Journal of Environmental Psychology (2002) 22, 109^1230272-4944/02/$-see front matter r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltddoi:10.1006/jevp.2001.0249, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

AFFORDANCES OF CHILDREN’S ENVIRONMENTSIN THE CONTEXT OF CITIES, SMALLTOWNS, SUBURBS AND RURAL

VILLAGES IN FINLAND AND BELARUS

MARKETTA KYTT�

Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, Helsinki University of Technology, Finland

Abstract

A¡ordances which according to Gibson (1986/1979) refer to the functionally signi¢cant properties of the en-vironment provide a psychologically relevant concept for the analysis of the evolving child-environment rela-tionship. The a¡ordance taxonomy of Heft (1988) was applied in a recent study on children’s environments ofvarying degrees of urbanisation. A¡ordances for sociality were proposed as an addition to the taxonomy. Thestudy was based on individual interviews with 8^9 year-old children in Finland (n=98) and in Belarus(n=143). The settings included urban, suburban, small town, and rural environments in both countries as wellas a radioactively contaminated area in Belarus. Signi¢cant di¡erences were found among the communitiesand between the countries in a¡ordance availability, in the level of a¡ordances (perceived, used and shaped)and in the distribution of a¡ordances within the categories of the taxonomy. Also the location of the a¡or-dances, whether they were at home, in the yard, in immediate surroundings or somewhere further di¡eredsigni¢cantly in di¡erent communities. Further studies are suggested on the elaboration of the a¡ordance tax-onomy for di¡erent user groups and varying settings. # 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd

Introduction

Decades ago, Wohlwill (1973) noted the absence ofthe environment in environmental psychology. Re-cently Sime (1999) returned to the issue in his re-view of six textbooks on environment psychology.J.J. Gibson’s (1979) ecological perceptual psychologyo¡ers one possibility to bring the environment backinto environment-behaviour research.

In Gibson’s view, people and animals do not con-struct the world that they live in, but are attuned tothe invariants of information in the environment.(Gibson, 1979; Greeno, 1994). A¡ordances are thefunctionally signi¢cant properties of the environ-ment that are perceived through the active detec-tion of information. A¡ordances include propertiesfrom both the environment and the acting indivi-dual. A¡ordances are always unique and di¡erentfor each individual and each speci¢c group of peo-ple. Therefore, the concept is well suited for describ-ing the psychologically essential qualities ofchildren’s environments.

A¡ordances can be regarded as a graded propertyrather than one which belongs to an either-or cate-gory (Greeno, 1994; see Figure 1). The di¡erent levelsof a¡ordances are: potential, perceived, utilized andshaped a¡ordances. In an attempt to give a socialdimension to a¡ordances (Costall, 1995), Reed(1993; 1996) has distinguished between the ¢elds offree or spontaneous (FFA) and promoted action(FPA). In the latter, social rules and practices regu-late which a¡ordances can be utilized or shaped,and when, where, and how this is done. On theother hand, it is also possible, that the social andcultural context restricts the utilisation and shap-ing of a¡ordances. This I call the ¢eld of con-strained action (FCA) (KyttC, 2001; Ihanainen,1991). For example, a little boy may independentlyperceive the potential a¡ordance of climbing butbefore utilizing this possibility, his parents mayeither encourage him to be brave and climb, or tellhim not to climb because he may spoil his clothes.

Heft (1988) conducted a meta-analysis ofseveral observational studies on children’s outdoor

FIGURE 1. The di¡erent levels of a¡ordances.

110 M. Kytt*

activities and formed an a¡ordance taxonomy ofchildren’s environments. The original taxonomy con-sisted of 10 functional categories. In this study onchildren’s outdoor environments this taxonomy isenlarged, as a ¢rst attempt, with environmental af-fordances that support social activities and play i.e.a¡ordances for sociality (KyttC, 1995; Gaver, 1996).

The aim of this paper is to present an analysis ofthe a¡ordances of children’s outdoor environmentsin communities of varying degrees of urbanisationin two countries. The speci¢c research questionsdealt with here are:

1. Are there di¡erences in the availability ofa¡ordances between the two countries,Finland and Belarus and in theneighbourhoods that represent varyingdegrees of urbanization?

2. How do the levels of a¡ordancesFpotential,perceived, utilized and shapedFvary in thecommunities studied?

3. How are a¡ordances distributed within thecategories of the a¡ordance taxonomydeveloped by Heft (1988) and KyttC (1995)?

4. To what degree can a¡ordances be found athome, in the yard, in the neighbourhood(within the children’s habitual range) or in

TABLSubjects of

Finland

Communities Girls Boys Subtotal Age,

Rural village 9 11 20 8,7Small town 16 14 30 8,5Suburb 10 8 18 8,4City 15 15 30 8,5Contaminated areaTotal 50 48 98 8,5

other signi¢cant places such as summercottages?

