| Geographies of Children
and Youth |
 |
| CERG has a committed interest
in how young people use, think about, and make sense
of places and in their everyday lives. Much of the research
has focused on young people’s access to resources,
as defined by them, and the opportunities that these
places afford. This has lead to a concern with children’s
territorial range and the factors that restrict their
access to resources, particularly for play, recreation
and social relations. We have also been equally concerned
with the quality of places frequented by children and
how those places meet the needs of children and youth.
We are also concerned with how landscapes are arranged,
consciously or not, in relation to people’s different
conceptions of childhood. Another area that has been
considerable attention by our team are the ways that
young people form their identities though their relations
to space and place and how they develop attachment to
places and community. |
|
| Recent
Projects: |
|
| The Worlds of Adolescents
in New York City |
|
| A project was conducted
by Pamela
Wridt in collaboration with two public middle
school teachers and young people living in Brooklyn
and Queens. This project had several objectives: 1)
to co-develop an after-school geography curriculum
with educators and students that stimulated young
people to critically analyze the geography of their
everyday world, 2) to develop a product, in this case,
an atlas developed by and for young people, that could
serve as a resource for the community to promote urban
planning that was informed by young people’s
perceptions and experiences, and 3) to document the
research experience in a way that would enable other
educators to carry out a similar project in their
own communities. A brief description of the project,
its methods and samples of student atlases can be
found at National Council for Geographic Education’s
homepage at (www.ncge.org/activities/atlas).
|
|
| Related
Publications:
Wridt, P. (2000). Growing up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn,
New York City: Young people’s perspectives about
their environment. In From the Hudson to the Hamptons:
Snapshots of the New York Metropolitan Area,
Miyares, I., Pavlovskaya, M. and G. Pope (eds). Washington,
DC: Association of American Geographers.
Students of Intermediate School 318, Ortiz, A. and
Wridt, P. (2000). Growing Up in Williamsburg,
Brooklyn, New York City: An Atlas by and for Young
People.
Students of Intermediate School 125, Kopchains, J.
and Wridt, P. (2000). Growing Up in Queens, New
York City: An Atlas by and for Young People.
Sponsored by the Geography
Education National Implementation Project (GENIP),
an umbrella organization of the National Geographic
Society, the Association of American Geographers,
the National Council for Geographic Education, and
the American Geographical Society. |
|
| The Changing Recreational
Landscape of Young People
|
|
This project analyzes
the history and geography of play, sports and leisure
opportunities for young people in New York City. This
project is part of a multi-year advocacy effort with
the policy and advocacy organization, New Yorkers
for Parks, to revitalize public play and recreation
in New York City. CERG has completed an archival analysis
of the changing history of play and recreation policy
in New York City and has collaborated with public
schools in the Bronx and in Manhattan to demonstrate
how to work with local communities and children to
evaluate public access to play and recreation spaces.
Sponsored by New Yorkers for
Parks |
|
| Makes Me Mad : Stereotypes
of Young Urban Womyn of Color |
|
A participatory action
research project facilitated by researcher Caitlin
Cahill at the Center for Human Environments, City
University of New York, Graduate Center, 2002-3. The
research team is composed of six young women (aged
16-22) who are also residents of the Lower East Side
neighborhood. Researchers have been trained in social
research skills as part of an immersive process where
they worked together over the course of a summer to
conduct research on their own everyday lives. The
project is concerned with two related issues:
• What is the relationship between the lack
of resources (for ex. education) and stereotypes of
young urban womyn of color? In what ways does stereotyping
affect young womyn’s well-being?
• How does reinforcing stereotypes lead to
the way you explain—characterize—understand
yourself and others? How does this then affect negatively
the community?
We invite you to check out our website: www.fed-up-honeys.org.
For more information or for a copy of our report please
contact us at all_honeys@fed-up-honeys.org
Related publications
Cahill, C.; Arenas, E.; Contreras, J. ; Na, J. ;
Rios-Moore. I.; and T.Threatts (2004) Speaking back:
Voices of young urban womyn of color. Using participatory
action research to challenge and complicate representations
of young women. In Anita Harris (ed) All About the
Girl. New York: Routledge
Rios-Moore, I.; Arenas, E.; Contreras, J. ; Na, J.
; Threatts, T.; Allen, S.; with Cahill, C.(forthcoming
2004) Makes Me Mad: Stereotypes of Young women of
Color. Report published and distributed by the Center
for Human Environments.
Cahill, C. (forthcoming 2004)Defying Gravity: Raising
consciousness through collective research Special
issue “Inclusion, Exclusion, and Belonging”
Children’s GEOGRAPHIES.
|
|
|
