'I'm learning nature now with them': what can a holistic perspective contribute to our understanding of the influential relations between young children, adults and a natural environment?

PhD Thesis


Watts, T. 2021. 'I'm learning nature now with them': what can a holistic perspective contribute to our understanding of the influential relations between young children, adults and a natural environment? PhD Thesis Canterbury Christ Church University School of Humanities and Education Studies
AuthorsWatts, T.
TypePhD Thesis
Qualification nameDoctor of Philosophy
Abstract

There is a contemporary concern about children’s loss of contact with the natural world and its associated benefits. Children’s reduced independent mobility is an influential factor and there is growing recognition of an interdependence between child and adult in accessing outdoor play. This research explores a gap in literature through considering impacts on adults in sharing outdoor experiences with children. A Froebelian holistic perspective has been foregrounded within this due to its understanding of child, adult and natural environment relations according to their mutual benefit. This has been investigated though a suburban preschool’s organization of family trips to local natural environments. Twelve participant families with children between two and four years old have formed the focus of research activity. A sensory ethnography approach has framed use of child-worn Go-Pros™ on trips and this footage has formed the basis for sensory elicitation interviews with adults. Fifteen hours of Go-Pro™ footage have been reviewed along with eleven hours of audio-recorded parent reflections. Analysis of these materials has drawn upon a vocabulary of holistic relations offered by the theory of the evolution of human consciousness (Gebser, 1949). This vocabulary gives equal value to the relational qualities expressed by adult and child (Chawla, 2002) and offers a lens through which to consider Froebelian pedagogical relationships. Findings have highlighted the potential for children to draw adults into immersive sensory experiences, big questions, and storied relations with their immediate surroundings. This can balance an adult potential to draw children towards a capacity for abstract relations with a whole or global context. Each can be considered significant in forming rich, thick, continuous connections between individual and whole and can align with sustainability thinking in a need to act local but think global. Froebelian philosophy may now offer a source of guidance towards an education for sustainable development through a path of familiar early years practices revitalized by a holistic logic.

KeywordsInfluential relations; Young children; Adults; Natural environment
Year2021
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Publication process dates
Deposited17 Jan 2022
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https://repository.canterbury.ac.uk/item/90202/-i-m-learning-nature-now-with-them-what-can-a-holistic-perspective-contribute-to-our-understanding-of-the-influential-relations-between-young-children-adults-and-a-natural-environment

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Paying attention to the spiritual flourishing of young children in church toddler groups: a scoping study evaluating the feasibility of a research study in this context
Casson, A., Woolley, M., Pittaway, Ann, Watts, Tansy, Kemp, Nicola, Bowie, B., Clemmey, Katie and Aantjes, R. 2023. Paying attention to the spiritual flourishing of young children in church toddler groups: a scoping study evaluating the feasibility of a research study in this context. Religions. 14 (2), p. 236. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14020236
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