跨国领养与跨文化的“家”——以来华领养的美国公民为例

论文通过对跨国领养的出现及其发展与国际政治气候之间是否存在着某种相关性、美国跨国领养家庭如何建构跨文化的＂家＂等问题的分析论述,揭示了美国公民跨国领养的历时性变化的原因及其相关的国际政治大背景以及通过对美国公民来华领养及其连带形成的社会文化现象。认为某种世界性的关怀与视野,已经是美国中产阶级民众价值观中不可或缺的部分;被美国人所领养的数目庞大的中国婴孩,他们当中的绝大部分人在美国中产阶级或者中产阶级以上阶层的家庭中生活,他们将有着与其他的美国华人不同的社会资源与背景;他们对中国和中国社会文化的理解甚至可能会直接在两国关系上发挥影响,日后必将在美国的华人社区中占有一席之地。     

Girls’ perspectives on the ideal school playground experience: an exploratory study of four Australian primary schools

ABSTRACT

Based on research conducted as part of the Sydney Playground Project, this paper provides an exploratory investigation of the perspectives of girls relating to the ideal school playground experience, and whether their perspectives are influenced by a loose-parts playground intervention. The focus is on the play behaviours of 22 girls aged 8–10 years, from the perspective that school playgrounds are generally designed in ways that are more suited to the play behaviours of boys. The research is based on a qualitative analysis of children’s drawings, interviews and focus groups, exploring meanings associated with desired play experiences. Findings indicate that girls’ views of the ideal school playground are influenced by the geographies of the spaces they play in, and that girls highly valued changes provided by a loose-parts intervention.     

Childhood narratives: adult reflections on encounters with difference in everyday spaces

Research on children and young people commonly focuses on the present experiences of childhood. Yet Philo, C. [2003. “‘To Go Back up the Side Hill’: Memories, Imaginations and Reveries of Childhood.” Children's Geographies 1 (1): 7–24] has argued that we might also access the ‘worlds’ of children and childhood through the memories or recollections of adults, given that we have all been children once. In response, this paper explores the narratives of adults reflecting on their childhood experiences and in particular, on the formation of their attitudes towards difference. The paper offers a means of understanding how adults reflect on their childhood encounters with difference, how their attitudes towards difference are developed over time and the extent to which these childhood narratives are carried into adult lives. This is not to suggest that early experiences are deterministic. Rather, individuals can reflect on their own lives and encounters and choose to change or react to wider social relations in new ways such that they produce and embody new dispositions.     

Children’s participation: moving from the performative to the social

The body of work on children’s participation has been valuable in asserting its importance. Nonetheless, participation is a contested concept and key challenges arise relating to its emphasis on age and voice, its focus on socialising the participative responsible citizen, and its failure to sufficiently recognise the range of participatory activities of children in their everyday lives. This article presents findings of a study on children’s experiences of participation in their homes, schools, and communities including the importance of the relational context, how everyday interactions rather than ‘performative’ formal structures for participation are valued by children and how their participation is limited by adult processes based on notions of competence and voice. It concludes with an argument for recognising and facilitating children’s informal and social participation as well as new forms of democratic processes being developed by children to address the possibility of governance and over-responsibilisation of children.     

‘we don't really get to go out in the front yard’—children's home range and neighborhood violence

This comparison of the home range of sixty 7–11-year-old children in five Cleveland, OH, USA, neighborhoods with different levels of violence/crime revealed: (a) home range was a useful tool to study effects of neighborhoods on children; (b) neighborhood violence had differential effects on range, depending on child's gender, age, and range type. Among 7–9-year-olds, range ‘when alone’ or ‘with a friend’ was similar regardless of gender or level of neighborhood violence. Among 10–11-year-olds, girls of elevated-violence neighborhoods had smaller ranges ‘when alone’ compared to peers. However, some of these girls reported ways to utilize neighborhood resources while accommodating to home-range limitations.     

