1st Edition
Children and the Environment in an Australian Indigenous Community A psychological approach
Aboriginal children represent one of the fastest growing population segments in Australia, yet the lives of Aboriginal children in their environment has rarely been subjected to systematic and in-depth study. In this book, Angela Kreutz considers the relationship between the environment, attachment and development in indigenous children, examining theoretical constructs and conceptual models by empirically road testing these ideas within a distinct cultural community.
The book presents the first empirical study on Australian Aboriginal children’s lives from within the field of child-environment studies, employing an environmental psychology perspective, combined with architectural and anthropological understandings. Chapters offer valuable insights into participatory planning and design solutions concerning Aboriginal children in their distinct community environment, and the cross-cultural character of the case study illuminates the commonalities of child development, as well as recognising the uniqueness that stems from specific histories in specific places.
Children and the Environment in an Australian Indigenous Community makes significant theoretical, methodological and practical contributions to the international cross disciplinary field of child-environment studies. It will be of key interest to researchers from the fields of environmental, ecological, developmental and social psychology, as well as anthropologists, sociologists, and those studying the environment and planning.
Introduction Part 1: A Matter of Perspective 1. ‘Come This Way’: Research with Children. 2. 'That's My Home': Historical and Contemporary Insights Part 2: Children and Place 3. ‘I Go Everywhere’: Children’s Spatial Activity 4. ‘Playing Around’: Affordances of Place 5. ‘A Deadly Place’: Place Attachment and Aversions Part 3: Design Possibility 6. 'No One Swims There Anymore': Lack of child-environment congruence 7. ‘See The Future’: Design Recommendations.
Biography
Angela Kreutz is a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) postdoctoral fellow at the Children, Youth and Environments Research Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder, USA.
"Angela Kreutz’s book is an unusually profound contribution to the research literature on child-friendly environments and children’s environmental experiences...Although many important contributions to child-environment research stress the universal characteristics of environmental child-friendliness, Kreutz’s work is a very important reminder of alternative truths and a more complex reality." - Marketta Kyttä, Children, Youth and Environments, Vol. 25, No. 1 (2015)
