Well-being and outdoor pedagogies in primary schooling: The nexus of well-being and safety

Abstract

Society today is inundated by a multitude of messages regarding the risks and dangers that affect youngsters, with media constantly talking about 'cotton wool' kids (see Furedi, 1997Furedi, , 2001Furedi, , 2006 and an 'obesity epidemic' (see Wright and Harwood, 2009). A social panic has been created by the media, which ignores the positive outcomes of risk-taking, sensationalises risks, and focuses on the dangers of the world. In popular discourse contradictions are in evidence, on the one hand adults are concerned about the safety of young children; on the other hand many argue that society wraps children in 'cotton wool' such that they are denied opportunities to play outdoors for fear of accidents. Research has shown that negotiating risks and relating them to individual capacities is essential for the development of young children and their ability to learn from their mistakes and become aware of their personal health and safety (Fenech, Sumsion, & Goodfellow, 2006). This paper is based on a pilot study that explores young children and their significant others' perceptions and experiences of risk and safety, looking particularly at the ways in which experiences of outdoor learning may affect the well-being of children. Using an ethnographic approach the research examines how parents and teachers define well-being, and how being in the outdoors is seen to affect pupils' well-being. This paper, a work in progress, asks if and how outdoor activities, through outdoor learning, contribute to the physical and emotional well-being of young children, briefly touching on theories of power and control.

Losing our way? The downward path for outdoor learning for children aged 2–11 years

“…A risk-averse culture (Furedi, 2002;Humberstone & Stan, 2009) can further depress the freedom teachers feel to offer activities that they may nevertheless believe are beneficial for children. As one of the respondents to our survey pointed out:…”

Love letters to services past: risk and outdoor education in youth work

“…These societal and cultural concerns can, ironically, put children and young people more at risk by not giving them enough experience of managing risk successfully; further a lack of opportunity to access the outdoors can, it is claimed, impair hild e s development (Gill, 2007;Humberstone & Stan, 2009;Prince et al, 2013). This has led Baillie, amongst others, to pose the question -how far should we expose young people to risk?…”

“…I argue that this particular legacy means that the approach to risk from an outdoor education perspective can be narrow and focused on physical risks. As a risk averse society, the temptation is to over protect young people and not allow them to have experiences that help them to become risk aware, because of the perceived dangers (Gill, 2007(Gill, , 2010Humberstone & Stan, 2009). This is an important contradiction, as it means that youth workers involved in outdoor education have to wrestle with the competing tensions of trying to support young people s need to understand and experience risk, as their job is to expose young people to risk not harm (NOS, 2012;Sercombe, 2010), but workers feel they will be held responsible if anything goes wrong (Fulbrook, 2005).…”

“…This combination of legislation, together with the rise of managerialism and performativity (discussed earlier in this chapter), would suggest that youth o ke s engagement with risk in the Page 66 outdoors in England is constrained by particular legal, political, social, and historical forces, meaning that the o ke s perceived agency is curtailed. Risk is seen as being culturally located, and, so in other countries where litigation is not as constrained, for example, risky situations are less fearfully perceived (Humberstone, 2009). …”

“…Dunning, a protégé of Elias , exemplified this idea through boxing, which eventually became more i ilised by becoming apparently less violent over time. The employment of the concept of the civilising spurt to outdoor education is a useful lens through which to view societal and parental anxieties, which have, over time, given rise to the idea that young people need to be protected and not exposed to any risk from outdoor education activities (Gill, 2007(Gill, , 2010Humberstone & Stan, 2009;Prince et al, 2013). Young people are thus kept in an artificial state of dependence and one that is longer than would have previously deemed to be appropriate, whilst those who care for them face more scrutiny than ever.…”