Charting Generational Differences in Conceptions and Opportunities for Play in a Japanese Neighborhood

Abstract

This paper is written about the transformation of children's playing spaces in one neighborhood in Tokyo (Taishido district in Setagaya ward). As part of an action research project that was initiated in 1981 and followed up in 2005, play maps were created for residents of four generations. In exploring historical changes in the town that have affected the play of children, we found many unwelcome patterns of change that have the effect of decreasing nature spaces, limiting communication between children, and even decreasing children's play outdoors. On a positive note, this action research illustrated an effective approach for engaging people of different generations and encouraging them to pay more attention to environmental changes that have an impact on children's play and to take actions to improve the neighborhood for and with children. This paper is meant to contribute to our understanding of children's environment issues, an area that has roots in several disciplines, including human development, environmental psychology, geography, urban planning, architecture, and landscape architecture.

KEYWORDS:

• generational differences
• children's environments
• play maps
• intergenerational dialogue
• Japan neighborhood
• children
• three generation
• neighborhood
• childhood
• action research

Notes

1. “Action research” is a method that was originally created by Kurt Lewin (1950), and it developed in different ways after that, in part with influence from the movement of citizen power in the 1960s and 1970s in United States. It is now a popular method in community development and citizen participatory community design. Hart (1997) introduced action research as a useful method for studying and promoting various forms of children's participation. In David Driskell's book on youth participation, some of his methods were derived from our action research method (Driskell, 2002).

2. Data for the 1925 and 1955 were collected via interviews with adults who were children during these periods and who shared their childhood play experiences (20 respondents for each time period). Data from 1982 was collected via questionnaires filled out by 237 children in grades two, four, and six, and data from 1986 was collected from 478 children in grades one through six filling out the same questionnaire.