Karen Malone

Street life: youth, culture and competing uses of public space

This paper examines city streets and public space as a domain in which social values are asserted and contested. The definitions of spatial boundaries and of acceptable and non-acceptable uses and users are, at the same time, expressions of intolerance and difference within society. The paper focuses in particular on the ways in which suspicion, intolerance and moral censure limit the spatial world of young people in Australia, where various regulatory practices such as curfews are common. The author reflects on the failures of the two main strategies that have been used in Australia to control the presence of young people, and concludes with some thoughts about the construction of streets and public spaces as diverse and democratic places.

Geographies of environmental learning: an exploration of children's use of school grounds

There has been limited recent geographic research on childrens use of school grounds. This study explores the impact of school grounds on the play behaviours of children in primary schools. It examines the way in which some features of school grounds stimulate more of the type of play that is likely to produce environmental learning. The paper reports on research findings from two primary schools in Canberra, Australia. At each school, multiple research techniques were employed, including behaviour mapping of childrens play, interviews with children, and analysis of childrens drawings of their school grounds. Childrens play in one school displayed high levels of interaction with the natural environment. The paper provides insights on the potential of school grounds as sites for environmental learning.

Nature and its Influence on Children’s Outdoor Play

A growing body of literature indicates that humans need contact with nature for their wellbeing, however at the same time young children are becoming increasingly separated from the natural world as their access to the outdoors diminishes. The importance of school and prior-to-school settings in Connecting children with nature has been acknowledged. This study sought to find out how opportunities to engage with nature would influence children’s play and social behaviours. Two early childhood centres with contrasting outdoor environments were selected for the study, and twelve focus participants were observed over a twelve-week period in concert with interviews and field notes. The findings suggest that natural environments support children’s imaginative play, the development of positive relationships and allows for the environment to become a place of learning. The authors conclude that in order to make effective use of the outdoors, early childhood centres need to provide children with access to the natural environment and teachers who support children in developing a relationship with nature.

The future lies in our hands : children as researchers and environmental change agents in designing a child-friendly neighbourhood

This paper reports on the Dapto dreaming project that was implemented in early 2011. Funded by Stockland, a large Australian urban developer, the project was a child-friendly research activity to support the building of a new urban development located in the outer suburbs of a large regional city in Australia. The urban developers provided a unique opportunity for children to have authentic input into the design of the urban development so that the development could incorporate the visions and experiences of the local neighbourhood children growing up in the area. Therefore, this was not a process of post-design consultation but a genuine participatory action research opportunity for children to be dreamers, designers and agents of change. The project was implemented through a series of child-focused participatory research workshops conducted with residents and children from Horsley, a neighbourhood in the suburban town of Dapto. This paper seeks to understand the relationship between the significant rich environmental experiences that children have as part of their everyday life in Horsley and how children were motivated and competent in enacting their role as effective environmental change agents and stewards in the protection of nature through the design of a child-friendly neighbourhood.

Environmental Education Researchers as Environmental Activists

SUMMARY This article is a reflective account of a researchers journey whilst embarking on a study which was political in its intentions and participatory in its orientation. Learning from feminist writings, where researchers have shared stories and explored notions of insider/outside, academic/activist, the central argument of the article is the development of an activist approach to environmental education research. The article draws on a doctoral research study which was a critical ethnography of a school and community engaged in a socially critical approach to environmental education.

Global Perspectives on Children's Independent Mobility: a socio-cultural comparison and theoretical discussion of children's lives in four countries in Asia and Africa

The article provides a comparative analysis of childrens independent mobility in four countries – South Africa, Tanzania, Japan and Australia. The authors discuss key findings across the four study sites and illustrate the contextually bound nuances connected to the data at the community level. The data illustrate that while Japanese children have the most independence generally, Japanese children who live in a small town outside of a main city centre have significantly lower mobility than their city counterparts, and levels of car use for driving children to school are similar to levels in Australia. The results also reveal that while children in South Africa generally look to be more independent, have fewer restrictions and are accompanied less by parents than children in Australia (which appears to have the highest rate of accompaniment), the community-wide data illustrate that children living in the high-income city communities have the least amount of independence of all sites in the four countries, with travel to school by car as high as 87%. Additionally, the research illustrates that age is not a clear determinant of a growing increase in independence and mobility in communities. An inspection of the data reveals possibilities for considering the heterogeneous perspective of childhood where the intersection of childrens locales and how children traverse them is as significant as the aggregated data that provide universal notions of the childhood experience. The final discussions provide some opportunities to consider Prouts introduction of a life course approach for reconceptualising children and childhood, which he believes allows for a multiplicity and complexity of childhoods. This concept is seen to be helpful when considering how to include global perspectives in childrens independent mobility without universalising childrens life experience.

