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Children's Geographies
Place and People

Children's Geographies

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Recent Publications 
 
 

 Childhood is now more intensely popularized, politicized, and scrutinized than ever before, and our certainties and confidence about childhood are being challenged. There is a public moral uncertainty about children as popular media depict them as either innocents, at risk from society, or as monsters, destroying the moral fabric of families. At the same time, children are gaining new voices and rights through governments and international conventions. This course explores these spaces of childhood and their interconnections. The course intends to challenge what we imagine about children and childhood from research across cultures, and within our own society.
 This is an interdisciplinary course, using research from cultural geography, cultural anthropology, sociology, psychology and education. We read from widely from critical cultural geography to a novel about growing up. 
 This is a seminar style class. Student participation is maximized through class discussions, reflections on readings, in-class small group exercises, guest speakers and talking about films shown in class.

Required Readings

Children’s Geographies: playing, living, learning.. S.L. Holloway and Gill Valentine, eds. (2000). London: Routledge.
Children’s Engagement with the world: sociocultural perspectives. Artin Goncu, ed. (1999). NY: Cambridge University Press.
Inuit Morality Play: The emotional education of a three-year old. Jean Briggs (1998). New Haven: Yale University Press.
Where we once belonged. Sia Figiel (1999) Kaya Press.

Evaluation
 Participation                         20%
Assignments                         20%
Readings Response Papers   40%
Final Exam                            20%