criticized them, Vicedo builds an argument that attachment theory is not as scientifically solid as has been claimed, and that its core ideas are ultimately damaging to mothers. Taken as a whole, these books suggest seven observations on the current “strange situation” of attachment theory, which are summarized at the conclusion of the review.     

Transitional geographies: making mobile children

Geographers of childhood have variously accounted for the experiences of mobile children. Less has been said about the practices of becoming mobile, including the acquisition of skills, engagement with travel technologies and the shifting child–parent relations implicated in the process. This article explores the making of mobile children through ethnographic research with 7–12-year-olds practising the journey between home and school in Helsinki, Finland. Elaborating on the work of psychoanalyst Donald Woods Winnicott, it argues that families enact flexible spatial arrangements—transitional spaces—to experiment with their attachments to urban environments. Transitional spaces foreground the diverse relations between children, parents and the world, allowing the replacement of standard notions about growing up with situated accounts of how families make space for children's expanding mobilities. Against a cultural atmosphere stressing the risks and uncertainties of childhood, this view opens an affirmative approach to children's geographies—one that emphasises the trust, play and collaboration between adults, children and environments.     

‘So that we don't spoil them’: understanding children's everyday mobility through parents’ affective practices

ABSTRACT

Children's everyday mobility and freedom of movement have been closely linked to parental practices, or what has been referred to as parental ‘mobility permits’ or ‘mobility licences’. Most research tends to focus on parental restrictions, while this article explores the affective practices Swedish middle-class parents use in order to enhance their children's mobility, i.e. how emotions are perceived as enabling parents’ and children's spatial experiences and thus their feelings of safety and security; as well as how emotions are talked of as disabling or disrupting the potential for children's mobility. These affective practices are analysed in relation to the parents’ self-reflexive positioning on a continuum between ‘the helicopter parent’ and ‘the engaged and enabling parent’. The material for the article is comprised of 33 interviews with the children's parents, carried out within a larger ethnographic research project on children's everyday mobility in Sweden.     

Defying Comprehension: Resistance to Uniform Appearance in Depicting the Poor, 1770s to 1830s

Abstract

Applied to contemporary Western clothing as part of the new cultural turn in textile history, anthropology provides unique insights into the relationship between commerce and culture; into the symbolic and social processes that influence the market; and into the ways capitalism functions as a cultural system, not just as a purely economic one. This paper takes an anthropological approach to children's clothing and the changing consumer culture of childhood in Britain in the mid-twentieth century, seen through a particular company (Pasolds Ltd.), their Ladybird symbol and its associated popular culture, and an iconic garment, the Ladybird dressing gown. It provides a case study in a field and period dominated to date by studies of American children's garments and material culture and focuses on the production, advertising and indirect marketing of children's clothing through public culture, from the producer's point of view, a perspective hitherto generally overlooked in work on children's clothes and consumer culture in the mid-twentieth century.     

Does time heal all wounds? Restoring place attachment in Halifax's Point Pleasant Park after Hurricane Juan

On September 29, 2003, Hurricane Juan profoundly altered Halifax's Point Pleasant Park, resulting in feelings of solastalgia (the distress caused by perceived negative changes to a beloved place) as park users mourned the loss of a place that held great significance for the city. Starting in 2008, over 100,000 trees have been planted in order to restore the original Acadian mixed forest to this landscape. Drawing on scholarly literature focused on place attachment and disaster recovery, this paper utilizes interviews (n = 11) and online surveys (n = 79) to determine whether long‐term park users have re‐established positive place attachments in conjunction with the park's restoration. Our results indicate that participants have largely overcome their solastalgic outlook and restored meaningful place attachments to the park. Unexpectedly, our results also suggest that long‐term participants have current place attachments that appear stronger than the place attachments expressed by participating short‐term users, who never experienced the traumatic impact of Hurricane Juan on Point Pleasant Park.     

