Sarah L. Holloway

Spatiality and the New Social Studies of Childhood

The past two decades have seen rapid changes in the ways in which sociologists think about children, and a growing cross-fertilisation of ideas between researchers in a variety of social science disciplines. This paper builds upon these developments by exploring what three inter-related ways of thinking about spatiality might contribute to the new social studies of childhood. Specifically, we identify the importance of progressive understandings of place in overcoming the split between global and local approaches to childhood; we discuss the ways in which childrens identities are constituted in and through particular spaces; and we examine the ways in which our understandings of childhood can shape the meaning of spaces and places. These ideas are illustrated by reference to our current research on childrens use of the internet as well as a range of wider studies.

Cyberkids? Exploring Children’s Identities and Social Networks in On‐line and Off‐line Worlds

In the first rush of academic and popular commentaries on cyberspace, a stark opposition has been drawn between off-line and on-line worlds—the “real” and “virtual.” Such understandings of the relationship between these spaces are now increasingly subject to critique, yet relatively little is known about how people actually employ information and communication technologies (ICT) within the context of their everyday lives. In this article, by drawing on research with children aged 11 – 16, we provide primary empirical material demonstrating how on-line spaces are used, encountered, and interpreted within the context of young people’s off-line everyday lives. In doing so we consider both how children’s “real” worlds are incorporated into their “virtual” worlds and how their “virtual” worlds are incorporated into their “real” worlds. In other words, we demonstrate how the real and the virtual are mutually constituted. We also reflect on some of the forms of “private” and “public” spaces constituted by children’s activities on and around the screen.

Geographies of education and the significance of children, youth and families

This paper engages with Hanson Thiem’s (2009) critique of geographies of education. Accepting the premise that education warrants fuller attention by geographers, the paper nonetheless argues that engaging with research on children, youth and families reshapes understanding of what has been, and might be, achieved. Foregrounding young people as the subjects rather than objects of education demands that attention be paid to their current and future life-worlds, in both inward and outward looking geographies of education. It also requires a broadening of our spatial lens, in terms of what ‘count’ as educational spaces, and the places where we study these.

Drunk and disorderly: Alcohol, urban life and public space

This paper shows that, despite receiving significant attention, the relationship between alcohol, drunkenness and public space has been undertheorized. We show that where drinking has been considered it has generally been as a peripheral concern of political-economy accounts that have sought to conceptualize the development of the modern city, or more recently the impact of global economic restructuring on urban life and public space. Moreover, such work has posited the relationship between drinking and the political, economic, social, cultural and spatial practices and processes bound up with, for example, social control in modern city or with contemporary gentrification, corporatization, fragmentation and regulation of the night-time economy, public space and revanchist urban policy in very general terms. While drawing on evidence from around the world, this paper focuses on the UK and highlights the need for a research agenda underpinned by a more specific consideration of urban drinking. We suggest that such a project must seek to unpack the connections and differences between supranational, national, regional and local drinking practices and related issues, and in particular pursue a more nuanced understanding of the social relations and cultural practices associated with the emergence of particular kinds of urban drinking spaces.

Geographies of alcohol, drinking and drunkenness: a review of progress:

This paper explores geographical contributions to the study of alcohol, drinking and drunkenness. We argue that where alcohol studies have engaged with geographical issues research has been dominated by a case study approach that has undertheorized the relationship between practices and processes relating to alcohol, drinking and drunkenness and the people and places being studied. We then go on to show the ways in which human geographers are approaching alcohol, drinking and drunkenness via complex interpenetrations of political, economic, social, cultural and spatial issues and unpacking connections, similarities, differences and mobilities between supranational, national, regional and local spatial scales. We argue that such an approach represents a conceptually and empirically important contribution to alcohol studies research. The paper concludes, however, that if geographers are to have a central role in shaping future research agendas then they must engage with theoretical issues in a more detailed and sustained manner, particularly in relation to epistemological and ontological impasses that have to date characterized the study of alcohol, drinking and drunkenness.

On-line Dangers?: Geographies of Parents’ Fears for Children’s Safety in Cyberspace

Children are considered particularly important in debates about the possibilities and dangers of information and communication technologies (ICT). Discourses on ICT contain paradoxical representations of childhood. On the one hand, unlike most other understandings of child/adult relations, these discourses assume children to be equally, if not more, technologically competent than adults. On the other hand, childrens very competence at using ICT is alleged to be putting them “at risk” of abuse or corruption. This paper addresses these moral panics about children and ICT by exploring to what extent and why parents are concerned about their childrens safety in on-line space. In doing so the paper reflects on the extent to which anxieties about children in cyberspace replicate concerns about public outdoor space and the way networked computers emerge as different tools in different households.

Changing children's geographies

This keynote explores the changing nature of childrens geographies as an academic project. It proceeds in four parts. Part 1 considers the shift away from research on childrens spatial cognition which envisaged the child in largely biological terms, and contemplates contemporary efforts to rework the nature/culture dualism. Part 2 traces the incorporation of new social studies of childhood into geography, emphasising the importance of childrens voices, their positioning within axes of power, and the need for quantitative and qualitative methods. Part 3 explores how feminist research led to interest in parents, educators and other actors/institutions which shape, and are shaped by, childrens lives. Part 4 ponders what childrens geographies might add to, and learn from, broader interdisciplinary debates, and the benefits and pitfalls of research impact. The conclusion argues that a well-informed appreciation of sub-disciplinary history provides a strong vantage point from which to engage with new ways of thinking.

Corked Hats and "Coronation Street": British and New Zealand Children's Imaginative Geographies of the Other.

This article contributes to the developing literature on childhood and national identity by considering the ways in which children imagine other nations. Focusing in particular on on-line interactions between children in 12 British and 12 New Zealand schools, the article explores their imaginative geographies of each other, and assesses the ways these visions are endorsed or contested by the children to whom they refer. The article not only illustrates the sources and importance of stereotypical understandings of landscape, people and patterns of daily life in other nations, but also the ways these may be contested through on-line contact.

The Digital Generation?: Children, ICT and the Everyday Nature of Social Exclusion

In this paper we explore the potentially inclusionary and exclusionary implications of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) for children through an examination of ICT policies and practices within UK schools. We begin by outlining the rhetoric of inclusion evident in UK government policy and by reflecting on how these discourses are mobilised in three case-study schools. We go on to consider issues of social exclusion, demonstrating that both material and social factors can prevent access to appropriate computer technology. In particular, we emphasise the importance of the way that children negotiate the meanings and use of computers through their everyday practices within the classroom. The paper concludes by arguing that only when we recognise that children’s use of computers is about not only the broad-scale distribution of resources but also children’s everyday social relations can we hope to institute policies that promote an inclusive ‘information society’.

A Window on the Wider World? Rural Children's Use of Information and Communication Technologies.

Abstract The possibilities which information and communication technologies (ICT) offer people (or groups) to overcome the friction of distance and the constraints of materiality mean that these technologies are seen to have particular relevance in rural areas which have been historically characterised in terms of their economic and social perpheriality. In this paper, we draw on empirical research with children and their teachers and parents, to explore the opportunities which ICT are seen to offer young people living in rural areas. First, we examine the information that children access on-line and how young people make sense of this expanded terrain. Second we focus on communication, by considering childrens use of email and chat rooms. Third, we explore how this information and these modes of communication may be shaping young peoples sense of place in the world. Our findings expose a clear contrast between the ambitious and future orientated ways in which adults imagine ICT will expand their childrens educational and employment opportunities, and social and spatial horizons, and the everyday ways in which these technologies actually emerge for children in practice.