Natasha Blanchet-Cohen

Taking a Stance: Child Agency across the Dimensions of Early Adolescents' Environmental Involvement.

This article examines the nature of early adolescents environmental involvement based on a study with 10–13‐year‐olds. Drawing from literal and metaphorical interviews, a visual survey and visual maps, the study points to the dimensions of environmental involvement: connectedness, engagement with the environment, questioning, belief in capacity, taking a stance and strategic action. Childrens agency runs across the dimensions, as children intentionally and strategically figure their way through significant life influences, beliefs towards nature and age‐defined barriers. Of interest is what the sources of environmental involvement are, as well as how a child interacts and engages in situations and with resources at hand. Along with awakening to the natural environment, children are discovering themselves and carving a place in the world.

Young Children and Educators Engagement and Learning Outdoors: A Basis for Rights-Based Programming

Research Findings: This article reports on a study undertaken with 4 early childhood programs in a medium-size city in Canada investigating young childrens and educators perspectives on engagement and learning possibilities outdoors. A rights-based methodology including participant observations and interactive activities with children as well as focus groups and discussion groups with educators reveals the diversity and richness of young childrens learning opportunities in the natural outdoor space. Educators also talk about forming more egalitarian and fulfilling relationships with children in outdoor activities. The value educators placed on play in natural spaces led to the creation of opportunities for play outside and motivated educators to support childrens interactions outdoors by mediating policy and societal fear of the risk of outdoor play. Practice or Policy: The results of the study highlight the value of a learning community for early childhood educators so that they might support childrens full use of outdoor space and the critical role of adult allies in advocating for rights-based programming.

Partnership between Children and Adults?: The experience of the International Children’s Conference on the Environment

This article discusses the potential and dilemmas of children’s participation in large-scale international events. It focuses on the experience of the International Children’s Conference on the Environment (ICCE), which brought together 400 children aged 10-12 from 60 countries around the world. ‘Partnerships’ between children, children and adults, and children and institutions during the planning of the event serve as a focal point for the analysis. The article considers how the partnerships behind the scenes were often strained, and though challenging, this may be a necessary characteristic of meaningful child participation. The article also highlights the critical place of learning as an outcome of partnership. This leads to a discussion on how partnerships need to be fostered in the everyday lives of children, in order for child participation in one-off events to be effective.

Creating Settings for Youth Empowerment and Leadership: An Ecological Perspective

Youth development programs are increasingly focusing on youth empowerment and leadership, a shift which often requires adult staff to adopt new roles and practices. This article explores staff practice in the context of a multisite initiative designed to engage marginalized youth in social change through youth-led grants. Interviews with youth workers and managers revealed practices at multiple ecological levels. Individual-level practices supported youths’ capacities to participate. Group-level practices fostered social interactions and activities that actualized the youth-led approach. Setting-level practices created structures that supported and protected group activities while organization-level practices promoted a favorable environment for youth leadership. Analyzed from an ecological and activity settings perspective, these results contribute to understanding the multifaceted and complex nature of youth work in power-sharing practice models. Practice implications include identifying training needs to help practitioners navigate across multiple ecological levels and suggesting reflection questions for practitioners.

Youth-Led Decision Making in Community Development Grants.

This study examines youth-led decision making (YLDM) among groups of youth who are providers or recipients of community development grants. Focus groups, interviews, and participant observation with 14- to 20-year-olds and supporting adults showed youth have a preference for consensus-based decisions. Youth used due process to reach decisions while valuing differing viewpoints. Adults created appropriate spaces and guided without controlling. Youth directly involved in the YLDM process experienced the greatest and most immediate benefit though other youth, and the community as a whole also felt positive impacts over time. The study considers the type of supports required for young people to make meaningful decisions and points to the capacity of youth, and the potential of YLDM, for community development.

The Journey of Hope: A Group Work Intervention for Children Who Have Experienced a Collective Trauma

This article presents the Journey of Hope, a school-based group work intervention for children and early adolescents who have experienced a collective trauma such as a natural disaster. This broad-based intervention takes an ecological approach to prevention and treatment and focuses on normalizing emotions and building coping skills after a disaster. Through the use of group work interventions such as use of rituals, group problem solving, and experiential and reflective learning, children and early adolescents work toward enhancing protective factors to help them in their recovery. Considering the short- and long-term emotional strains children may experience after a disaster, such group programs should be more widely accessible in schools.

Immigrant Children Promoting Environmental Care: Enhancing Learning, Agency and Integration through Culturally-Responsive Environmental Education.

This paper examines the potential of culturally-responsive environmental education to engage immigrant early adolescents. Our study suggests that environmental involvement can become a means and an end for children to bridge their school and home in agential ways. Drawing from a multi-phase study involving focus groups with children, parents, and teachers from three culturally-diverse schools in Montreal, as well as a green action research project, we examine children’s role as environmental educators and ambassadors. The role of environmental ambassador allowed children to take on positions that departed from conventional parent-child social scripts, and enhanced the communication between school-student-home, between generations, and spoke to their sense of place. We contend that culturally-responsive environmental education offers a unique space for enacting democracy, knowledge creation and integration, but this opportunity is often squandered. Bi-directional, responsive, and consistent home-school-community-place relations need to be actively supported.

Environmental education action research with immigrant children in schools: Space, audience and influence

This article considers environmental projects as means for engaging elementary school-aged immigrant children in their community. Based on an environmental research project with children aged 9–12 involved in their school’s Green Committee (GC), we identify multiple components for enabling meaningful children’s participation. Space was essential in creating a context for children to discover and express their voice. The combination of capacity-building and research activities as well as rapport-building between children, adults and the environment fostered care and ownership. Reaching out to a variety of audiences including peers and parents helped orient and strengthen the GC’s actions. The children were listened to but also actively sought and responded to audiences. Influence involved receiving external funding, completing landscaping of the school’s front courtyard as well as engagement with adults considering (or not) members’ views. The project showed that if supported by committed and facilitating adult educators these children remained motivated and that their process had the power to lead others into action and change. Children valued the socio-physical and aesthetic aspects of the environment, and furthermore, their engagement provided them with a sense of belonging. The GC experience itself illustrates how an action research project that involves a small group of children can serve as a model to create meaningful participation of children and broader partnerships in schools on collective interests.

Au-delà de l’accréditation : changement et continuité au sein des « villes amies des enfants » du Québec

Quels changements suscite l’accreditation Ville amie des enfants dans les politiques locales et dans les representations que celles-ci vehiculent de l’enfance ? Cette question est au coeur de l’analyse d’un programme quebecois cree en 2009, qui prend appui sur une demarche de recherche-action (2011-2013) dans deux villes accreditees, completee par des entretiens semi-diriges aupres d’employes de huit autres municipalites accreditees. Changements et continuite ont ete observes sur trois plans : (1) les domaines couverts par les politiques et projets, (2) la participation des enfants a l’elaboration de ces politiques et projets, et (3) l’utilite que les employes municipaux attribuent a l’accreditation.