Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2001, 193 (2)

Participatory Assessment of the Environment from Children's Viewpoints: Development of a Method and Its Trial

MASAKI MORIYAMA, TETSUO SUWA,¹ MICHINORI KABUTO² and TETSUHITO FUKUSHIMA

Department of Public Health, Fukuoka University School of Medicine, Fukuoka 814-0180,
¹Faculty of Letters Gakushuin University, Tokyo 171-8588, and
²National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba 305-0053

To understand the actual viewpoints of children about daily life and the environment, the authors, adopting a participatory strategy, visited 21 classes of Japanese school children, improved in a stepwise process their ways of question-asking, and developed “WIFY” (what is important for you); a set of interactive questions composed of a basic question and three accompanying instructions. In applying WIFY, 59 fourth graders, 22 in Nagasaki, Japan and 37 in Beijing, China, reported their viewpoints in each of classroom settings. In both settings, when children were allowed to communicate with each other by the use of WIFY answering sheet, spontaneous exchanges arose and continued. WIFY itself is supposed to bring out and enhance mutual collaboration and spontaneous networking. In this instance, WIFY functioned as a communication tool. When answering sheets were collected and obtained responses were analyzed as cases, a rather materialistic view was suggested among Japanese children and a more disciplined view, which put much value on school and home, was suggested among Chinese children. Further studies are needed to confirm the changing environmental views of children from the collaborative research framework.

Keywords —— children's viewpoints; daily life and environment; collaborative and participatory assessment; Japanese and Chinese children

© 2001 Tohoku University Medical Press

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Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2001, 193, 141-151

Address for reprints: Masaki Moriyama, M.D., Department of Public Health, Fukuoka University School of Medicine, Fukuoka 814-0180, Japan.

e-mail: masakim@fukuoka-u.ac.jp