A Starting Point: Children as Spatial Citizens

Abstract

The Spatial Citizenship approach targets active and reflexive usage of geomedia, in order to enable people to participate in spatial decision-making processes, and to gain maturity when acting in everyday spaces. Originally, it was constituted to form a counterweight to a workforce-dominated GIS education that neither considered the needs and abilities of lay people in everyday spatially related situations, nor embraced the chances of an upcoming neogeography. Therefore, Spatial Citizenship helps to shift the geomedia production focus to citizens' everyday action in society. Still, it focuses on secondary and postsecondary education. This paper's aim is to explore whether children can become spatial citizens, and/or whether Spatial Citizenship can possibly become an integral part of daily life when growing up, if introduced at an early age. This paper's methodology ranges from literature analysis and theoretical research to an explorative experiment.