5. Are there gender di¡erences in questions 2^4?

Methodology

Subjects

The study is based on individual interviews with 8^9-year-old children in Finland (n= 98) and in Be-larus (n= 143). Before interviewing the children per-mission to undertake the study was sought from theparents. This was done while delivering question-naires concerning independent mobility in a sealedenvelope to the parents (independent mobility is notanalysed here). 95 per cent of the children were al-lowed to take part in the interview. 2 per cent of theFinnish children were not interviewed because ofinsu⁄cient Finnish language skills.

Table 1 shows the number of subjects, and thechildren’s age and gender in the di¡erent types ofcommunities in Finland and Belarus. Unfortunately,in Finland the age was coded in months and in Be-larus in years. All of the children were attendingthe same (second) grade.

Measures

A¡ordances of the environments were investigatedby using semi-structured interviews. The interviewwas designed to determine what the environmentsunder study o¡er children in a physical and socialsense. The interview, comprising 40 questions and36 di¡erent a¡ordances, was developed on the basisof Heft’s (1988) functional taxonomy of children’soutdoor environments. Although the interview wasan attempt to cover the most important a¡ordancecategories, an exhaustive listing of all environmen-tal features is, of course, impossible. One new

E 1the study

Belarus Total

mean Girls Boys Subtotal Age, mean n

14 14 28 8 4821 9 30 8 6018 12 30 8 4813 12 25 8 5518 12 30 8 3084 59 143 8 241

A¡ordances of Children’s Environments 111

category was added to Heft’s original 10 categories,namely a¡ordances for sociality. This preliminarycategory of a¡ordances for sociality was inspiredby van Andel’s (1984/1985) activity categories forchildren’s outdoor play. A¡ordances for sociality in-cluded here possibilities to play rule and role plays,playing home or war, being noisy and ¢nally, possi-bility to share or follow adults’ businesses. One ca-tegory was excluded (Aperture: a¡ords locomotionfrom one place to another, a¡ords looking and lis-tening into adjacent place) because it was hard tooperationalize.

Table 2 shows the a¡ordances included in the in-terview. After some general questions on the chil-dren’s outdoor activities, friends and the quality ofthe yard, the children were presented with a list ofquestions concerning environmental a¡ordances.An example of an individual question is:

Now I’ll ask you about di¡erent activities andwhether there is a place where you can do thesethings or not. Is there, in your neighbourhood, aplace for... - running?

& yes, do you do it often?

&1 no (there is a place but I don’t do it often)&2 yes, where do you do it?

& in my home (inside)& in my home yard& somewhere in the neighbourhood (within

walking distance)& somewhere else, where?FFF

&3 there wasn’t a place for running but I (we)made such a place

& no

Di¡erent answers to the questions re£ect varyinglevels of a¡ordances, namely the perceived (markedwith (1), used (2), and shaped (3) a¡ordances).

Procedure

The children were interviewed individually in localelementary schools during lessons. The interviewlasted from 45 minutes to an hour. The Finnish chil-dren were interviewed by the author and the Belar-usian children by local architect students. In thelatter case the questionnaire was translated fromEnglish to Russian and the author primed the stu-dents for the interviews. The interviews were trans-lated later to English. The Finnish data wascollected between 1994 and 1999 and the Belarusian

one in 1997. To minimize the e¡ects of varying sea-sonal and weather conditions, all of the interviewstook place during the last two weeks of May.

Communities

Communities from Finland and Belarus were cho-sen for study because the countries resemble eachother geographically (a lot of ¢elds, forests, riversand lakes in relatively £at countryside) and the cli-mate is quite similar. There are also some culturalsimilarities, for example a strong summer cottagetradition in both countries. Nevertheless, there aresubstantial political and economical di¡erences.

In both countries the research settings includedurban, suburban, small town and rural environ-ments. One of the settings in Belarus was a towncontaminated in the Chernobyl accident in 1986.

The Finnish communities.

The neighbourhood of T˛˛l˛ in the centre of Helsin-ki (500,000 inhabitants) was selected to representthe most urban environment that can be found inFinland. T˛˛l˛ is a densely built area intersectedby three main roads with heavy tra⁄c. T˛˛l˛ hassome 26,000 inhabitants and it can be characterizedas an upper middle class area. T˛˛l˛ was mainlybuilt in the 1920s and the 1930s. The majority ofthe houses are six-storey buildings. Both commer-cial and public services in the area are diverse. T˛˛-l˛ is situated by the sea and there are several publicparks in the area.

