Furniture Design Ideas

The first stage is where children and adults gather the documentation; the second stage is piecing together information for dialogue, reflection and interpretation. The focus in stage one is gathering information led by the children using the tools described above. Each tool can be used in isolation. However the strength of this approach is in […]

The study took place between January 1999 and June 2000 at an early childhood institution, which was part of a multi-agency childcare network or community campus.6 This exploratory study on listening to young children was part of a wider evaluation of the campus, which includes an early childhood centre, a parents’ centre and a homeless […]

There were three main theoretical starting points for this research approach, each based on notions of competency. Firstly, I acknowledged the importance of the ideas expressed in the emergingsociology of childhood. This supports the view of children as ‘beings not becomings’. In other words, their views are not to be ignored because of their status […]

Alison Clark Editor’s introduction ‘In my cave listening to music. It’s magic music from my magic radio.’ This was one response from 3-year-old Gary about his favourite place in the nursery. The statement was one of many insights given by a group of young children, about their views and experiences of everyday life in their […]

Ten years ago I visited an exciting new children’s daycare centre in Souest, Netherlands. I observed that if children were allowed, they would spend as much time as they could outdoors, in any kind of weather. I noticed that in this particular setting, even when children were not allowed to go outdoors, they still sought […]

In the UK, daycare remains the preserve of two social types, each at opposite ends of the wealth divide. Firstly, for the children of relatively well-to – do working parents who can afford to pay for private and very expensive daycare; secondly, it is reserved for children of the non-working poor, who benefit from free […]

Childhood is sometimes described as a state of mind. It is also a distinct physical and mental phase which is experienced between ages one and a half to 16. Although it is debatable when childhood actually ceases and adulthood becomes a reality, for the purposes of this collection, our definition of childhood is broadly determined […]

This is a book about children, for children. However, I suspect it will not be read by many children. Rather, it attempts to provide a framework, a forum within which their views and sensibilities may be better interpreted by adult voices. By encouraging them to describe their worlds in relation to the physical spaces within […]