From Active Young Explorers to Passive Young Consumers: The Commercialization of Canada's OWL Magazine

This article provides a content analysis of OWL magazine, a popular Canadian children's periodical published initially by a non-profit organization and, after 1997, by a for-profit corporation. Researchers examined issues of OWL from 1982, 1992, and 2002 to assess changes in the magazine in response to commercial ownership. Quantitative and qualitative methodologies were used to show how OWL has shifted from a primarily science and animal-themed magazine to a general interest “consumer” magazine for children with features like video game reviews. This shift from 1982 to 2002 is discussed within larger changes in Canadian children's commercial media and marketing. Canadian and American children's commercial media “boomed” during the 1980s and 1990s, placing additional pressure on OWL to incorporate content that met advertisers' interests and emerging consumerist outlook of Canadian children. We conclude by discussing how this research informs ongoing theoretical debates about the commercialization of childhood.     

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’.     

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.     

White skin,black heart? 1 The politics of belonging and Native Title in Australia

This paper explores the ways in which local communities are articulating, negotiating and contesting relationships with place. It does this through a case study of place contestation in the Barmah-Millewa Forest, in south-eastern Australia. A Native Title Claim by the local indigenous community to land and inland waters was heard in the Australian Federal Court while this research was conducted. This has provided an avenue through which to explore the politics of place and identity in contemporary Australia. Recent theoretical discussions of place and identity and their manifestations in Australia are discussed in this paper. Through the case study, the paper demonstrates the complex and problematic ways in which place and identity can be constructed in Native Title Claims, and the intense and unsettling politics of claims to 'belonging' that result. It argues that whilst there is a need to recognize the desire for profound attachments to place of all Australians, we must be mindful of the political ramifications of the particular responses of local communities. The paper concludes that ongoing interdisciplinary and theoretically informed empirical research is necessary to understand the complex context of people-place relationships in settler societies.     

‘Chilling’ and ‘hopping’ in the ‘teenage space network’: explorations in teenagers’ geographies in the city of Mechelen

Within the field of children's geographies several calls have been made to develop ‘teenagers’ geographies’ as a complementary field of research and practice. It has been stated that teenagers remain ‘invisible’ or ‘marginalised’ in public debates as well as in research and practice, even within childhood studies and children's geographies. Further explorations in teenagers’ geographies could contribute to the research on ‘diverse childhoods’. This article explores the spatial worlds of teenagers (approximately 12–16 years) in Flanders (Belgium), a region characterised by a dense network of smaller cities and ‘urban sprawl’. Based on street interviews and observations in a small city several mental maps and patterns of teenagers’ use of public space were identified. Starting from a case study in the city of Mechelen, this article suggests how these perspectives can be integrated into urban planning by identifying and tying together relevant planning layers, thus creating a more closely knit ‘teenage space network’. Wouter Vanderstede is an urban planner, anthropologist and historian. He is a researcher and staff member at Childhood & Society Research Centre–Onderzoekscentrum Kind & Samenleving vzw. Child friendly and teenager friendly planning and design of public space is one of the main research themes of the institute. View all notes     

Constructions of rural childhood: challenging dominant perspectives

This article reviews research on the lives and experiences of children and young people living in rural Minority world environments. The literature reviewed has focused on constructions of rurality in relation to children's experiences, most notably the rural idyll. Alternative constructions of rural childhood, characterised by dullness, horror and deprivation, are also apparent, and associated with insufficient rural activities, resources and transport, marginalisation and social exclusion. The more recent inclusion of children's perspectives on rural living provides a deeper understanding of rural childhood and challenges the dominant perspectives.     

