Bring a hardcopy of your draft to class for peer review. You will also share a copy with me on google documents. This draft will be worth 3 percent of your final grade. The second draft of your essay is due on Tuesday, February 11 th. Bring a hardcopy of your draft to class. This draft will be worth 2 percent of your final grade. The final draft of your essay is due on Thursday, February 13 th.
You will share a copy with me on google documents by the beginning of class. This draft will be worth 10 percent of your final grade. The first and second drafts of this essay will be worth 3 and 2 points, respectively. They are all or nothing points. If you bring your first draft to class and share it with me on google documents before class begins, you will get 3 points.
In what follows, these and other sources are used to consider the meaning of place for individuals, and the role that attachment to place plays in the development of children's identity. Evidence about children's use of space and the implications for the development of their place attachments and associated well-being are examined, along with government policy relevant to children's use of outdoor space.
The article concludes by considering some of the ways that the place attachments of all children and young people, as well as of those in the care system who have experienced significant dislocations, can be promoted for the benefit of their well-being. Our places of origin shape who we are whether we like it or not Chawla, , p. Place exists at different scales, ranging from a particular part of the house or garden in which a person lives, through the streets, shops and other facilities and landmarks of the local neighbourhood or town in which they grow up, out to the wider countryside, region and nation of residence or origin.
Place attachment is normally understood to be part of a person's overall identity, consisting of the memories, feelings, beliefs and meanings associated with their physical surroundings Proshansky et al. According to psychoanalytic theory, cognitions about places are incorporated into the self, creating internalized objects that serve as sources of security at times of stress or isolation Greenberg and Mitchell, ; McCreanor et al.
Places imbued with personal, social and cultural meaning therefore provide a framework within which personal identity is constructed Cuba and Hummon, ; Hay, In these circumstances, where the processes of modernization create risks and uncertainties for individuals, attachment to place, and the sense of belonging and security that it engenders can take on a particularly significant role in people's lives.
However, to fully understand the importance of place attachments, it is necessary to consider their origins in childhood. Children gain their personal identity through their place attachment Spencer and Wooley, , p. Direct and repeated experiences of places in childhood, together with the social meaning attached to them by children and others e. As with other aspects of child development, place attachments therefore grow out of person—environment interactions Proshansky and Fabian, ; Matthews, Up to the age of four or five years, the home is likely to be the main source of place attachment.
However, by the time they leave primary school, children will normally have developed some understanding of their geographical place in the wider world, and will also have experience of exploring parts of their local neighbourhood, either independently or in the company of adults, siblings and peers Siegel and White, ; Matthews, Typically, this is followed in the teenage years by a more conscious attachment to the places in which young people have grown up, evident in growing identification with the area and a desire to continue to live there into adulthood.
Feelings of belonging tend to be strongest amongst young people who perceive that they have been fully included and accepted within their local community, or who have close connections through local ancestry Gould and White, ; Lynch, ; Hay, ; McCreanor et al. Research with children and young people has repeatedly shown that place, identity and well-being are often closely connected Rowles, , ; Chawla, ; Twigger-Ross and Uzzell, ; Day, ; Green and White, ; Irwin et al.
For example, a report that examined a wide range of evidence about the role of place in children's well-being concluded that children's daily experience of living and learning in the environment around them is a critical factor in their overall well-being Sustainable Development Commission, , p.
The next sections therefore go on to examine children's access to their local environments, and how their varying use of space affects their place attachments.
This place called the green, where children play on the grass—it belongs to everyone [boy, Wick] Thomas and Thompson, , p. One of the main influences on children's use of space is their age, with many researchers noting the way that children typically progress from exploration and play close to home in the pre-school years, through widening exploration of their local environment in middle childhood, to town- or city-wide exploration during adolescence Moore, ; Matthews, ; Chawla, Work by Matthews in Coventry, for example, noted a significant increase in the range of children's use of their local area between the ages of eight and nine years.
This study, like many others e. Jones et al. The outdoor environments used by particular children depend on a number of factors besides their age, including their social class and the nature of their local surroundings see, e.