Experiencing nature and children’s conceptualizations of the natural world

This paper examines young children’s concepts of nature, paying attention to the role played by types of daily experiences with nature on 832 children’s constructions of the natural world. We observed the roles of three types of experiences, as determined by the children’s place of residence (urban, rural mountain range, and rural agricultural) in Spain. Participants wrote what they thought about when hearing the word ‘nature’. Content analysis revealed a conceptual structure formed with four underlying and interconnected themes: (1) natural and non-natural elements, (2) the human–nature relationship, (3) emotional experience of nature, and (4) actions in natural settings. The type of daily experiences with nature (i.e. urban, rural mountain range, and rural agricultural) accounted for variability in children’s concept of nature. These results reinforce the importance of considering the role played by personal and situational characteristics in shaping children’s constructions of the natural world.     

Growing dens. On re-grounding the child–nature relationship through a new materialist approach to children’s dens

This paper contributes to the dawning disruption of the prevailing notion of the child–nature relationship through a new materialist reading of children’s dens, and proffers a re-grounded and worldly gaze on the relationship with implications for the promotion of children’s outdoor lives. The study is an ethnographical field study among 10–12-year-old boys in a Danish school. Data were generated through participant observation, and include video recordings and photographs of children’s dens. Drawing on a flat ontology and plugging in key Ingoldian concepts of meshwork and growing (Ingold 2011a, 2013), the analysis suggests that children’s relations to dens cut across taken-for-granted subject–object binaries and go beyond common notions of nature as inert materials. I find that dens are growing in an ever-becoming meshwork comprised by human and non-human intra-actions, and that agency or vitality can be ascribed broadly to the material world. Possible implications for planning are considered.     

Children practising politics through spatial narratives

The aim is to study children’s politics by exploring how children relate to and rework positions and identities offered to them and others in a residential narrative of ‘Swedes’ and ‘immigrants’. Children’s politics is defined as children practising politics when negotiating and challenging positions and defending identities. The results are based on a reanalysis of two studies. The results show that participating children use the narrative, and to it connected stories about neighbourhoods, to position themselves and to negotiate exclusion, inclusion, identity and belonging. In relation to this they deal with political issues connected to national and global discourses that blame the category of ‘immigrants’ for being the cause of local and national problems. They also reflect on the positions and identities offered in the narrative and use tactics to manage the positions and their consequences. From this point of view, the children practise politics in their everyday lives.     

For the love of cuddly toys

ABSTRACT

This essay reflects upon a particular moment at the end of Chris Philo’s Children’s Geographies lecture [see Philo 2016. “‘Childhood is Measured Out by Sounds and Sights and Smells, Before the Dark Hour of Reason Grows’: Children’s Geographies at 12.” Children’s Geographies 14 (6): 623–640. doi:10.1080/14733285.2016.1187896], when discussion turned to cuddly toys. I recall a particular mood constituted in and by this moment: of apparent bashfulness, hesitancy, things-left-unsaid, and disinclination to discuss cuddly toys within the formal space of an academic conference. I suggest that this incident might be understood as indicative of three sets of silences which, still, characterise a great deal of work within the fantastically vibrant sub-disciplines of Children’s Geographies and Cultural Geographies. This argument is accompanied by photographic portraits of three particular toys: Angus, Arnold and the B.B.D. I hope that the presence of these portraits helps bring to the surface something of the often-silenced geographies – of memories, affects, intimacies and vulnerabilities, of play, fun and care, and of material and popular cultures – upon which my argument is focused.     

War and the emergence of the English parliament, 1297–1360

Although the opening of the Hundred Years' War led the kings of France and England to make similar demands upon their subjects, the effect on the monarchy and on the Estates was markedly different in the two countries. In England taxation gave parliament a central role in the medieval polity while in France it strengthened first local autonomy and then absolute monarchy. Because parliament had an inescapable obligation to grant taxation for common defence, the Commons sought to limit this to periods of open war, and to criticise and control the handling and expenditure of the tax. The character of taxation, as levied by common assent and for the common profit, likewise permitted resistance to the extension of prerogative rights and the assertion of parliament's right to grant the tax on wool. In these matters the Commons were forced into a defensive dialogue with the Crown over their obligations which educated them in political argument and the techniques of parliamentary opposition. The power to levy taxation on grounds of ‘necessity of state’ strengthened both monarchies; but in England this was subject to the assent and authority of parliament which thereby emerged as a political institution concerned with the common needs of the realm.