Children's nomination of friendly places in an urban neighbourhood in Shiraz,Iran

This study investigates how children conceive of and value the outdoor environment as a child-friendly one with particular reference to an urban neighbourhood in Shiraz, Iran. It utilizes Chatterjee's (2005. “Children's Friendship with Place: A Conceptual Inquiry.” Children, Youth and Environments 15 (1): 1–26) place friendship construct to find out friendly places and their attributes from children's points of view. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 106 middle childhood children. Findings suggest that a child-friendly neighbourhood is made up of diverse places that children use to meet their different needs. However, formal and informal open spaces, private precincts, and streets in the neighbourhood afforded highest contributions to place friendship.     

An intergenerational qualitative study of the good parenting ideal and active free play during middle childhood

ABSTRACT

This study addressed the question: How and why has the good parenting ideal changed in relation to active free play (AFP) during middle childhood? Twenty-eight middle class and predominantly white adults (14 grandparent-parent dyads) completed individual semi-structured interviews. Data were subjected to a thematic analysis. Two themes (changing expectations for parental involvement in children's lives and increasing expectations to involve children in structured activities) depicted how the good parenting ideal has changed. A further two themes (news media influence on perceptions of safety and concerns about being judged on social media) explained some of the reasons why the good parenting ideal has changed. Perceived needs for parental involvement, supervision, and organized activities appear to contradict the notion of active free play. It may be useful to develop initiatives that are consistent with the good parenting ideal, and to examine parents’ use of traditional and social media in future AFP research.     

The Diocese of Carlisle, 1814–1855. Chancellor Walter Fletcher’s ‘Diocesan Book’, with additional material from Bishop Percy’s parish notebooks

Abstract

Newspaper children's columns first appeared in the 1870s. However, they have been largely overlooked by academic studies of education, children's literature and the newspaper Press. This latter resource has provided rich veins of material for scholars looking for affirmation of contemporary events. The 'miscellaneous' contents of this source, and particularly that of the provincial weeklies, have been largely ignored. This study analyses the development of children's columns in two weekly newspapers, the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle and the Northern Weekly Leader. Both of these newspapers launched societies attached to their children's columns, the 'Dicky Bird Society', which ran until 1940 and the 'Golden Circle', which ceased in 1919. During their existence, these two societies enrolled nearly half a million members, who were then engaged in activities ranging from charitable collections to nature conservation work. Such numbers support the argument that children's columns were a vital element of the popular Press and were more than simply miscellaneous features. These features played a vital commercial role for their respective titles in their adversarial circulation battles by creating a community of readers at an early age.     

Why does child trafficking policy need to be reformed? The moral economy of children's movement in Benin and Ethiopia

This paper challenges policy discourses that frame children's independent movement as intrinsically exploitative and threatening to their development. Drawing on research with children and adults in Benin and Ethiopia, two countries caught up in current efforts to eradicate child migration and the trafficking with which it has become associated, the paper critiques assumptions about children's vulnerability and physical dependence and contests the idea that appropriate childhood is necessarily fixed spatially within stable family structures. It, thus, situates children's migration within socio-cultural and economic contexts and suggests that it should be understood as part of a moral economy that confounds simplistic paradigms that conflate migration with trafficking. Policy suggestions are offered for how best to secure children's well-being through acknowledgement of the important relationship between mobility and child maturation.     

Neon bright: Cool Places,youth cultures and hopeful political-theoretical futures

ABSTRACT

This article provides a reflection on Skelton and Valentine's (1998. Cool Places: Geographies of Youth Cultures. London: Routledge.) book ‘Cool Places’. The article focuses upon the excitement, vitality and sense of challenge that the book afforded when the two authors first encountered it. From these personal memories, the article then offers two sets of wider considerations. In the first, and prompted by the authors’ use of the book in their teaching, it articulates how useful, relevant and engaging even contemporary students find the book, and how it offers a key point of reference within and beyond the teaching of ‘children's geographies'. In the second, the authors seek to re-engage the book's lively, hopeful, yet critically-political orientations, offering a series of challenges for future scholarship in the geographies of childhood and youth. Like the rest of the article, these orient around a sense of what ‘matters’ in and to geographical scholarship on childhood and youth.