Children Becoming Social Actors

Using Visual Maps to Understand Children's Views of Environmental Change

Abstract

This article discusses using visual maps, a participatory action research technique that captures spatial and cultural data, to represent the views of children on environmental issues. It describes the experience of coding maps created at the United Nations International Children's Conference on the Environment in Victoria, 2002, by 400 children ages 10 and 12 years old representing 60 countries. While there are challenges to using visual maps as research data, we show them as providing an opportunity to validate children's knowledge. Maps indicate that children have many ideas of what is required for environmental change and that they call for change both at a systemic and individual level. However, they view themselves more likely to prescribe for change rather than carry it out themselves. More broadly, the analysis speaks to the value of children's active involvement in research and development.