Children's Use of Knowledge of Place in Understanding Social RelationsAnne HarjuMalmö högskolaFaculty of Education and Society

Concepts

• Emplaced knowledge

• Spatial knowledge

(Christensen 2003)

Emplaced

Detailed knowledge of locality, built up through concrete engagement and mobility in and around places. (Christensen 2003)

Direct experiences

Spatial

Places filled with social meaning, associated with spatial knowledge, i.e. formalized abstract and generalized knowledge.

(Christensen 2003)

Place-image = disseminated and commonly held set of images of place, which results from stereotyping or prejudice

(Shields 1991)

Indirect experiences

Context

• The starting point is a small town in the south of Sweden.

• Heterogeneous and complex social situation.

• Different narratives flourishing about social categories and places.

Data collection

The research was carried out in September 2008, December 2008 and January 2009.

Children were accessed through four schools:- two located in highly segregated areas in relation to ethnicity

and socio-economic aspects and two more mixed

A total of 114 children aged 11-12, from ten classes participated (57% girls and 43% boys).

Data collection

Place mapping with group interviews.

In groups of 3–4, the children were asked to place dots on a paper map of the town.

White dots for places they like and red for those they avoid and dislike.

Results

Used emplaced and spatial knowledge of places:

- to understand themselves and others - to make distinction between “us” and “them”

The neighbourhood

• Located in the city centre

• Described as dilapidated and dangerous.

• Singled out in the police’s citizen survey (2010) as perceived as being the least safe place in the town, due to the fear of being attacked or robbed.

• Ethnically diverse and economically disadvantaged with a high degree of rented accommodation.

The school in the neighbourhood

Children at the school were talked about in terms of bullies and bad behaved:

• I don’t like the whole of the [X] area. There’s a lot of bullying there, and I really think that school is unpleasant because every time you have to do something there, some youths always come up to you. Boy

• Where is [X] school? They are creepy. They’re all so terribly cocky. Girl • They don’t behave, they think they’re so cool. Girl

Often links were made to the category of “immigrants”.

”One that we always quarrel with, he’s got some funny name, I would guess that he goes to [X] school.”

• What “they” are like is a negative contrast to what “we” are like.

• Despite the fact that some live in the marked neighbourhood or have siblings and friends who attend the school.

Children at the school

• The reputation was not unknown:

- “they say that our school sucks and things like that”- “lots of people hate our school.” - “the pupils there say that our school is the worst.”

• Expressed mixed opinions about their neighbourhood and their school.

Finally

• Emplace and spatial knowledge of the neighbourhood formed the children's understanding of the inhabitants.

• The children’s emplaced knowledge sometimes contradicted existing spatial knowledge.

• The children's emplaced knowledge was not separated from the local spatial knowledge of the marked neighbourhood.

• The children were engaged in a exchange of knowledge of place with adults.

• They reproduced existing narratives about places and their inhabitants.

• Their understanding of locality is intertwined with global and national discourses about place and social categories.

References• Christensen, Pia (2003). Place, space and knowledge: Children in the

village and the city. In Children in the City: Home, Neighbourhood and Community. Christensen, Pia and O´Brien, Margaret (eds.). Routledge: New York.

• Harju, Anne. (2013). Children’s Use of Knowledge of Place in Understanding Social relations. Children and Society, vol. 27, issue 2, page 150-160, Mars 2013. DOI: 10.1111/j.1099-0860.2011.00396.x

• Shields, Rob (1991). Places on the Margin. Alternative Geographies of Modernity. Routledge: London.