The Pihlajisto suburb of Helsinki has about 3,000inhabitants. The area mainly dates from the 1970s.The inhabitants of Pihlajisto represent mostly lowermiddle class. Pihlajisto is situated on a high rockyhill surrounded by green valleys. The area’s modernhouses are 3 to 8 storeys high. Pihlajisto has a smallshopping centre with a few stores, a kiosk and a res-taurant. There is one big play park in the area andseveral smaller ones.

The town of Kitee in eastern Finland representsthe small town environment in this study. Kitee is atypical Finnish rural town with about 11,000 inhabi-tants of which 6,000 live in the main village. Thereare no buildings in the centre of the town higherthan three storeys. The town is located by a lakeand there are many accessible green areas in thesurroundings.

Two small villages, HarjankylC and LuomankylCin Kauhajoki in the western part of Finland, werechosen to represent the rural environment in thisstudy. HarjankylC has about 740 inhabitants,

Table 2A functional taxonomy of a¡ordances used in the study (cf. Heft, 1988)

Environmental qualities thatsupport certain a¡ordances

A¡ordances Environmentalopportunitiesfor sociality

A¡ordances for sociality

Flat, relatively smooth surfaces K a¡ords cycling K a¡ords role playingK a¡ords runningK a¡ords skipping

K a¡ords playing rulegames

K a¡ords skatingK a¡ords playing hopscotch

K a¡ords playinghome

K a¡ords skiing K a¡ords playing warK a¡ords playing (football, ice-

hockey, tennis or badminton)K a¡ords being noisyK a¡ords following/

sharing adult’sbusinesses

Relatively smooth slopes K a¡ords coasting downK a¡ords skateboarding

Graspable/ detached objects K a¡ords throwingK a¡ords diggingK a¡ords building of structuresK a¡ords playing with animalsK a¡ords using plants in play

Attached objects K a¡ords jumping-overK a¡ords jumping-down-from

Non-rigid, attached object K a¡ords swinging onK a¡ords hanging

Climbable feature K a¡ords climbingK a¡ords looking out from

Shelter K a¡ords hidingK a¡ords being in peace and

quiet

Mouldable material(dirt, sand, snow)

K a¡ords moulding somethingK a¡ords building of snow

Water K a¡ords swimmingK a¡ords ¢shingK a¡ords playing with water

112 M. Kytt*

LuomankylC 430 inhabitants and the whole munici-pality, Kauhajoki, about 15,000. Each village has asmall elementary school with 4 ^ 6 grades, but notmany other services, not even a grocery store. Themajority of dwellings are small wooden one-storeyfarmhouses. The density of the villages is very lowand every house has a garden. There are many open¢elds, forests and quiet roads nearby. Both villagesare intersected by a river. (Figure 2)

The Belarusian communities. The urban environmentis a district of Minsk, the capital of Belarus (popu-lation 1,610,000). This district is an industrial areawith a population of 120,000. Most of the peopleare workers. The public outdoor environment haslittle to o¡er to childrenFthere are few play-

grounds and the schools are old and in bad condi-tion. The houses of the area are mainly two orthree storey buildings.

A suburban environment, Uruchia, is located inthe eastern part of Minsk. Uruchia has about19,000 inhabitants. Most of the area was built up inthe late 1980’s, but construction works are stillgoing on here. Tra⁄c in the area is very heavy be-cause of the proximity to the main road betweenMoscow and Minsk. The building density is high,the majority of houses are nine-storey buildings.The contaminated community, Kalinkovichy, is in

the south-western part of Belarus. The town has apopulation of about 45,000. Architecturally, Kalin-kovichy has both village and town features. Next toa small wooden house you can ¢nd a big modern

FIGURE 2. (a) The Finnish city, T˛˛l .̨ (b) The Finnish suburb, Pihlajisto. (c) The Finnish small town. Kitee. (d) The Finnish ruralvillage, LuomankylC.

A¡ordances of Children’s Environments 113

apartment building. At the outskirts of town thereis a large park with playgrounds, but few yards haveplaygrounds for children. In the spring of 1986, afterChernobyl accident, Belarus received 70 per cent ofall radioactive fall-out of the accident, contaminat-ing 23 per cent of the land area. Kalinkovichy is

part of the a¡ected area (zone V), where the acci-dent caused a social, economic and environmentalcrisis. The level of contamination at Kalinkovichyis not among the highest recorded, being 1 to 15 Ci/km2 of Cesium 137. This level of contaminationallowed inhabitants to continue living in the area

114 M. Kytt*

without mandatory relocation as in the most se-verely contaminated areas. (Klimova, 1996).