Theorizing a child–dog encounter in the slums of La Paz using post-humanistic approaches in order to disrupt universalisms in current ‘child in nature’ debates

This paper theorizes childrens interspecies relation with dogs in La Paz Bolivia utilizing post-humanism and new materialism as its approach. This approach allows for the deconstructing of human–nature binaries found in discourses central to the children in nature movement. Questioning the universalizing of childrens experience in nature the paper considers three propositions. Firstly, what if children were viewed as nature rather than outside of it. Secondly, can the objects or ‘things’ of nature be viewed as animated. And finally, how sensitive is the contemporary imperative to reconnect children to a romanticized more natured life, to childrens diverse worldly experiences. I explore these propositions drawing on a study where I have adopted a materialist ontology and theorized using the work of [Barad, Karen. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press] and her concept of intra-action as adopted by Rautio [2013a. “Children Who Carry Stones in Their Pockets: On Autotelic Material Practices in Everyday Life.” Childrens Geographies 11 (4): 394–408]. Based on my child–dog interspecies exploration, I will conclude by re-addressing the three propositions.

Australian children's independent mobility levels: Secondary analyses of cross-sectional data between 1991 and 2012

This study investigated changes in Australian childrens independent mobility levels between1991 and 2012. Data from five cross-sectional studies conducted in 1991, 1993, 2010, 2011 and 2012 were analysed. Parent and child surveys were used to assess parental licences for independent mobility and actual independent mobility behaviour in children aged 8–13 years. Findings show declines in the proportion of young children (≤10 years of age) being allowed to travel home from school alone (1991: 68%, 1993: 50%, 2010: 43%, 2011: 45%, 2012: 31%) and travel on buses alone (1991: 31%, 1993: 15%, 2010: 8%, 2011: 6%, 2012: 9%). Furthermore, the proportion of children travelling independently to school decreased (1991: 61%, 1993: 42%, 2010: 31%, 2011: 32%, 2012: 32%). Significantly fewer girls than boys travelled independently to school at each time point (p ≤ .001). Overall, the findings suggest that Australian childrens independent mobility levels declined between 1991 and 2012.

Children's rights and the crisis of rapid urbanisation : exploring the United Nations post 2015 sustainable development agenda and the potential role for UNICEF's Child Friendly Cities Initiative

Within a rapidly urbanising world, many governments, particularly those in developing nations, will struggle over the next 30 years to support children. There were many key issues and challenges for children in cities identified over a decade ago as countries embarked on the task of addressing and monitoring progress through the Millennium Development Goals (mdgs). But as the 15-year time frame of the mdgs draws near and urbanisation swells and sets to increase significantly in those countries with the least capacity to manage it, it is the post-2015 agenda that is now the key talking point for many un agencies. This article supports and argues, along with others, that the rights and needs of the most vulnerable children and their communities should be central to the post-2015 sustainable development goals (sdgs) and unicef through its urban programmes such as child friendly cities initiative (cfci) has a significant role to play in addressing both the crisis of urbanisation and children’s rights. This article concludes by identifying four key areas where unicef’s cfci has the potential to contribute to the planetary challenges ahead.

Childhood in the Suburbs and the Australian Dream: How Has it Impacted Children's Independent Mobility?

This article presents the research results from a study conducted in New South Wales, Australia about primary school childrens independent mobility (CIM), their concerns, and the concerns of their parents. These results are compared with a similar study conducted in 1992. Data were collected using written questionnaires, one for children and one for their parents, distributed via three primary schools. The key findings indicate that school travel has not substantially changed over the past 18 years, although there has been a slight mode shift from walking to school bus travel. Children would like to engage in active transport and have more freedom to do other activities on their own; however, parents restricted CIM based on age, and concerns about traffic and strangers. Although there were localised differences in the survey results, it is hard to determine what influence these factors had on CIM.