Is There a 'Place' for Children in Geography?Author(s): Sarah JamesSource: Area, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Sep., 1990), pp. 278-283Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20002871 .

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Area (1990) 22.3, 278-283

Is there a ' place ' for children in geography?

Sarah James, Department of Geography, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 2AB

Summary Many premises of geographical studies of the behaviour of adults can be advantageously applied to the study of children-a group whose very numbers and unique characteristics demand more attention than geographers have given them in the past. In many ways children's geographies differ to those of other social groups. We need not only to document these differences but also understand how these differences come about and how they affect children. We also need to incorporate the fact that adult actions mediate the relationship between children and the environment in many ways. This paper aims to provide aforum to discuss the reasons for the exclusion of children from geographical studies so far and also suggests ways in which they might be included.

In recent years geographers have been active in research into questions of inequality. Studies have focussed on class, income, gender and race partly because of a growing belief in the need to expose injustice and work towards a better and fairer future, but also because of the importance placed on an accurate analysis of human geographical phenomena for the development of our understanding of society and space. However, society also differentiates and allocates unequal rewards on the basis of age. Although some work has been carried out on welfare provision for the elderly and children's

mapping abilities, there has been little research undertaken which critically examines the ways in which children's lives, experiences, attitudes and opportunities are socially and spatially structured. For far too long children have been hidden from geography, as well as from other disciplines. Little effort has been made to investigate the role children play in society other than in terms of their adjustments to an adult-dominated and adult-orientated world. In the late 1960s and early 1970s Bunge identified the need to include children in geographical studies, seeing children as our largest minority (Bunge 1973). He devised research programmes for a would-be geography of children, looking at environmental forces which influence children's lives, but little came of these admirable intentions.

More than twenty years on a browse through the vast majority of geographical bookshelves or any geography course syllabi soon makes us realise that geography is! has been dominated by the study of' man ', an adult man, and latterly adult women. We

might in fact be forgiven for thinking that children simply do not exist in the spatial world, since so much geographic research is undertaken in terms of adult experience only. Of course research questions are equally applicable to both adults and children. During the late 1970s it was suggested that geographers should recognise the existence of women and consider, ' How the other half lives ' (Tivers 1978) may I suggest that it is now time to consider how the other third or quarter-the children-live. Many geographical questions which were raised during the 1 970s, along with many others are pertinent to a study of children in geography.

Explanations for this lack of interest in the geographical study of children are implicit in many research areas and methodologies. First, in terms of socio-spatial

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Children in geography 279

relationships there is the idea that children are not prominent members of society, and that their spatial distribution is so similar to that of adults, suggesting that separate investigation is not worthwhile. Secondly, in terms of spatial behaviour there is the implicit suggestion that children's spatial behaviour is a poor indication of the com plexity and sophistication of their minds (but surely this could be said about any human subject)-related to this is the implied assumption and criticism of environmental cognition, that is, that any evidence we have of children's behaviour is unconvincing. Finally, perhaps the topic has been largely ignored because of the indisputable and intrinsic difficulties associated with the study of children and their ' natural ' and humanly created environments.

My answers to these criticisms are as follows. First, today's children are tomorrow's adults. Inevitably from a muddled and puzzling infants' world, we rearrange our experiences to form an adult view. The future generation must be viewed as significant. According to today's geography, we only become significant and worthy of study when we have reached adulthood-and when might that be? If we study the adult population alone, we are ignoring the enduring influence of attitudes, experiences and perceptions of environments from childhood, which could help explain adult behaviour. Surely, if we understand more fully the child's world then we are a step closer to understanding the adult world. Secondly, recent work conducted by Matthews (1980, 1986, 1988), looking at children's understanding of local geographies, in which he notes the child's concern with the minute and incidental as compared to the adult world, suggests we can gain a ' reliable ' understanding of children's behaviour. These studies offer promise for a greater knowledge and understanding of the geography of children. However, as yet research which has focussed specifically on children is mostly less extensive and less sound methodologically than Matthews', tending to emphasise perception and describe children's places, with very few comparative studies considering wider geographical issues, lacking the powerful political intentions advocated by Bunge (1973).

The three research areas mentioned above, socio-spatial relationships, spatial behaviour, and environmental cognition are a further set of reasons for the study of children in geography. It is in these areas that we find most evidence of the differences between children and adults in a number of ways which have specific relevance to geography.

Socio-spatial relationships: land use planning and the provision of facilities

Land use and facilities which involve children are often different to those used by adults. Hence children's ' places ' form a context for behaviour which is fundamentally different from the context of adult behaviour. Even when children share the same settings as adults, such as the home or public space, parks and shopping centres, what they expect and what they are expected to do there is likely to differ, and thus we see variations in ways in which children and adults experience the same environment. For example, in parks the children use the space for play; physical and emotional explo ration and development of various kinds; whilst for the adults who accompany the children the space may perform a social function, a place to meet and talk to other parents and child-minders.