The small town environment in Belarus, Niasviz,has about 15,000 inhabitants. The town is located112 km south-west of Minsk. Niasviz is one of thehistorical and cultural centres of Belarus. The townis divided into two parts by a river: north-west (his-torical) and south-east, where most of the housingis situated. The majority of the dwellings are one-storey detached houses, all of them built in the last50 years. There is an old palace with a park nearby.

The rural village, Ilya is situated near Vileika,about 60 km from Minsk. Ilya has about 2,000 inha-bitants, who mostly work in agriculture. The villageis situated on a hill, with a small river runningthrough it. The dwellings are mainly small, one-stor-ey private wooden houses surrounded by gardens.There is a big school in the village, attended alsoby children from other small villages. There aresports grounds close to the school. (See Figure 3.)

Statistical analysis

All computations were made using the SPSS pro-gram, version 10.0. To construct a scale for neigh-bourhood a¡ordances, factorial analysis was used,applying the principal axis factoring method andvarimax rotation. Analysis of variance (ANOVA)was used for comparisons among the communitiesand independent-samples t-test to compare the twocountries. ANOVA-results were further analysed byusing Tukey’s test.

Results

Neighbourhood a¡ordance availability

A scale was constructed, based on all the questions(35 in total) relating to the a¡ordances included inthe study, to describe the degree of availability ofthem in di¡erent communities. The dimensions ofthe scale was analysed by applying factor analysis,which revealed that the loadings of one factor solu-tions ranged from 0�17 to 0�63. The variables withloadings less than 0�30 were excluded from thescale. A total of six variables were excluded1. TheCronbach ‘s alpha of the scale with 29 items=0�85

The constructed scale describes the a¡ordanceavailability of the neighbourhood (yard and the im-mediate surrounding)2. The comparison of the aver-age values of the scale in di¡erent communitiesrevealed that the highest neighbourhood a¡ordance

availability was found in the Finnish rural village,and the lowest in the Belarus suburb. The childrenliving in the Finnish rural village found an averageof 23�8 a¡ordances in their neighbourhood out of atotal of 29 in the scale (82%), while the children inthe Belarus suburb found on average only 10�3 a¡or-dances (36%). (See Figure 4.) On average, the avail-ability of a¡ordances in the Finnish communitiesexceeded signi¢cantly that of the a¡ordance avail-ability in the communities in Belarus. (t= 16�2,df = 239, p= 0�000). The Finnish children found anaverage of 69 per cent (20�1/29) of the a¡ordances in-cluded in the study in their neighbourhood, whilethe children in Belarus identi¢ed only 39 per cent(11�3/29) of the a¡ordances as available.

The di¡erences among the Finnish communitiesin the a¡ordance availability of the neighbourhoodswere mainly signi¢cant (ANOVA: F= 11�1, df = 97,p= 0�000). Only the di¡erences between commu-nities closest in the number of available a¡ordanceswere not signi¢cant. For instance, the di¡erence be-tween the country village and the suburb was notsigni¢cant, but the di¡erences between the countryvillage and the other types of communities were sig-ni¢cant (Tukey’s test: rural village/small townp= 0�002, rural village/ city p= 0�000, suburb/cityp= 0�003). Among the Belarusian communities, thesmall town di¡ered signi¢cantly from the threecommunities with the lowest availability of a¡or-dances (ANOVA: F= 3�9, df = 142, p= 0�005). The fol-lowing levels of signi¢cance were in Tukey’s test:between the small town and the suburb p= 0�005,between the small town and the contaminated areap= 0�02 and between the small town and the cityp= 0�04.

To compare the shares of the di¡erent levels ofa¡ordances in the two countries, the utilized andshaped a¡ordances were grouped into one groupunder the heading of active a¡ordances. This wasnecessary as it was not possible to gain informationon the share of shaped a¡ordances from the Belaru-sian data. The Finnish communities had more activea¡ordances than the Belarusian communities(t= 13�8, df = 239, p=0�000). Of the a¡ordances listedin the scale, in Finland 58 per cent (16�8/29) wereactively used or shaped. In Belarus, the proportionof active a¡ordances was 29 per cent (8�5/29). Thedi¡erence in perceived a¡ordances in the two coun-tries was not signi¢cant (t= 0�95, df=239, p= 0�35).

The comparison of the share of di¡erent levels ofa¡ordances between the communities revealed thefollowing signi¢cant di¡erences. (See Figure 4 andTable 3.) The share of perceived a¡ordances in theFinnish suburb was larger than in the city

FIGURE 3. (a) The Belarushian city, Minsk. (b) The Belarushian suburb, Uruchia. (c) The Belarushian contaminated area, Kalinkovichy(d) The Belarushian small town, Niasviz. (e) The Belarushian rural village, Ilya.

