It is well known that spending time in nature is beneficial for children (Chawla, 2015). However, in Britain, children now spend less time outside than previous generations (Moss, 2012), which has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic (Natural England, 2021). Furthermore, inequalities in nature access disproportionately affects those from poorer backgrounds and ethnic minority populations, with many losing out due to a lack of quality local provision or societal barriers (Holland, 2021). Children may now, therefore, be particularly dependent on their access to nature being facilitated by educational and childcare settings, but these opportunities may be distributed inequitably.
My doctoral study investigates how children aged three to seven are enabled to access nature within early and primary educational contexts. Drawing on a phenomenological tradition, the work uses a social constructionist approach to explore the value placed on nature and any potential constraints or freedoms experienced by children in state and privately funded schools and nurseries. My study places children’s voices at the heart of the research, using key elements of the creative methodology Photovoice (Wang & Burris, 1997). During fieldwork, child participants took photographs of outside spaces at their schools and nurseries, using printouts of the images to facilitate discussion on the meanings that those spaces held for them. Transcriptions of talk during the photography exercise and subsequent discussions were analysed using a Reflexive Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2022), to develop three major themes.
The first theme explores how there is both structure and agency in children’s interactions with the outdoors. Children expressed feelings of being impeded in their access, through talk of optimal weather conditions or access being restricted by the demands of school life.