The establishment and distribution of land uses of central importance to children are politically and economically determined, but children remain largely outside the decision-making systems, land use is determined outside the experience and consumer preferences of those affected. In the past, planners' concerns for children have gener ally been limited to the siting of schools and the provision of playgrounds. In fact

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280 James

children may find nothing that is attractive to them in the school playground although the school and its surroundings are one of the few places which are actually designed specifically for them. And yet, there is ample evidence that many children's activities do not take place in these specialised settings, with many children making use of derelict land or simply playing in the street rather than the immaculate purpose-built play

ground. It is time to recognise this fact and create environments in which children can safely negotiate their daily pursuits. But there are few signs that the vast majority of planners are seriously trying even to find out what children's needs actually are.

Environmental planning generally and housing, retailing and planning specifically are areas which are inadequate because of the neglect of children. Attention is increas ingly focussed on problems faced by people (usually women) with children in such environments. For example the provision of creches and mother and baby rooms in department stores are designed to make the shopping experience more enjoyable for the adult concerned, but until very recently little or no attention has been focussed on the children themselves (Allinson 1989). We must bear in mind that,' If the city makes no place for the child, it destroys the man (sic) of tomorrow' (Gregoire 1978, 337).

The nature of environmental threats

Specific environmental entities are threats to some people of some ages and not to others. Children often respond more immediately to environmental conditions as they are often freer of the overlay of symbolic, cultural, and past experiences that influence adult relations. In addition, children may be more subject to adverse impacts of par ticular environmental problems and be in need of protection from them. The dangers to children from potential poison ingestion, low-lying pollutants, and discarded refrigerators, for example, are not normally hazards for adults.

Economic and political dependence Though the child may not be starving to death, by necessity they are dependent for survival on adults. Relationships between adults are for the most part mutually dependent/independent, whereas between adults and children the relationships are one way and dependent. All children are in a subordinate position in relation to adults and do not have much control over their lives. Children are formally excluded from the political structuring of environmental systems. They have no vote, no direct represen tation, and no explicit roles in the electoral and political system. Although children's interests are at stake, research into the views of children which influence the social processes forming the environment are overwhelmingly absent.

Spatial behaviour: behaviour and territory

Children's behaviour is partly channelled into various forms of education (making it controllable), and partly into great amounts of play. The sizes and types of territory which enter into the daily lives of children and adults tend to differ. As adults tend to possess greater degrees of personal strength, experience and autonomy than children, they range through far larger daily territories. Most adults have access to a wider range of modes of transportation, and the demands placed on them as they fulfill a variety of domestic and work-related responsibilities contribute to a larger, more diverse, daily round. Conversely, the more specified and restricted territory of children of specific ages takes on a more overriding importance in their daily lives: it is their effective environment, from which they are less able to escape. Thus one of the key concerns of a geography of children should be to draw attention to (as was previously argued in

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Children in geography 281

discussions of women and geography), the contrasts between the lives of children, centred upon the ' private ' ' protected2 spheres of home, and school, and the lives of adults centred upon the public spheres of waged work and all that that entails. Many parallels can be drawn between the geographies of women and the geographies of children. Women and children always seem to be mentioned in the same breath. The ' special' tie women have with children seems to be recognised by almost everyone. It

could be argued that the nature of this bond is no more than shared oppression. Moreover, this oppression is intertwined and mutually reinforcing in such complex ways that it is difficult to talk about the liberation of women without also including children. Clearly this incorporates very specific implications for children and the adults they become and leaves the way open for comparative geographical studies. This is rather a eurocentric view of childhood. In other cultures children's experience soon becomes very little separated from the adult environment and adult experiences.

Environmental cognition Even when children and adults operate in the same environments, their interpretations of these places are unlikely to be the same. Matthews' (1980, 1986, 1988) studies of children's environmental perceptions and spatial behaviour show with the use of

mental maps, that young children possess a range of mapping and geographic skills not previously anticipated. He suggests that we underestimate the environmental skills of young children, 'We each possess an innate ability to comprehend the world about us which simply increases with experience' (1986, 124). So despite their limited command of graphical and verbal techniques, even the youngest children are able to demonstrate a grasp of the world about them. Perception and cognition are functions of development and experience and influence the ways in which places are used and controlled. It is important to compare adults' and children's assessments of the same environment, because their perceptions may be different, and even if their perceptions are similar, their frame of reference and the importance assigned to the perceived attributes may differ. The capacity for vivid sensory experience, commonplace among children, is an aspect of the world that the adult has lost, not just because the senses are dulled by familiarity, but also because there is an actual measurable decline in the sensitivity to taste, to smells, to colour and to sound (Piaget and Inhelder 1969).

