Children's Geographies is an area of study in human geography, studying the places and spaces of children's lives. Human geography is a branch of geography that focuses on the systematic study of patterns and processes that shape human interaction with the environment, with particular reference to the causes and consequences of the spatial distribution of human activity on the Earths surface. ... A male Caucasian toddler child A child (plural: children) is a young human. ...

An interest in children's geographies has developed in academic human geography since the beginning of the 1990s, although there were notable studies in the area before that date.

This development emerged from the realisation that previously human geography had largely ignored the everyday lives of children, who (obviously) form a significant section of society, and who have specific needs and capacities, and who may experience the world in very different ways. Thus children's geographies can in part be seen in parallel to an interest in gender in geography and feminist geography in so much as their starting points were the gender blindness of mainstream academic geography. Human relationships within an ethnically diverse society. ... Gender describes a classification using masculinity and femininity. ... Feminist geography is an approach to study in human geography which applies the theories, methods and critiques of feminism to the study of the human environment and society. ...

Children's geographies rests on the idea that children as a social group share certain characteristics which are experientially, politically and ethically significant and which are worthy of study. The pluralistion in the title is intended to imply that children's lives will be markedly different in differing times and places and in differing circumstances such as gender, family, and class. A family of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in 1997 A family consists of a domestic group of people (or a number of domestic groups), typically affiliated by birth or marriage, or by comparable legal relationships — including domestic partnership, adoption, surname and (in some cases) ownership (as occurred in the Roman Empire). ... Social class refers to the hierarchical distinctions between individuals or groups in societies or cultures. ...

Children's geographies is sometimes coupled with, and yet distinguished from the geographies of childhood. The former has an interest in the everyday lives of children; the latter has an interest in how (adult) society conceives of the very idea of childhood and how this impinges on children's lives in many ways. This includes imaginations about the nature of children and the related (spatial) implications.

There are a whole range of focii with children's geographies including children and the city, children and the countryside, children and technology, children and nature, children and globalisation, methodologies of researching children's worlds and the ethics of doing so; see the otherness of childhood. Night view of Taipei City. ... Rural areas are sparsely settled places away from the influence of large cities and towns. ... By the mid 20th century humans had achieved a level of technological mastery sufficient to leave the surface of the planet for the first time and explore space. ... The deepest visible-light image of the universe, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. ... Globalization is a term used to describe the changes in societies and the world economy that are the result of dramatically increased trade and cultural exchange. ... This page may meet Wikipedias criteria for speedy deletion. ...

There is now a journal of Children's Geographies^[1] which will give readers a good idea of the growing range of issues, theories and methodologies of this developing and vibrant sub-discipline.

References

1. ^ Journal of Children's Geographies