“If you went out it would stick”: Irish children's learning in their local environments

Abstract

This paper reports on the findings of a research project investigating children's experiences of their local environments. Children's experiences of spaces and places and the interaction of such experiences and their learning were investigated, using mixed research methods, informed by phenomenological and participatory methodologies. Through these activities including discussion, interviews and drawing, children described how they experienced affordances of spaces, places and people in a range of ways. The children also revealed varied and dynamic attitudes to their local environments. Children's use and opinions of the environment were influenced by temporal, physical, social and economic factors. As well as expressing that such local experiences enhanced their current lives, the children also described how experiences in their local environment contributed to the different areas of their development, including their learning. For most children, such experiences emanated from outside school, with learning in geography in school more likely to be about places farther from home. These findings suggest that attempts to make children's geographies in their local environments central to primary geography through content and activities like many of those outlined in the Primary School Curriculum would be successful. The children's views also suggest that the contributions of all children could be used in decision-making beyond schools. Such consideration and development of children's geographies has the potential to contribute to children's lives as active citizens, currently and in the future.

Keywords:

• children's geographies
• geography education
• Irish education
• geography curriculum
• primary geography
• geography fieldwork

Acknowledgements

This project was made possible by the children who took part; so, the author wishes to thank all the children involved for their enormous contribution to the project. She also wishes to thank the teachers who facilitated the project in their classroom. This project was partially funded by the Research Committee of St. Patrick's College, to whom the author also expresses her gratitude. The author wishes to thank Janette Elwood of Queen's University, Belfast and Simon Catling of Oxford Brookes University for their support in this project.

Notes

*Names of schools have been changed.

*As measured by a Mann–Whitney U test where p < 0.05.