How do we understand children and young people’s lives in ways that do not rely on nostalgic romantic ideals or demonising prejudices? Can the geographical concepts of space, place and spatiality enhance our understanding of childhood and how children experience their lives as social actors? This book draws on a rich and growing academic literature concerned with the spatiality of childhood and the spaces and places in which children live, learn, work, and play. It examines changing ways of seeing space, place and environment and how these can promote rethinking about children’s lives across local and global scales. In common with other texts in the “New Childhoods” series, it asks for a reappraisal of modernity’s assumptions about childhood and for a move towards full participation of children and young people in matters that concern us all. Combining critical discussion of theory with examples drawn from research, Rethinking Children’s Spaces and Places offers readers a language to facilitate rethinking and catalyse active responses to the challenges of 21st-century childhoods.
David Blundell is Principal Lecturer and Programme Director for Education Studies at London Metropolitan University, UK. He is the author of Education and Constructions of Childhood (Bloomsbury, 2012).
Series Editor's PrefaceAcknowledgementsPrefacePart I: Debates, Dilemmas and Challenges: Childhood and the Place of Children1. Introduction2. Modern Childhood as a Symbolic Space and Children as Social ActorsPart II: The Issues and Debates Defined: Space, Place and Spatiality3. Spatiality and Understanding Children’s LivesPart III: Implications for Children’s Lives4. Scholarisation and Institutional Spaces of Childhood5. Playing Out: Range, Territories and Children’s Activity Space6. Constructing Identities and Children in Relational Space7. ‘Nature’ and Discursive Spaces of Childhood8. Globalization and Future Spaces of ChildhoodBibliographyIndex
[Blundell] writes in a highly engaging style, with a lightness and clarity that makes some very difficult theoretical material highly accessible to a wide audience. For this reason, the book will be an invaluable resource to support undergraduate teaching.