Possible approaches to the geographical study of children

The world of the child is vastly different to that of adults. We have to try not only to describe these differences but also to account for them and to accommodate them in geographical writings. An immediate implication for a geography of children is that, while it may be necessary, it is not sufficient to examine adults' and children's geo graphical behaviour patterns and perceptions of space, find that they differ, and docu

ment the differences. We must also understand how these differences come about. We must incorporate the fact that adult actions mediate the relationship between children and the environment in many circumstances, and vice versa. Furthermore, adults are

ultimately responsible for forming the environments which influence both children's and adults' positions in the social and power structures which is all highly relevant to children and the environment they command. Therefore, studies concentrating on children alone, would lead to a proliferation of topics in (or branches of) the subject in which the spotlight is simply turned onto children: as in for example, 'children and housing ', ' children and space ', ' children and transport '. At its best, such work may

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282 James

document and demonstrate the social inequalities facing children and the intersection of inequalities, but it will not explain why they have arisen.

What I am arguing for is an entirely different approach to geography as a whole. As has been argued for women, children cannot be merely' tagged on ' to existing types of geographical analyses without any alteration to the theoretical assumptions underlying these analyses. Making children visible is simply not enough, they must be viewed as a

meaningful part of the whole population rather than a distinct subgroup. We must go further, and analyse the nature and basis of children's subordinate position and its links

with the environment and with geography. This involves an attempt to link age relations to the wider framework of social

relations which exist in society as a whole, which is structured by other factors as well as age differences. In Britain-an advanced Western capitalist society-class, race and gender are major cleavages which interact with age to produce complex patterns of dominance and subordination. It could be argued that since we find it quite difficult to establish exactly what the differences between children and adults amount to, in reality there are no' valid ' differences between children's and adults' worlds and that children's places and spaces (like women's) are an artificial device created by adults (those who dominate and control the space) to keep the young in their place. This approach could be part of an explanation of the close relationship between women and children and also the antagonistic relationships in terms of violence and abuse between

men and women. There also needs to be a strong emphasis on the importance of understanding the

every-day lives and thoughts of ordinary people. Here approaches advocated by phenomenologists and humanists can be used to examine the way in which the carrying out of particular activities, and the associated use of particular places and spaces, come to be regarded as child or adult. For example, a ' child's space ' is the playground, classroom or garden, while ' adult space' is at work, shopping or in the pub. This division of space is not totally rigid, of course, but is sufficiently marked that certain activities and spaces come to symbolise childhood, others adulthood. An individual

may feel that frequenting particular places and undertaking particular activities consti tute what it means to be a child and what it means to be a grown-up. The strength of phenomenological and humanistic approaches is at the same time a potential source of weakness. One major drawback of this approach is a tendency to glorify ordinary, every-day experience. There is a failure to move beyond the necessary stage of descrip tion, self-revelation and empathy to an explanation and analysis of the reasons for these experiences. This is where a Marxist approach is valuable since it includes a consideration of how power relations and inequalities in society are interconnected.

It is the geographer's responsibility (along with environmental planners, edu cationalists, psychologists and many more) to collaborate to ensure that such changes are undertaken. Such an awareness should alter the topics selected and the theoretical context of future studies. The most obvious way in which projects might reflect a geography of children is for researchers to undertake work which examines critically the ways in which children's lives, experiences, attitudes and opportunities are structured by society by the form of the spatial distribution of goals and resources.

Encouragement of a child and geography perspective within all streams of geography should be our aim. Issues concerning children should be incorporated into all geo graphic research endeavours. I am convinced that such incorporation can only improve the quality of life and lead to better balanced human relationships. Whether we are concerned with transportation, environmental perception, housing, migration or a host of other geographical topics, geographers who ignore the importance of children do so

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Children in geography 283

at the risk of overlooking the contributions which a focus on the world and experiences of ' future adults ' can provide.

Geographers must view reality through the eyes of both children and adults. To do otherwise is to remain more than half blind. Changes in thinking will certainly not come easily, nor be instant. It will be a process, a series of steps taken over a number of years. There is a long way to go along a long, difficult but fascinating and rewarding road. The field of children and geography and children's geography is still at the stage of trying to find its legs.

References Allinson J (1989)' Out-of-town shopping centres and the family man' Town and Country Planning February,

58, 45

Bunge W (1973) 'The geography' The Professional Geographer 25, 331-7 Gregoire M (1978) 'The child against the city' Ekistics 45 272, 375-8 Matthews M H A (1980) 'Mental maps of children: images of Coventry's city centre' Geography 65,

169-79 Matthews M H A (1986) ' Children as map makers ' The Geographical Magazine March, 124-6

Matthews M H A (1988) ' Why more boys than girls choose geography at school ' The Geographical Magazine

August, 47-9 Piaget J and Inhelder B (1969) The psychology of the child (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London)

Tivers J (1978) ' How the other half lives: the geographical study of women' Area 10, 302-6

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