Spencer, C. & M. Blades, 2006, Children and their Environments: Learning, Using and Designing Spaces,, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
- Author : Spencer, C. & M. Blades
- Year : 2006
- Title English : Children and their Environments: Learning, Using and Designing Spaces,
- Publisher : Cambridge University Press
- Publisher's Location : Cambridge
- ISBN : 13 978-0-521-54682-9
- Pages : 279
- Abstract : The editors of this compilation of short chapters asked the contributing authors “to review theories of children's perceptions of space and place, and to show applications to the world of children.” In their brief introduction, they stress the “action-oriented stance” of many researchers in environmental psychology, a broad label under which they also include education, sociology, geography, and planning (p. 1). They make the case that environmental psychologists strive for better environments, discover correlates of well-being, arm designers with information about people's needs and perceptions, and provide tools to evaluate the effects of places and buildings on behavior and well-being. Overall, this seems a fair description of the papers in this collection. Together, they provide research-based reviews of various methods of research used in studies of children's and adolescents’ perceptions, knowledge and use of their environments at various spatial scales, while also discussing several approaches to participatory planning and design involving young people. The book's 15 chapters are organized into four parts: (1) Children's Understanding of Places; (2) Children's Experience of Places; (3) Adolescents’ Worlds? and (4) Children and the Design Process. There is no clarification of the genesis of the chapters, although they appear to have resulted from targeted invitations to ensure broad coverage. This coverage is restricted, however, to high-income countries in the northern hemisphere. This restriction is understandable, since most of the research on these topics has taken place in that part of the world. The editors were, of course, constrained in how much ground the book could cover. It would not be fair to criticize the book for what it does not include. However, considering the emphasis that it places on research that informs actions aimed at improving the environmental conditions of children, it would have been fitting to mention the prevalence of environments of greater disadvantage. Many of these environments exist in other world regions, where every day thousands of young children die owing to lack of access to safe water and adequate sanitation or because of exposure to environmental pollutants. Serious environmental deprivations are also found among subpopulations of children in the western world. These situations are not a focus of this book. This delineation of topical concerns is, of course, perfectly fine but an acknowledgment that would sketch the wider scope of work in the field would have been welcome (from