Risk, Protection, Provision and Policy

This multi-volume, major reference work serves as a comprehensive resource on children's and young people's geographies. It speaks to a wide audience, from geographers to sociologists, demographers to social workers and policy makers to development agencies.

The volume provides an overview of recent research (within geography and allied disciplines) around the overarching concept of 'safe and accessible places of encounter'. It develops according to three interrelated themes. The first part of the volume examines several of the many spaces children use and that are relevant to the geographies of children and young people including: the city centre and inner city high rise housing, urban versus suburban and rural spaces, local neighbourhoods, the 'home' (for particular groups of children and young people such as child domestic workers in Bangladesh), school playgrounds, services (such as domestic violence shelters), outdoor natural spaces, and life space (where music and arts are presented in a non-political space in Bosnia-Herzegovina). The second part examines how notions of safety, protection and risk relate to providing children and young people with good life chances, and accessible spaces that enhance or reduce well-being.This middle section emphasises the debate about risk and the need to balance risk and safety/protection.

The final part focuses on policy that builds on the provision/identification of spaces, safety/protection and risk. The emphasis is on how policy at different levels (international-national-local-family) helps provide better spaces of encounter and enhances life chances for children and young people. This section also recognises the different levels of policy making associated with different parts of the world and different regional settings. The gap between policy intentions and outcomes is recognised (e.g Cambodia's policies on orphanage tourism). The policy section includes contributions that relate to planning, education, migration, architecture, health, connection and citizenship, and sustainability. It provides insights into how professionals working in these fields can, through policy, enhance children's and young people's lived experiences and living environments.p>

Comprehensive text, the first ever on the subject of Children's and Young People's Geographies Authoritative figures from the field have working together as volume editors Will be continuously updated on SpringerReference.Com Presents easily digested information supported adequately by illustrative material Speaks to a wide range of audience from geographers to sociologists, demographers to social workers, and policy makers to development agencies

Auteur

Claire Freeman is currently a Professor at the Department of Geography, University of Otago, New Zealand where she teaches undergraduate Geography students and in the Master of Planning Programme. Claire has previously worked At Massey University New Zealand, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK, and the University of the North West in South Africa, and as a planner for the Urban Wildlife Trust in Birmingham, UK. She has been a visiting researcher and fellow at Queens University Belfast and the University of Queensland, Australia. As a planner she is deeply concerned about creating better environments for all, but especially for children and young people, and in 2015 visited, Singapore, UK, Australia and the Netherlands to explore new planning developments and biodiversity initiatives.

Her interests are in environmental planning including: sustainable communities, planning for children and young people and planning with nature. Interest in the environment has been a major research thrust with work on drought and community development in rural communities in South Africa, planning for urban nature and urban conservation and people's relationships with nature in domestic gardens. She is currently working on a study about how relationships to nature in the home environment change as people age.

Claire's main area of research is planning, children and young people and the ways planning can enhance living environments so that they work better for children and young people. In 1999 with Paul Henderson and Jane Kettle she co-authored one of the first books on children and planning: Planning with Children for Better Communities. In 2011 Claire and Paul Tranter published their book Children and their Urban Environment: Changing Worlds (Earthscan) which provides a comprehensive account of how the urban environment impacts on children's lives. She is also co-author with Nancy Higgins of the book (2013) 'Childhoods: Growing up in AotearoaNew Zealand'.

A few of her recent research projects are as follows:

1. Natural neighbourhoods for City Children: working with Natural scientists and 187 children living in New Zealand cities she explored how children in cities today make connections with nature and what are the factors that facilitate or frustrate that connection. 2. Dislocation following the Christchurch Earthquake: Children and Young People's Experiences: working with education specialists the study listened to the voices of 954 children and young people whose lives had been impacted by the earthquake who spoke about the effects of the earthquake on their daily lives and the places they lived.

3. Pacific urbanization and children's changing lives: working with educational colleagues in the Pacific, Fiji and Kiribati, the study explored how as the Pacific isurbanising children's relationships to the urban area are changing physically and in terms of their social relationships.

4. Yes we can! Pre-schoolers as evaluators of their city: This research with Dr C Ergler gets pre-school children to build cities using sometimes hundreds of picture cards.

The above projects build on a strong interest in children's relationship to place, especially their local neighbourhoods and how these relationships are changing in response to changed parenting practices, increased transport and more mobile lives.

Paul Tranter is an Associate Professor in geography at UNSW Canberra, where his research on children's geographies began in the early 1990s. He conducted the first Australian and New Zealand study into children's independent mobility. Since then Paul has researched children's independent mobility and active travel, child health and well-being, play and risk, environmental learning, child-friendly environments and children's rights.

Paul was a member of the CATCH/iMATCH research teams (Children, Active Travel, Connectedness and Health / Independent Mobility, Active Travel and Children's Health). These projects, funded by Australian Research Council Discovery and Linkage Grants, involved national research studies of children's mobility and health and the policy interventions that facilitate these.

Working with Karen Malone, Paul's research in Melbourne and Canberra schools examined how some schoolgrounds stimulate play that enhances environmental learning and reduces levels of fighting and bullying. Paul is also a member of the multi-disciplinary Sydney Playground Project team, examining the benefits of outdoor play and the impact of interventions in school grounds to encourage this play. This research is currently focussing on children with disabilities.

As well as research on school grounds and children's mobilities, Paul asexamined children's use of the residential street as a play space, demonstrating that children's play on residential streets has immense value not only for children's well-being, but also for their parents, the wider community and the environment. Taking a global perspective, Paul and Scott Sharpe examined the theme of children and peak …