'My wood isn’t one of those dark and scary ones': children’s experience and knowledge of woodland in the English rural landscape
Recent studies of children have argued that children are suffering from a deficiency in nature experience. Some argue that a lack of experience leads to poor affective relations which for wooded environments may be manifested as fear. This study investigates a geographical knowledge gap in understan...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
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Taylor & Francis
2017
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51204/ |
| _version_ | 1848798441537273856 |
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| author | Watkins, Charles Lisewski-Hobson, Vivyan |
| author_facet | Watkins, Charles Lisewski-Hobson, Vivyan |
| author_sort | Watkins, Charles |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Recent studies of children have argued that children are suffering from a deficiency in nature experience. Some argue that a lack of experience leads to poor affective relations which for wooded environments may be manifested as fear. This study investigates a geographical knowledge gap in understanding children’s relationships with woodland. This interactive qualitative study included 21 junior age children living in a rural setting in Derbyshire, England, UK. Most were found to visit local woodlands regularly, though unsupervised visits were usually limited to woods adjacent to housing. The children demonstrated good levels of practical knowledge though explicit knowledge, such as tree names, was generally poor. The majority children had positive attitudes towards woodland, especially those with the greatest experience. Adventure, calm and freedom were identified as major themes. Fear was widespread but rarely dominated and was often associated with exhilaration linked to cultural imaginaries such as computer games and films. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:19:49Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-51204 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:19:49Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | Taylor & Francis |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-512042020-05-04T19:22:19Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51204/ 'My wood isn’t one of those dark and scary ones': children’s experience and knowledge of woodland in the English rural landscape Watkins, Charles Lisewski-Hobson, Vivyan Recent studies of children have argued that children are suffering from a deficiency in nature experience. Some argue that a lack of experience leads to poor affective relations which for wooded environments may be manifested as fear. This study investigates a geographical knowledge gap in understanding children’s relationships with woodland. This interactive qualitative study included 21 junior age children living in a rural setting in Derbyshire, England, UK. Most were found to visit local woodlands regularly, though unsupervised visits were usually limited to woods adjacent to housing. The children demonstrated good levels of practical knowledge though explicit knowledge, such as tree names, was generally poor. The majority children had positive attitudes towards woodland, especially those with the greatest experience. Adventure, calm and freedom were identified as major themes. Fear was widespread but rarely dominated and was often associated with exhilaration linked to cultural imaginaries such as computer games and films. Taylor & Francis 2017-12-11 Article PeerReviewed Watkins, Charles and Lisewski-Hobson, Vivyan (2017) 'My wood isn’t one of those dark and scary ones': children’s experience and knowledge of woodland in the English rural landscape. Landscape Research . ISSN 1469-9710 (In Press) |
| spellingShingle | Watkins, Charles Lisewski-Hobson, Vivyan 'My wood isn’t one of those dark and scary ones': children’s experience and knowledge of woodland in the English rural landscape |
| title | 'My wood isn’t one of those dark and scary ones': children’s experience and knowledge of woodland in the English rural landscape |
| title_full | 'My wood isn’t one of those dark and scary ones': children’s experience and knowledge of woodland in the English rural landscape |
| title_fullStr | 'My wood isn’t one of those dark and scary ones': children’s experience and knowledge of woodland in the English rural landscape |
| title_full_unstemmed | 'My wood isn’t one of those dark and scary ones': children’s experience and knowledge of woodland in the English rural landscape |
| title_short | 'My wood isn’t one of those dark and scary ones': children’s experience and knowledge of woodland in the English rural landscape |
| title_sort | 'my wood isn’t one of those dark and scary ones': children’s experience and knowledge of woodland in the english rural landscape |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51204/ |