Children & Society最新文献

Aiming to document children's daily outdoor play experiences in a rapidly developing urban environment, this research is based on a case study involving children living in the central Shichahai area in Beijing to provide an understanding from the scarce Chinese perspective. Based on the development of the SPIT model, this study proposes the SPAT model and investigates its subject from dimensions of space, people, activities and time. This study employs a qualitative triangulation approach to investigating childhood experience, using data collection methods including interviews, observations and diaries. This data record the children's outdoor play experience and its analysis addresses the lack of knowledge and understanding of childhood play experience in Chinese cities. The factors which have a profound influence on children's play experience in a developing urban contexts are discussed and interpreted in terms of a range of factors which have influenced the transformation of the urban environment, including economic development, policy implications and cultural traditions. Based on the insights from this evidence, this study offers recommendations that the SPAT model provides a mechanism for exploring children and their experiences of outdoor environments in different contexts which has a strong adaptation to various contexts.

Walking to school promotes the health of school-aged children. The safety and comfort of the walking environment are lacking in China due to the prioritization of motorized traffic. This paper focuses on the choice of walking routes for school-aged children commuting in old urban areas of China. A walking route choice model is constructed by combining a weighted Voronoi diagram and the closest facility analysis in ArcMap. The walking route choices of school-aged children from home to school and the flows along routes are analysed. Based on the model results, targeted design suggestions for updating existing street spaces are proposed.

This article offers new insights into the important role that transdisciplinary, participatory action research approaches offer young people as a safe space to ‘act’ on climate change and environmental degradation. Drawing upon methodological meta-reflections on three separate, but interlinked, projects (two UK-based, one in Vietnam), we highlight an evolving approach that fuses knowledge, local context and emotional connection to engage action. We argue that these innovative approaches facilitate the empowerment of young people to co-create and lead solutions, adaptations and mitigations that can make a significant impact on the climate and biodiversity crises whilst influencing policymakers and inspiring collaborative change-making.

Over recent decades there has been growing interest in amplifying children and young people's views (CYP) within policy debates. Despite this, they are rarely invited to participate in key policy-making discussions, and when they are, this tends to be tokenistic. This paper presents an intergenerational methodological framework ‘The Causeway Approach’, inspired by the mythology of the Giant's Causeway, which addresses the challenge of CYP's voices being drowned out by adult stakeholders. This contextualised approach has significant potential to benefit CYP and communities through capacity building, strengthening of social capital and fostering intergenerational connections.

Urban poor children have low vegetable consumption due to food insecurities leading to limited access to vegetables. Children's involvement in gardening may improve their vegetable consumption and connection with nature. This qualitative study explored the potential facilitators and barriers related to vegetable consumption and gardening among urban poor children in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Four focus group discussions were conducted among 20 randomly selected children aged 9–12 years, residing in selected low-cost flats in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from November 2021 to January 2022. Thematic analysis via NVivo software was conducted to analyse the transcripts. Children reported several barriers to eating vegetables, such as disliking taste, sensory and appearance, limited accessibility and vegetable availability at home. Most children felt positive and interested to join gardening. The findings are useful in planning nutrition intervention programmes that incorporate gardening as one of the elements to improve vegetable consumption.

When Greece was hit by the global financial crisis in 2009, families with children paid the heaviest toll. In this article, we draw on individual interviews and focus groups with 17 sixth graders, six teachers and six parents at a primary school in the Magnesia region. We use a relational approach to unpacking everyday austerity as it is lived, felt and experienced by Greek children. The empirical material shows how children's well-being is conditioned by the well-being of their families, where emotional stress spills over through witnessing parents' worries. Relational agency enables children to contribute to adversity relief, which seems to enhance not only their well-being but also their resilience, as it is embedded in relations of mutual empowerment and development. Lastly, the study documents how macro policies of austerity measures trickle into the fabric of children's everyday lives and shape familial and intergenerational practices of care and responsibility.

Participatory approaches are important to ensuring that the involvement of children in decision-making is normalised in service provision. Participation work requires that professionals have well-developed engagement skills, and a commitment to the right of the child or young person to participate. Effective participatory approaches also require that organisations provide active support for child-centred practice. The Reconceptualising Services from the Perspectives of Experienced Children and Teens (ReSPECT) approach is an Australian professional development (PD) program that addresses these key aspects of participation work. It offers professionals a way to:(1) increase their awareness of the complex issues, challenges and benefits surrounding participation; and (2) develop a sense of empowerment and competence in the ‘doing’ of participation work. The PD program encourages professionals to understand their own position in relation to participation work with children, develop bespoke strategies that account for their unique practice context and assemble support structures that can maintain their participation strategies beyond the training. The principles and practices of the ReSPECT PD program are outlined and positioned within the existing literature on theoretical and practice approaches. The paper contributes to critical debate on the mechanisms that can lead to changes in professional practice and organisational culture, for the meaningful engagement of children as stakeholders in decision-making. It is shared as a way of supporting others designing professional development approaches for child and youth decision-making.

This paper explores the relationships between low-income single mothers and their adolescent and early adult children utilizing qualitative interview and focus group data with youth from three Canadian cities. The research explored youth provisioning roles in these families. Provisioning, a concept widely understood in the global south, refers to labour used to sustain low-income families and includes emotional labour, care work, trade and exchange and paid labour. Findings from this study identified strong expressions of positive attachment and close relationships between youth and their family members. The paper queries whether positive attachment may be built through roles where youth see themselves as integral parts of a family team and where their contributions are acknowledged. These findings invite us to explore and perhaps challenge the oft-reported correlations between living in a low-income, lone mother-led family and poor childhood outcomes and poor attachment. Can these outcomes be mediated and can the provisioning roles youth undertake possibly be such mediators?