‘Children in place’: A phenomenography of children’s understandings of place, identity in place and looking after place.

Abstract

Place as an entity is not fixed, but is constructed through subjective understandings. While past research on children and place has tended to focus on children’s special places, this study extends the research on children’s conceptualisations of place arising from everyday experiences. In particular, it explores children’s understandings of place as a phenomenon and insider understandings of place as a local area encompassing everyday life. This research, framed within the broad scope of place theory, explores children’s experiences to provide new insights into child-place relationships that encourage environmentally sustainable practices. The use of phenomenography as a research tool provides a snapshot of children’s conceptualisations of place and of themselves within it. Using an interpretive approach, variation in children’s understandings of the phenomena of place, children’s identity in relation to place and looking after place are explored. The participants are children aged 7 to 12 years living in a geographically and culturally distinct region, and data were collected using open-ended interview questions. Six categories of description were revealed: place is a space and a locality; place has a range of opportunities; place attachment, place identity and belonging; connections, caring and responsibility for place; the developing self in place. This research revealed a pattern of children’s place understandings spanning spatial awareness, the functionality of place, and connections to people and nature. Children develop care and responsibility for place that encompasses both community and environmental components. However, these understandings are affected by self-perceptions of identity in which being a ‘school child’ and ‘not important’ reveals an acute awareness of children’s position in society. Children expressed a conflict between wanting to protect place entities for which they have a close affinity for and value, and the limitations imposed on them as children which act as barriers to self-determination. Emerging ideas on children’s participation should continue to focus on enabling children’s voices and developing children’s capacities as active agents and future environmental citizens.