Abstracts Geography

Risking It: Transformational Art in Primary Education

by Clare Patricia Walton

Over the past 30 years, children’s access to risky activities and play has significantly decreased despite the mounting evidence that it supports children’s development. Discourse on children’s citizenship and right to engage in risky activities has been examined in the fields of child psychology, geography, urban planning and more recently, socially engaged arts, but there has been very little work investigating how the socially engaged arts practice can create an enabling environment for risky play situated inside the walls of the traditional school. Working across two campuses of a primary school in a regional city in south-east Australia with children (aged 9 to 11 years), this project used a socially engaged arts practice to support participants to build their own adventure playgrounds. The research was documented using photography, and audio recordings, and journal notations by the participants and the researcher. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with parents and teachers, the assisting teacher and artist’s assistant. Applying practice-led research methods and critical ethnography, the thesis found that measured risky play activates children’s citizenship and enables them to build stronger communities. It also revealed the challenges of addressing perceived risk to the school and to the lead researcher’s own practice as an artist. The creative component of this thesis has been developed as an Adventure Playground called Kids’ Urban Dreaming, built in collaboration with students across two campuses of a primary school in south-west regional Victoria. The documentation of the building of Kids’ Urban Dreaming is embedded within the thesis and includes photographic and video documentation. A summary of the creative component is a short video that features members of the Kids Urban Dream Team working together to create their adventure playground, highlighting how measured risky play can support children in the development of their active citizenship.