A¡ordances of Children’s Environments 115

(p=0�01), in the small town (p= 0�000) and in therural village (p= 0�000). The di¡erences betweenthe Finnish communities for utilized a¡ordanceswere signi¢cant in three cases: in the small town(p=0�02) and the rural village (p= 0�000) the uti-lized a¡ordances exceeded signi¢cantly those inthe city, and similarly utilized a¡ordances in the

rural village exceeded signi¢cantly those in thesuburb (p= 0�004). In the Finnish rural villagechildren shaped a¡ordances more than children inall other communities (pr0�001). The Belarusiancommunities did not show any signi¢cant di¡er-ences in the proportions of perceived or utilizeda¡ordances.

FIGURE 4. The means of the total scores of the a¡ordance scale for neighbourhoods: Perceived, used and shaped* neighbourhood a¡or-dances in di¡erent communities. Note: *classi¢cation available only in Finnish data.

TABLE 3The availability of di¡erent levels of neighbourhood a¡ordances in the nine communities

Finland:ruralvillage(N=20)

Finland:suburb(N=18)

Finland:smalltown(N=30)

Finland:city(N=30)

Belarus:smalltown(N=30)

Belarus:ruralvillage(N=28)

Belarus:city(N=25)

Belarus:contami-natedarea(N=30)

Belarus:suburb(N=30)

Mean(SD)

Notperceived

5,1 (2,6) 7,3 (2,4) 8,1(3,4) 11,4 (4,7) 15,2 (2,9) 17,9 (3,6) 18,2 (3,8) 18,4 (4,0) 18,6 (3,5)

Perceived 1,5 (1,6) 5,2 (2,9) 1,2 (1,2) 2,6 (2,5) 3,6 (3,0) 2,1 (1,6) 3,4 (4,0) 2,7 (2,2) 2,1 (1,9)Used 20,8 (2,7) 16,1 (3,7) 17,5 (4,6) 14,3 (4,2) 10,0 (3,9) 9,0 (3,4) 7,4 (3,4) 7,9 (3,0) 8,2 (3,6)Shaped 1,5 (1,6) 0,3 (0,7) 0,7 (1,1) 0,4 (0,8) F F F F F

Note: The share of the shaped a¡ordances was nor available in the Belarusian data.

116 M. Kytt*

Boys found slightly more a¡ordances in the neigh-bourhood than girls. This di¡erence wasn’t signi¢-cant (t= 1�2, df = 239, p= 0�54), nor did gender a¡ectthe share of perceived, utilized or shaped a¡or-dances.

The distribution of active neighbourhood a¡ordanceswithin the categories of the a¡ordance taxonomy

In order to look more closely at the nature of thevarious a¡ordances, the a¡ordances were examinedaccording to the a¡ordance taxonomy categories inTable 2. A sum score was created for each categoryby summing the individual a¡ordances in each cate-gory. Each score describes the degree of availabilityof certain kind of a¡ordances. All 35 a¡ordanceswere used in order to ensure that the classi¢cationof categories complied with Heft’s (1988) originaltaxonomy and the new version prepared here, andto ensure that each a¡ordance category containedno less than two variables.

Signi¢cant di¡erences were found in the scores ofeight categories between the di¡erent communitiesin Finland (ANOVA: 1�2r Fr30�9, df = 97, pr�03).The non-di¡ering categories were smooth slopes

and non-rigid attached objects. Signi¢cant di¡er-ences between the communities in Belarus werefound in three categories: non-rigid attached ob-jects, graspable detached objects, and water games(ANOVA: 4�0rFr6�0, df = 142, pr0�004). Compari-sons between the two countries showed di¡erencesin all categories except for the category of attachedobjects (2�2r tr11�1, pr0�03).

Figures 5 and 6 list active neighbourhood a¡or-dances of the Finnish and Belarushian communitiescategorised according to the a¡ordance taxonomy.The bar chart discloses the average scores of eachcategory. The maximum scores are expressed in per-centages in order to enable comparisons among ca-tegories. The bars have been arranged in adescending order so that the category with the high-est average score (nonrigid, attached objects) is pre-sented ¢rst, and the category with the lowestaverage score (water) is last. The communities arealso arranged in a descending order according tothe average score.

The Finnish rural village out-performed othercommunities in a¡ordance availability in almostall categories (cf. Figure 5). The a¡ordance availabil-ity of the rural village was greater in three

FIGURE 6. The percentages of the scores of a¡ordance availability in the Belarushian communities categorized according to the a¡or-dance taxonomy. Note: The number of the categories refer to the order of the categories in the Finnish data.

