Young Lives Research Lab

We had arrived in the Zana Valley of northern Peru the day before, and in the tiny village of Aviacion only that morning. Our small but enthusiastic team of seven had travelled from Canada to this remote, vulnerable community of about 150 families to work with their children over the course of two weeks to design and build a small community play space. Though some initial songs and games had helped to break the ice, we were still shy around each other, mostly smiling or miming pleasantries in an attempt to overcome the language barrier. Anxiety crept in and I began to worry that this participatory design/build process faced too many challenges to be successful – communication barriers, low budget, short time frame, difficulties obtaining materials and tools. But, unsure of what else to do, I pressed on with the day’s plan.

Crowded together on benches in the modest community building, we prepared to listen as the children presented drawings of their favourite local play space or activity. I had asked if they could prepare these sketches ahead of our arrival both as a way of introducing us to the individual children and their preferences, and to prompt them to begin thinking about their existing play environments. As the children began to present their drawings to the assembled group, I pulled out my notepad and recorded the activities and preferences expressed. A palpable buzz rose up as the children began chattering excitedly with one another. Confused, I leaned over to Romulo, one of our interpreters, and asked what was up. After listening for a moment, he turned back to me and said “they can’t believe you’re writing down what they are saying”. Shocked that such a simple, unconscious act on my part – which demonstrated that I was actively listening to and valuing their comments – was so novel and unexpected to the children, I was instantly reminded that the playspace we would collectively design and build was not the most valuable part of this project, but rather the empowering process by which we would go about it. By positioning the children as the chief designers and decision-makers through this participatory process, we were affording them an opportunity that was rare in this isolated community – a chance to have a voice and an active hand in the development of their community environment.

This pilot study tested a child-guided protocol integrating qualitative field techniques with spatial analysis tools to explore children's neighborhood perceptions and use. Sixteen children aged 7-9 in London, Canada led researchers and city planners on guided walks of their school neighborhood to document and
discuss places of significance to them. Children were equipped with digital cameras and maps to record neighborhood features, while adult facilitators recorded the ongoing dialogue and tracked the routes taken with GPS units. Children's photographs from the walks supported a group photo-elicitation exercise that further probed and clarified the children's community perspectives. Location data from the GPS and narratives allowed for the analysis of children's comments and photographs within a geographic information system (GIS). Thematic and spatial analysis of narratives and photographs revealed significant but complex patterns of neighborhood perception and use, suggesting that this child-led protocol is an
effective tool for engaging children in community assessment and for revealing their local lived experience.

This study examines the neighborhood activity spaces (NAS) of 9- to 13-year-old children (n = 143) from seven schools in London, Canada. Data from Global Positioning System (GPS) loggers worn for 7 days were used to isolate and test measures for children’s pedestrian-based neighborhood activity: the maximum distance traveled from home and relative time spent in neighborhood settings. Descriptive and linear regression analyses examined the influence of individual, perceptual, and environmental factors on neighborhood use and travel. Participants spent a large portion of their out-of-school time (75%) in their NAS. Although traveling far from home on occasion, 94.5% of children’s time on average was spent within a short distance of home; participants spent little of their free time in broader neighborhood settings. School travel mode and independent mobility were among the strongest predictors of both distance traveled and time spent close to home. Perceptions of neighborhood safety, neighborhood type, and nearby land uses also influenced local activity.

This paper addresses the use of participatory videography as a way of knowing and bearing witness to the
complexity of young lives in educational research. We outline the principles for engaging young people in
participatory videography. Working in the framework of humanities-infused praxis with, for, and by young
people, we explore the place of visibility and invisibility. We identify what is gained, lost and unsettled in the
use of video as a cultural process and production. We offer our theoretical and aesthetic considerations in
relation to two projects. The first is a project about the youth mental health system in rural Canada, wherein
we explore the fractured system visually through documentary filmmaking in the cinéma vérité cinema genre.
The second is a project in which we are working with young Aboriginal Canadians who are framing the
intersections of mental health and technology through filmmaking. We interrogate videography as a form of
cultural production with the potential for engaging young people in educative experience, symbolic activity
and cultural production. Youth videography offers opportunities for comparative education research in
which social and cultural analyses are made visible. We explicate videography as a potentially meaningful
experience for youth and for a deeper cultural analysis in educational research while addressing the tensions
surrounding its claim to veracity.

Neighborhoods have traditionally served as important settings for children’s independent activities, but use has declined
dramatically. Global positioning system (GPS) monitors, activity diaries, annotated maps, and Google Earth–enabled interviews
captured the neighborhood perceptions, usage, and independent activity ranges of twenty-three children (nine to twelve
years) from London, Canada. While few participants used neighborhood settings on a habitual basis, local parks and homes
of nearby friends were important independent destinations. Usage was strongly influenced by positive and negative social
conditions, but local environments did not generally cater well to the shifting interests of resident children. Embedding childfriendly
affordances through neighborhood planning may improve children’s experience and independent use of local settings.

Returning to Challenges Outlined in General Comment No. 17
This special issue of Children, Youth and Environments has outlined visions to create better play environments, reflected on the fusion of nature in everyday play, considered how play could be better facilitated for particular groups of children, and shown how technology could be used to the advantage of understanding and facilitating play. In conclusion, we reflect on the learning that is pertinent to each of the 11 challenges that were identified in General Comment No. 17. We end by reflecting on the role of experts in improving children’s play.