Newson and Newson, , However, studies that have examined children's use of space indicate that favourite places for the majority of children include homes and gardens, nearby streets and associated open spaces, parks, playgrounds and sports fields Moore, ; Gill and Sharps, ; Burke, The levels of safety and risk posed by the local environment, as assessed by both parents and children, also have major influences on children's use of space Garbarino et al.
For example, one study conducted in Belfast found that the mobility of seven to eight-year-olds was severely limited by parental fears of sectarian violence Connolly and Neill, , whilst another study conducted in the same city, but this time with teenagers, found that although their range of exploration was much wider with direct parental intervention less apparent , the young people imposed limits on their daily movements based on their own perceptions of safety and risk Leonard, Assessments of the dangers posed by traffic and crime in different locations also mean that children living in inner-city or other urban locations, where these issues are more prominent, tend to enjoy less independent mobility than their peers living in suburban or rural areas Deakin, ; Morrissey and Smyth, For example, a study of thirteen and fourteen-year-olds living in three different locations in the English Midlands found that those living in urban areas were less likely to travel unaccompanied than their peers in suburban and rural areas, where lone travel, even after dark, was quite common Jones et al.
Other studies have revealed the way that fear of crime, or the presence of busy traffic, have negative impacts on young people's perceptions of their local area, affecting not only their views about its safety, but also about the level of friendliness and helpfulness of local people Morrow, ; Mullan, Children's journeys to and from school are also strongly influenced by parental perceptions about risks, and a number of studies in the UK have revealed the declining frequency with which children are allowed to travel to school without adult accompaniment Hillman et al.
Participant research with ten to eleven-year-olds emphasizes the important role of children's independent journeys to school in the development of their place attachments Ross, For the majority of children in this study, unaccompanied journeys to school, together with the freedom to use local areas in a relatively unstructured way and to visit favourite places and people independently, facilitated a wide range of social and environmental interactions with people and places, contributing to their personal and community identities.
There is also a strong relationship between children's use of space and the rules and meanings that exist within particular cultures Rappaport, For example, empirical evidence of the sort first gathered by Barker and Wright indicates that in order to understand children's behaviour, we need to know more about the cultural rules governing different settings than children's individual characteristics.
Early evidence like this is supported by more recent research in which, when asked about their use of outdoor space, ten to eleven-year-olds living in four locations in England constantly referred to the influence of the social codes and expectations that existed in their particular communities Thomas and Thompson, There is also a link between children's behaviour and cultural artefacts, evident, for instance, in the rapid growth of different forms of home entertainment, including TV, video games and computers, which are available to most children and young people in the UK nowadays.
The cultural norms that influence children's behaviour in community settings are established, maintained and transmitted by a wide range of people who are generally in more powerful positions in society.
For example, public and private authorities often take steps to manage children's use of space through a combination of surveillance and regulation, which includes the employment of staff to patrol neighbourhoods and shopping centres, and the erection of signs prohibiting a range of activities such as cycling and playing ball games Holland et al.
Restrictions like these are often perceived by children and young people to be unjust, especially as they typically lack effective means of challenging them Morrow, The great majority of children also report having been told off by neighbours for playing outside, with a third of seven to eleven-year-olds saying that this stopped them playing outdoors Stockdale et al. Johnston and P. Taylor eds A World Crisis? Geographical Perspectives Oxford: Basil Blackwell, , pp.
Neil Smith uses this vocabulary in noting that: The last hundred years of capitalist development have involved the production of space at an unprecedented level. But it has been accomplished not through absolute expansion in a given space but through the internal differentiation of global space, that is through the production of differentiated absolute spaces within the larger context of relative space. MacMillan ed. Remodelling Geography Oxford: Basil Blackwell, , pp. Brian J. Fred B. Walker and M.
John C. James R. Oxford Handbooks Online. Publications Pages Publications Pages. Recently viewed 0 Save Search. Detecting the Significance of Place. Bin Wong R.
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