FIGURE 5. The percentages of the scores of a¡ordance availability in the Finnish communities categorized according to the a¡ordancetaxonomy. Signi¢cant di¡erences among the communities were found in categories marked with X.

A¡ordances of Children’s Environments 117

categories (categories 2, 5 and 10, Tukey: pr0�03)than in all the other communities. It was also great-er in the remaining ¢ve categories (3, 4, 7, 8 and 9,Tukey: pr0�04) than in the city and in the smalltown. Nevertheless, this general rule did not applyfor £at, relatively smooth slopes, a category inwhich the rural village did not score highest. Thedi¡erences between communities in this categorywere, however, not signi¢cant. The di¡erences be-

tween the other communities were signi¢cant onlyin a¡ordances for sociality where the a¡ordanceavailability of the city undercut all other commu-nities (Tukey: pr0�02). The score levels of the cityenvironment were on the low side also in the othercategories. On average, the categories of nonrigid,attached objects and £at, relatively smooth surfacesreceived the highest scores, over 60 per cent of themaximal ones. These categories can be called

118 M. Kytt*

‘strong’ a¡ordance categories. The strongest cate-gory, nonrigid, attached objects that a¡ord swing-ing and hanging scored over 80 per cent of themaximal score. The lowest average scores were inthe categories of water, shelter, and attached ob-jects. These categories can be called ‘weak’ sincethe average was 48 per cent of the maximal score.Particularly weak categoriesFthose which scored30 per cent or lessFwere water games in the suburband sheltered places in the city.

Figure 6 shows that the di¡erences between theBelarushian communities in di¡erent a¡ordance ca-tegories were smaller than in the Finnish data. Intwo categories, namely non-rigid, attached objectsand graspable detached objects, the scores in thesmall town were signi¢cantly higher than in thecity and in the suburb (Tukey: pr0�04). In the cate-gory of water games, the a¡ordance availability ofthe rural village exceeded that of the small townand the city (Tukey: pr0�03). The ‘strongest’ andthe ‘weakest’ categories were the same than in Fin-land, but otherwise the order of the categories var-ied somewhat.

Gender di¡erences were disclosed in two cate-gories. Boys found a greater amount of a¡ordancesconnected to relatively smooth slopes (t= 2�0,df = 239, p= 0�05) as well as a¡ordances for sociality(t= 1�9, df = 239, p= 0�05) than girls.

Where are a¡ordances found?

Where in the neighbourhood are a¡ordances found?The exact location of the active a¡ordances (uti-lized or shaped) on the yard or elsewhere in the im-mediate surrounding is indicated in Figure 7. The¢gure also includes the a¡ordances found in thehome environment. This analysis incorporates refer-ences to multiple places, and thus the method dif-fers from the analysis outlined in Figure 4. Theavailability of a¡ordances in the communities may

FIGURE 7. The location of active neighbourhood a¡ordances.

seem to di¡er in these two analyses. This ‘problem’is particularly noticeable in the case involving thetwo communities with a particularly high level ofreferences to multiple places. In the Finnish suburband in the Belarusian contaminated area, an unu-sual high number of a¡ordances were found bothin the yard as well as elsewhere in the immediatesurroundings. In both communities, these a¡or-dances accounted for 11 per cent of the active a¡or-dances in the neighbourhood. In the Finnish suburbthe number of a¡ordances found in multiple placesexceeded (ANOVA: F= 4�7, df = 97, p= 0�004) thoserecorded in the small town (Tukey: p= 0�03) and inthe city (Tukey: p= 0�008). Similarly, the Belarush-ian contaminated area di¡ered in this respect fromall other communities in Belarus (ANOVA: F= 13�2,df = 142, p= 0�000, Tukey: p= 0�000).

Here, a¡ordances of the yard refer to a¡ordancesin the home yard. The class ‘other immediate sur-roundings’ include a¡ordances in the school yard,play grounds, friends’ home yards, sports grounds,nature environments and a¡ordances along roadsand other tra⁄c routes. Unfortunately, no informa-tion was available on the speci¢c distribution of af-fordances between these subclasses.

The Finnish communities di¡ered signi¢cantly inthe number of a¡ordances in the home yard (ANO-VA: F= 13�4, df = 0�97, p= 0�000). There were more af-fordances in the yard in the Finnish rural villagethan in any other Finnish community included. (Tu-key’s test: village/ town p= 0�000, village/cityp= 0�000, village/suburb p= 0�007). The children inthe rural village identi¢ed an average of 13�1 a¡or-dances out of 29 (45%) in their home yard. The cityenjoyed the lowest number of a¡ordances in thehome yard, accounting for an average of 20 per centof the maximum number of a¡ordances (5�9/29). (SeeFigure 7.)