Outdoor play and independent, neighborhood activity, both linked with healthy childhood de-velopment, have declined dramatically among Western children in recent decades. This study examines how social, cultural and environmental factors may be hindering children’s outdoor and community-based play. A comprehensive survey was completed by 826 children (aged 10–13 years) and their parents from 12 schools (four each urban, suburban and rural) from a large county in Ontario, Canada. Five multilevel regression models, controlling for any school clus-tering effect, examined associations between outdoor play time per week and variable sets rep-resenting five prevalent factors cited in the literature as influencing children’s outdoor play (OP). Models predicted that younger children and boys were more likely to spend time playing out-doors; involvement in organized physical activities, other children nearby to play with, higher perception of benefits of outdoor play, and higher parental perceptions of neighborhood social cohesion also predicted more time in outdoor play. Time outdoors was less likely among children not allowed to play beyond home without supervision, felt they were ‘too busy’ with screen-based activities, and who reported higher fears related to playing outdoors. Study findings have important implications for targeting environmental, cultural and policy changes to foster child-friendly communities which effectively support healthy outdoor play.

Engagement in play has been definitively linked to the healthy development of children across physical, social, cognitive, and emotional domains. The enriched nature of high-quality outdoor play environments can afford a greater diversity of opportunities for play than indoor settings. To more effectively design outdoor play settings, we must better understand how the physical environment supports, or hinders, the different types of play which suit children's needs and interests. However, play typologies or observation tools available to date do not adequately capture the unique characteristics of outdoor play. This paper outlines the development and testing of the Tool for Observing Play Outdoors (TOPO), a new typology of outdoor play, as well as a systematic field observational protocol which can be used to effectively depict children's behaviors in outdoor spaces, as well as evaluate the play environment itself. The tool can be deployed in either a collapsed or expanded form to serve the needs of a wide range of studies and environments. This new tool represents a significant advance in the ability to fully and effectively study and plan outdoor play environments to provide more diverse, high-quality play settings that will support the healthy development of children across the spectrum.

This pilot study tested a child-guided protocol integrating qualitative field techniques with spatial analysis tools to explore children's neighborhood perceptions and use. Sixteen children aged 7-9 in London, Canada led researchers and city planners on guided walks of their school neighborhood to document and discuss places of significance to them. Children were equipped with digital cameras and maps to record neighborhood features, while adult facilitators recorded the ongoing dialogue and tracked the routes taken with GPS units. Children's photographs from the walks supported a group photo-elicitation exercise that further probed and clarified the children's community perspectives. Location data from the GPS and narratives allowed for the analysis of children's comments and photographs within a geographic information system (GIS). Thematic and spatial analysis of narratives and photographs revealed significant but complex patterns of neighborhood perception and us...

This study examines the neighborhood activity spaces (NAS) of 9- to 13-year-old children ( n = 143) from seven schools in London, Canada. Data from Global Positioning System (GPS) loggers worn for 7 days were used to isolate and test measures for children’s pedestrian-based neighborhood activity: the maximum distance traveled from home and relative time spent in neighborhood settings. Descriptive and linear regression analyses examined the influence of individual, perceptual, and environmental factors on neighborhood use and travel. Participants spent a large portion of their out-of-school time (75%) in their NAS. Although traveling far from home on occasion, 94.5% of children’s time on average was spent within a short distance of home; participants spent little of their free time in broader neighborhood settings. School travel mode and independent mobility were among the strongest predictors of both distance traveled and time spent close to home. Perceptions of neighborhood safety,...

Engagement in play has been definitively linked to the healthy development of children across physical, social, cognitive, and emotional domains. The enriched nature of high-quality outdoor play environments can afford a greater diversity of opportunities for play than indoor settings. To more effectively design outdoor play settings, we must better understand how the physical environment supports, or hinders, the different types of play which suit children’s needs and interests. However, play typologies or observation tools available to date do not adequately capture the unique characteristics of outdoor play. This paper outlines the development and testing of the Tool for Observing Play Outdoors (TOPO), a new typology of outdoor play, as well as a systematic field observational protocol which can be used to effectively depict children’s behaviors in outdoor spaces, as well as evaluate the play environment itself. The tool can be deployed in either a collapsed or expanded form to s...

Purpose: Fruit and vegetable (FV) consumption was examined among children aged seven to 10 years in a London, Ontario, neighbourhood. The goal was to determine areas requiring targeted programs to promote healthy lifestyles. Methods: Data were gathered from 136 students in grades 2 to 4. Each student attended one of four elementary schools within a neighbourhood designated a priority by the City of London Child and Youth Network. The Day in the Life Questionnaire was used to collect the data. Instances of FV consumption were compared with Eating Well with Canada's Food Guide (CFG) guidelines. Results: Ninety-eight percent of participants did not follow the CFG-recommended minimum guidelines; they had fewer than five instances of FV consumption daily. Eighty-seven percent had fewer than two instances of FV consumption daily. Conclusions: These data support national findings of low FV consumption among children.

This paper addresses the use of participatory videography as a way of knowing and bearing witness to the complexity of young lives in educational research. We outline the principles for engaging young people in participatory videography. Working in the framework of humanities-infused praxis with, for, and by young people, we explore the place of visibility and invisibility. We identify what is gained, lost and unsettled in the use of video as a cultural process and production. We offer our theoretical and aesthetic considerations in relation to two projects. The first is a project about the youth mental health system in rural Canada, wherein we explore the fractured system visually through documentary filmmaking in the cinéma vérité cinema genre. The second is a project in which we are working with young Aboriginal Canadians who are framing the intersections of mental health and technology through filmmaking. We interrogate videography as a form of cultural production with the potential for engaging young people in educative experience, symbolic activity and cultural production. Youth videography offers opportunities for comparative education research in which social and cultural analyses are made visible. We explicate videography as a potentially meaningful experience for youth and for a deeper cultural analysis in educational research while addressing the tensions surrounding its claim to veracity.