Environment and children’s everyday lives in India and England: Experiences, understandings and practices Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Catherine Louise Walker University College London (UCL) Supervised by: Professor Ann Phoenix, Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education Professor Janet Boddy, Centre for Innovation in Research on Childhood and Youth, University of Sussex 1 Declaration I carried out the study presented in this thesis as a doctoral researcher on the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods node NOVELLA (Narratives of Varied Everyday Lives and Linked Approaches), and in collaboration with researchers on two research studies, Family Lives and the Environment and Young Lives. The thesis presents data that have been generated through collaborative work between myself and members of these research studies. I conducted all of the new research in children’s schools and almost all of the new interviews with children in their homes. Except where explicit attribution is made, the analyses presented in this thesis are my own. Word count (exclusive of appendices and bibliography): 79,976 words 2 Abstract In the context of heightened global concerns about resource sustainability and ‘climate change’, children are often discursively positioned as the ‘next generation’ by environmentalists and policy makers concerned with addressing ‘climate change’ and environmental degradation. This positioning serves to present a moral case for action and to assign children a unique place in the creation of more sustainable societies. In this study I critically engage with the assumptions about children’s agency underlying such positioning by considering these assumptions in relation to children’s situated narratives of environment and everyday life. The children’s narratives were generated through multiple qualitative research activities carried out with twenty-six 11-15-year-old children living in a variety of contexts in India and England, as part of two wider research projects to which this study is linked, Family Lives and the Environment (part of NOVELLA – Narratives of Varied Everyday Lives and Linked Approaches) and Young Lives. The study treats country-level differences as one of a number of intersecting structural varieties alongside children’s socio-economic positioning and gender; an equal number of boys and girls living in rural and urban settings and from affluent and poorer families are included in both countries. Employing a narrative, case-based approach, the research examines the ways in which children exercised agency by presenting themselves as responsible individuals with considerable knowledge about environmental concerns, whilst often stressing their awareness of the limitations of what their own actions taken in response to these concerns could achieve. In contrast to policy framings which often accord responsibility to children to enact and influence ‘pro- environmental’ changes in the spaces of their everyday lives, children’s narratives point to the need for sustained multi-generational and institutionally- led action to tackle environmental degradation as it is now and as it may affect children and families in varied contexts in the future. 3 Table of contents Declaration .............................................................................................................................. 2 Abstract ................................................................................................................................... 3 List of tables and images ....................................................................................................... 7 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................ 8 Preface: Learning from children’s narratives ..................................................................... 10 Chapter One: Background to this study 1.1: Climate change: The ‘great leveller’? .......................................................................... 12 1.2: Environmental governance and everyday life ............................................................ 15 1.3: Children in climate change policy ................................................................................ 19 1.4: Environment and children’s everyday lives in India and England............................. 22 1.5: Overarching aims, research questions and contribution of this study ...................... 27 1.6: Structure of this thesis .................................................................................................. 29 Chapter Two: Environment and children's everyday lives in existing scholarship 2.1: Children’s agency: Theoretical and political developments ...................................... 31 2.2: Exploring children’s agency through relationships, materials and spaces............... 36 2.3: Conceptualising environment in an era of global concern ........................................ 42 Nature and human life ......................................................................................................42 The ‘global’ environment ..................................................................................................44 Space and place in local-global contexts .......................................................................45 2.4: Children’s embodied experiences of their environments ........................................... 47 2.5: Children’s responses to environmental education messages ................................... 53 2.6: Children and families’ negotiations of environmental knowledge ............................. 56 2.7: Summary of literature reviewed and areas for further research ............................... 60 Chapter Three: Methodology and methods 3.1: Theoretical foundations of the study ........................................................................... 63 A narrative approach ........................................................................................................63 Multi-method research .....................................................................................................67 Learning from contextual variety .....................................................................................70 3.2: A linked PhD study........................................................................................................ 72 3.3: Secondary analysis of Young Lives data .................................................................... 74 Generating a sub-sample for secondary analysis .........................................................75 Analysis of Young Lives data ..........................................................................................78 3.4: Ethical considerations in secondary analysis and new data generation .................. 81 3.5: New data generation in India and England ................................................................. 85 4 Constructing a research sample .....................................................................................87 Learning from existing studies to design the research ..................................................92 Piloting the research.........................................................................................................94 Methods used to generate new data ..............................................................................95 Analysis of new data ......................................................................................................100 3.6: Summary ..................................................................................................................... 104 Chapter Four: Children's narratives of environment in Young Lives data 4.1: The affordances of children’s environments over time ............................................ 107 4.2: Children’s expressed environmental concerns......................................................... 119 4.3: Discussion ................................................................................................................... 125 Chapter Five: The affordances of children's everyday environments 5.1: The affordances of children’s homes ........................................................................ 129 The home as a form of protection from environmental hazards .................................131 Spatial and material affordances of children’s homes .................................................139 Material objects and virtual expansions of domestic spaces ......................................143 5.2: The affordances of children’s outdoor environments ............................................... 149 Factors mediating children’s use of outdoor spaces ...................................................152 Children’s sensory stories of their journeys to school .................................................159 5.3: Discussion ................................................................................................................... 167 Chapter Six: Children's situated understandings of environment and environmental concern 6.1: Forms of knowledge and sites of learning about environment ............................... 170 School-based learning and practices ............................................................................170 The home as a site for learning and consolidating environmental knowledge..........174 Local laws, government activities and ‘authoritative knowledge’