The Belarusian communities di¡ered from oneanother both in the number of home a¡ordances

A¡ordances of Children’s Environments 119

(ANOVA: F= 4�7, df = 142, p= 0�001) the a¡ordancesof the yard (ANOVA: F= 7�9, df = 142, p= 0�000), anda¡ordances of immediate surroundings (ANOVA:F= 13�3, df = 142, p= 0�000). As to a¡ordances in thehome, the contaminated area in Belarus stood outby providing an unusually high number, 12 per cent(3�5/29) of a¡ordances identi¢ed in the home envir-onment. The di¡erences between the contaminatedarea and the rural village (Tukey’s test: p=0�003)and the city (Tukey’s test: p= 0�003) were signi¢-cant. The small town stood out from other Belaru-sian communities by the large number of homeyard a¡ordances, with 32 per cent of a¡ordancesfound in the yards (9�3/29). The di¡erences betweenthe small town and other types of communitieswere signi¢cant (Tukey: pr0�03). The number of af-fordances was lowest in the rural village yards(16%, 4�5/29), and the di¡erence signi¢cant withthe other communities in Belarus (Tukey: pr0�04),with the exception of the city yards. The commu-nities in Belarus di¡ered in that the number of af-fordances in the child’s immediate surroundings washighest in the rural village (16%, 4�5/29) and in thecontaminated community (12%, 3�5/29). These com-munities di¡ered signi¢cantly from all other typesof communities, but did not di¡er signi¢cantly incomparison with each other (Tukey: pr0�03).

Di¡erences were noted between the two countriesboth in respect to a¡ordance availability in thehome yards (t= 2�9, df = 239, p= 0�004) and a¡or-dances in the immediate surroundings (t= 15�7,df = 239, p= 0�000). An average 29 per cent (8�4/29)of a¡ordances were found in Finnish home yards,respectively in Belarus 24 per cent (6�9/29). In thecase of immediate surroundings, the di¡erence waseven more pronounced. The Finnish immediate sur-roundings provided on average 33 per cent (9�5/29)

FIGURE 8. The distribution of active neighbourhood a¡ordances in th

of a¡ordances, and the Belarusian surroundingsonly 8 per cent (2�3/29). As to a¡ordances in thehome environment, no di¡erences were noted be-tween the two countries.

There were also signi¢cant gender di¡erences inthe location of the active a¡ordances. Girls foundmore a¡ordances in the home environment (t=4�8,df=239, p= 0�000) and in the home yards (t= 2�9,df = 239, p= 0�004) than boys. Boys, on the otherhand, found more a¡ordances in the immediate sur-roundings (t=�2�2, df = 239, p= 0�03).

An example of the geographical distribution of a¡or-dances

Figure 8 presents the geographical distribution ofactive neighbourhood a¡ordances in one commu-nity, namely the Finnish suburb. The a¡ordancemap shows that the majority of active a¡ordancesare located within the built area of the suburb. Thea¡ordances are concentrated in the home yards, inthe school and the nursery yard, as well as in theplayground of the park. There are few a¡ordancesin the surrounding large green areas of the suburb.

Can the neighbourhood a¡ordances be supplemented?

The following section will analyse the extent towhich children indicated active a¡ordances inplaces outside their immediate neighbourhood. Gen-erally, attempts to supplement the a¡ordances werefew, and most of the a¡ordances were located in theimmediate neighbourhood of the home. The Finnishcity children and the Belarusian children living inthe contaminated area were the only exception tothis. A signi¢cant part of the a¡ordances found bythese children were in areas outside their

e Finnish suburb.

120 M. Kytt*

neighbourhood (see the next section). On average,Finnish children mentioned a¡ordances outsidetheir immediate neighbourhood in 13 per cent ofthe cases (3�9/29), and the Belarusian children in 12per cent of the cases (3.4/29). The small di¡erencebetween the two countries wasn’t signi¢cant. How-ever, di¡erences were found between the individualcommunities in both Finland (ANOVA: F= 19�2,df = 97, p= 0�00) and Belarus (ANOVA: F= 11�6,df = 142, p= 0�000).

Among the Finnish communities, the city chil-dren were most likely to mention a¡ordances out-side their immediate neighbourhood, and 26 percent (7�6/29) of a¡ordances in the city were foundthis way. In this respect the city children di¡eredfrom children in all other communities (Tukey:p= 0�000). Children living in other communitiesrarely mentioned a¡ordances outside their immedi-ate neighbourhood (6% ^ 9% of all cases), and therewere no signi¢cant di¡erences between these com-munities. Children living in the contaminated areain Belarus also utilized a¡ordances outside theirimmediate neighbourhood fairly frequently, and out-side a¡ordances accounted for 21 per cent (6�0/29) ofall a¡ordances mentioned by these children. In thisrespect, the contaminated area di¡ered signi¢cantlyfrom all other Belarusian communities (Tukey:p= 0�000), where a¡ordances outside the immediateneighbourhood were mentioned in 6 per cent �10per cent of all cases.

