Journals@UC (University of Cincinnati)
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Participation for All? Searching for Marginalized Voices: The Case for Including Refugee Young People
No full text*Focus on Australia and New Zealand/Aotearoa | Research Articles
The concept of youth participation has become a familiar and increasingly accepted component of youth work practice, programming and funding in Australia. As governments have become more eager to “take young people seriously” and to “hear” the voices of young people, attempts have been made to reinvigorate the role of young people in the public sphere. Activities often focus on reaching mainstream young people, which exclude marginalized populations, such as refugee young people. This paper discusses the need to create opportunities for young refugees to participate, and argues that the participation of young people requires more than “having a voice.” It is about the right and the ability to advocate on one’s own behalf, to be in control and involved in decision-making processes and interventions. We contend that the needs of marginalized groups of young people are not currently addressed effectively in youth participation strategies
Action, BlastOff, Chaos: ABCs of Successful Youth Participation
No full text*Focus on Australia and New Zealand/Aotearoa | Reports from the Field
This paper presents a case study of a youth-led organization initiated in an Australian capital city to facilitate improvements in an area with poor social infrastructure. The project clearly demonstrates that young people are able to design and implement collective action change programs to improve their local areas, particularly when they have access to advice from a supportive adult. Food, informality and fun in the weekly meetings helped the young people forge strong bonds and contributed to their participation. The original goal set by the group changed substantially over time, but the outcome still benefited the local area. There were some difficulties, including negative attitudes from external agencies about the capacity of youth to manage their own affairs. The project highlights the success that can be achieved with a group of young people using a devolving decision-making approach balanced with respectful adult guidance. Adult mentoring made a significant contribution to the success of BlastOff. Similar groups would benefit greatly from access to capable and resourceful adults who provide appropriate mentorship, facilitation, leadership advice and access to resources. Adults working with groups of young people need to be respectful of their capabilities and able to work responsively with the enthusiasm, excitement and chaos of youth
Children’s Friendship with Place: A Conceptual Inquiry
No full textThis paper explores the conceptual possibilities of place friendship, and posits it as a valid form of place relationship that is different from the more widely accepted place relationship concepts typically considered under the broader construct of sense of place. After reviewing the literature on friendship, a framework for envisioning child-friendly places based on six essential conditions of friendship is proposed: mutual affection and personal regard; shared interests and activities; commitment; loyalty; self-disclosure and mutual understanding; and horizontality. These concepts, when translated into environmental terms with the help of literature from the fields of environment-behavior, environmental psychology and children’s geography, help to define a child-friendly place from a socio-physical perspective. This definition is in contrast to the broad, rhetorical, rights-based goals of health, education, safety, etc. that currently underpin the UN vision of the child-friendly city. This paper proposes that research needs to investigate the functional and phenomenological possibilities of places that children consider to be their friends in order for child-friendly cities to have any real meaning for children
Exposure to Toxicants and Child Health: Comments and Questions
No full textChildren are not little adults. They interact with their environments differently than adults and are uniquely affected by those interactions. This brief comment focuses on children’s exposure to chemical toxicants, tracks current policy changes, and raises questions for consideration, including: How can different sectors, such as urban and rural planners, sanitation experts, engineers, architects, and transportation experts be drawn into the conversation on children’s environmental health? What is the role of the precautionary principle in policies to protect children’s environmental health? What is the role of costbenefit analysis? How can research results be communicated to those whose decisions affect the lives of our children
The National Children’s Study of Children’s Health and the Environment: An Overview
No full textThe National Children\u27s Study will be the largest long-term study of children\u27s health and development ever to be conducted in the United States. By tracking 100,000 children from before birth to age 21, the study will seek to better understand the links between the environments in which American children are raised and their physical and mental health and development. The study will produce information around multiple concerns, including pregnancy-related outcomes; injury; asthma; obesity, diabetes, and physical development; and child development and mental health. For the study, the “environment” is defined broadly, to include physical surroundings; biological and chemical factors; geography; and social, educational, behavioral, family, and cultural influences. This article provides an overview of the goals and objectives of the study, how and where environmental exposures will be defined and captured, the priority health outcome themes to be studied, how participants will be recruited, and study challenges
Watering the Young Stakeholder Participation Tree
No full textInvestments to strengthen partnerships with children and young people have shed light on the operation of two parallel worlds with respect to water, sanitation, and hygiene. These worlds do not function at cross purposes, but their potential synergies are almost wholly unknown. The relatively more visible of the two worlds is produced through traditional water, sanitation, and hygiene programming, in which the sector’s responsibilities are understood to be predominately technical: assessing the physical properties of underground and surface water, designing latrines, providing soap for hand washing. The less visible world is the one produced through the social experiences of children and young people, day in and day out, for whom dangerous and uncouth water, sanitation, and hygiene conditions are matters of exclusion, inequality, violence, humiliation, and discrimination.
This article does not address the dynamics between the technical and social worlds described just now, because, in truth, there really are none to speak of. The focus, instead, is on the nature of the social world that direct consultations with children and young people are bringing to light, and on the challenges for decision makers to do something useful with this information through children’s lenses
Empowering Youth and Creating Healthy Environments in Northern Manhattan: WE ACT’s Youth Programs
No full textRacial minority children, youth and families in the United States suffer disproportionately from urban environmental health problems. This field report focuses on how one community-based environmental justice organization in New York City, West Harlem Environmental Action (WE ACT), has focused on youth organizing around environmental health issues to improve the lives of the individual participants in their youth programs, while supporting larger organizational and community goals for an improved urban environment. WE ACT\u27s youth programs have come in two forms: the Earth Crew Youth Leadership Program and DIFFERENTT (Diverse Individuals Fighting for Environmental and Reproductive Rights Now \u27Til Tomorrow) which focuses on relationships between reproductive, environmental, and community health. This report outlines the social, political, and geographic contexts for WE ACT’s youth programs. It also highlights their underlying experiential learning philosophy, as well as their connections to WE ACT’s community-based environmental health research and political agenda for improving the environment in Northern Manhattan
Response to Reviews of Doing Research with Children and Young People by Vicky Lewis, Sandy Fraser, Sharon Ding, Mary Kellett, and Chris Robinson
No full textResponse to Reviews of Doing Research with Children and Young People by Vicky Lewis, Sandy Fraser, Sharon Ding, Mary Kellett, and Chris Robinso
Resiliency: What We Have Learned by Bonnie Bernard
No full textReviewed Work: Resiliency: What We Have Learned by Bonnie Bernar
Landscape as Playscape: The Effects of Natural Environments on Children’s Play and Motor Development
No full textThis study investigated the impacts of playing in a natural environment on motor development in children. Methods from landscape ecology were applied for landscape analysis and entered into a Geographic Information System (GIS). Localization of play habitats was done by use of Global Positioning Systems (GPS). A quasi-experimental study was conducted on five-, six-, and seven-year old children with an experimental group playing in a natural environment and a control group playing in a more traditional playground. When provided with a natural landscape in which to play, children showed a statistically significant increase in motor fitness. There were also significant differences between the two groups in balance and co-ordination in favor of the experimental group. The findings indicate that landscape features influence physical activity play and motor development in children