‘Our garden is colour blind, inclusive and warm’: reflections on green school grounds and social inclusion

Abstract

In the interest of enhancing children's environments, communities around the world are ‘greening’ school grounds, replacing asphalt and manicured grass with a diversity of design elements such as trees, shrubs, gardens, water features, artwork and gathering areas. Despite a growing body of research from a number of disciplines exploring the potential of these spaces, very little is known about the ways they can promote social inclusion with respect to gender, class, race and ability. This paper explores the relationship between school ground greening and social inclusion in a Canadian public school board where approximately 20% of more than 500 schools have begun the greening process. A mixed methods approach was used: (1) 149 questionnaires were completed by administrators, teachers and parents associated with 45 school ground greening initiatives; and (2) 21 follow‐up interviews were conducted with administrators, teachers and parents at five schools across a range of socio‐economic statuses. The study revealed that green school grounds are more inclusive of people who may feel isolated on the basis of gender, class, race and ability, suggesting that these spaces promote, in a very broad sense, social inclusion.

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on a larger study supported by the Canadian charitable organization Evergreen and by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. That study, entitled ‘Gaining Ground: The Power and Potential of School Ground Greening in the Toronto District School Board’, is available online at http://www.evergreen.ca

Notes

1. A number of terms have been used to describe changes occurring on school grounds, including ‘school ground gardening’, ‘school ground naturalization’, ‘school ground restoration’ and ‘school ground greening’. While there are important differences between each term, and while each term is itself somewhat contested, for the purpose of this paper ‘school ground greening’ will be used to describe collaborative efforts to improve school grounds. (For a more detailed explanation of the differences between each term, see Houghton, 2003).

2. This list of schools was generated when the school board was preparing a document related to school ground greening, at which time all schools in the board were asked to indicate if they had a greening project.

3. In circumstances where the original questionnaire respondent was unable to participate in the follow‐up interview, a replacement interviewee (with a similar role) was sought.