Children's Life Space Changes over Three Generations: A Case Study in Hashima City, Gifu Prefecture

The aim of this paper is to clarify the changes in children's life space over three generations. Children's life space is discussed in terms of playgrounds, play time, and play groups. In order to make clear the relationship between the three factors, I adopt a time-geographical approach. The study area is Takehana in Hashima City, Gifu Prefecture. The methods used to obtain data were a questionnaire survey and interviews. In the analyses, informants and respondents are divided into three generations: the first generation includes persons over 60 years of age; the second generation those from 30 to 50 years of age; and the third generation teenagers. All informants and respondents lived in Takehana during their school days.<br> The results of the questionnaire survey concerning changes in playgrounds indicate that the first and second generations had many types of playgrounds. However, most of the playgrounds for the third generation were prepared by adults, such as parks and school grounds. As to play time, more children were involved in extracurricular activities with the passing of generations. The first generation experienced little constraint on their play activity due to extracurricular activities. In the second generation, about 70% of children took abacus lessons. Traditional after-school lessons were attended by a child's own play group. Since they could play both before and after the lessons, there was not much time constraint. The third generation has many new kinds of extracurricular activities, for example, cram schools and sports. These activities bring children together independently of their living place, so that there is less chance for the third generation to play with children in their own neighborhoods. The size of play groups became smaller with the passing of generations. The boys' group size was larger than girls' group for every generation.<br> From the results of interviews, the first generation often played in and around rivers, irrigation canals, and paddy and lotus fields, where they often got muddy. They had anarchic spaces like a lumberyard inside a factory. Temple and shrine precincts were also playgrounds. Children could go anywhere in their territory and clearly recognized the boundaries of their territory. However, some places were shared by local groups without concern for territory. In these cases, there was no boundary. Sometimes fights between different local groups occurred on the edge of the territory. The play group consisted of children of various ages. They could use their time freely from after school until evening, and they sometimes played outside after dinner on summer nights. The boundary of the territory in the second generation was not as clear. Therefore in the second generation, fights on the edge of the territory decreased. A water pool was constructed so that they were not permitted to play in rivers or irrigation canals any longer. It was also difficult to enter paddy and lotus fields because of complaints from farmers. But they played in copses, open spaces, and sometimes in the lotus field, and they often got muddy. They also had anarchic spaces like inside factories and played in temple and shrine precincts. The participants of the play group changed slightly. They formed a multi-aged play group in their territory as before, but sometimes made a group with their classmates. In the third generation, the boundary of the territory disappeared and so did playing along the river. Playing in irrigation canals, and paddy and lotus fields decreased but some continued. They did not play in copses or open spaces and often played at parks and on school grounds. They could not play in temple and shrine precincts because of complaints from the administrators of these sites. The play groups were composed of classmates.