About the Project
It has been argued that youth in minority world contexts live increasingly sedentary lifestyles with
restricted outdoor mobility (Karsten, 2005). Fewer youth have regular access to ‘green’ landscapes;
these trends are often heightened in urban contexts and vary with gender, age, ethnicity and socioeconomic
status (Karsten and Felding, 2016). Furthermore, youth who do access green spaces like
urban fringe woodlands without ‘appropriate’ adult supervision are stigmatised as behaving antisocially.
But this fails to recognise the manifold benefits that youthful experiences in woodland
provide – from augmented social cohesion, to physical and mental wellbeing (Nesbitt et al, 2017).
In response, the growing Forest Schools movement is recognised as providing important ‘alternative’
(from the educational mainstream) forms of experience with/in woodland space (what Kraftl [2015]
terms ‘alter-childhoods’). However, young people’s access to these programmes remains limited in
scope, often aimed at those deemed ‘at risk’, (e.g. with additional educational needs). This project
considers that a far wider population of youth is nevertheless also likely to be subtly engaging in
‘micro’ practices of ‘alter-childhoods’ through their everyday use of urban woodlands, in ways that
are not (positively) acknowledged, led or managed by adults.
For the first time, this international and comparative study will examine the learning, values and
meanings experienced by youth with/in urban woodlands in one of two ways: those who attend
Forest School programmes; and those accessing urban woodlands independently. It will compare
such experiences in the UK and Peru. Hereby, this research will contribute to acknowledging
potentially diverse youth-initiated interactions with urban fringe woodlands and trigger a reevaluation
of (adult) perceptions of their activities in such settings. The international comparative
dimension to this project will significantly add to the largely Anglocentric literature on theorising
alter-childhoods and alternative education spaces. More broadly, this project will contribute to the
learnings of Forest School practitioners and offer recommendations for the management of urbanfringe
woodlands in ways that acknowledge both adult- and youth-led experiences.
Qualitative research with young people on their engagement with urban forest landscapes in
diverse, international contexts.
In-depth case studies of i) young people’s use/experience of a Forest School programme in
Birmingham; ii) young people’s inform
Funding Notes
Full payment of tuition fees at Research Councils UK fee level (£4,270 in 2018/19), to be paid by the University;
An annual maintenance grant at current UK Research Councils rates (2018/19 is £14,764), to be paid in monthly installments to the Leverhulme Trust Doctoral Scholar by the University.
All studentships come with a minimum of £3,000 Research Training Support Grant. This can be increased, if there are justified project costs, up to a maximum of £12,000.
Funding is available for UK or EU students only. The tenure of the award can be for up to 3.5 years (42 months).
References
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Algonquin Books
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