A close analysis of where such outside a¡or-dances were to be found involved only the Finnishdata as su⁄ciently detailed information was not ob-tained in the interviews conducted in Belarus. Forthe purpose of the analysis, the a¡ordances weregrouped into (1) a¡ordances in the same community(but not in the immediate neighbourhood), (2) a¡or-dances at the summer cottage or at ‘granny’s house,and (3) a¡ordances elsewhere in Finland and (4)abroad. Signi¢cant di¡erences were found betweencommunities in the case (1) (ANOVA: F= 6�2,df = 970, p=0�001) and the case (2) (ANOVA:F= 17�3, df = 97, p= 0�000).

A¡ordances in the community outside the im-mediate neighbourhood were more often importantto children living in the city (Tukey: p=0�000) andin the suburb (Tukey: p= 0�02) than to childrenliving in the small town. The city children found 5percent (1�4/29) and the suburban children 4 percent (1�2/29) of the a¡ordances this way. The citychildren mentioned often the summer cottage or‘granny’s house’, and 18 per cent of the a¡ordancesmentioned by these children (5�3/29) were locatedin these environments. The di¡erence in comparison

with the other communities was signi¢cant (Tukey:p= 0�000). There were no signi¢cant di¡erences be-tween the communities in the few cases of the a¡or-dances in other parts of Finland (3) and abroad (4).

There were no gender di¡erences in the attemptsto supplement the a¡ordances of the neighbourhood.

Discussion

The ¢rst research question of the study was whetherthe availability of neighbourhood a¡ordances di¡ersin environments of varying degrees of urbanization.The degree of urbanisation was su⁄ciently con-nected to the availability of neighbourhood a¡or-dances to make it possible to acknowledge arelationship between the two. The neighbourhoodwas de¢ned as the home yard and the immediatesurroundings within the child’s habitual range. Inthe Finnish data, the country village provided thelargest number of actively available a¡ordancesand the city the lowest number. Correspondingly,in Belarus, the greatest number of a¡ordances werenoted in the small town and the lowest number inthe city. The di¡erences between the communitiesin Finland were mostly signi¢cant, while the di¡er-ences between the communities in Belarus weremarginal.

The superior amount of a¡ordances provided bythe rural environment in Finland may stem fromthe extent of accessible natural environment in rur-al villages. The natural environment has beenshown to contain a rich set of a¡ordances (Fj�rtoft,1997). The Finnish rural villages in the study havelarge green areas, forests, and ¢elds where everyoneis allowed to wander (the right of common access).The villages are also safe and children enjoy a lot offreedom to move around independently (KyttC, 1997).These villages di¡er from the British rural villagesdescribed by Matthews et al. (2000) who interviewedrural children aged 9 ^ 16 in Britain. The authorsfound social places (outdoor public spaces whereone could be seen by peers and be away from the‘adult gaze’) to be more important to these ruralchildren than the natural ones. The reason for thismay be partly the fact that children’s access to thenatural environment is restricted by fencing o¡ theprivate land and by parental fears.

The availability of neighbourhood a¡ordances inFinland and Belarus di¡ered signi¢cantly. On aver-age, Finnish children identi¢ed 69 per cent of thea¡ordances listed in the a¡ordance-scale (Table 2).Fifty-eight per cent of the maximum possible a¡or-dances were active ones (utilized or shaped). The

A¡ordances of Children’s Environments 121

Belarusian children identi¢ed in their neighbour-hood only 39 per cent of the a¡ordances listed inthe scale. Twenty-nine per cent of the latter wereconsidered active. The di¡erences between the twocountries are most conspicuous in the availabilityof the a¡ordances in the immediate surroundings.The latter provide Finnish children on average 33per cent of the a¡ordances listed in the scale, whilethe corresponding ¢gure for Belarus is only 8 percent. This means that Finnish children can ¢ndmore opportunities for di¡erent kinds of activitiesin their immediate surroundings than Belarushianchildren.

The di¡erence between a¡ordance availability inthe Finnish and the Belarusian neighbourhoodscan be explained by di¡erences in the quality ofpublicly funded facilities in the two countries. InFinland, public funds are invested into projectssuch as playgrounds, sports facilities, parks, andthe yards of nurseries and schools. In Belarus, fewresources have been invested in outdoor recrea-tional settings. In both countries the home yardseems to be an important source of a¡ordances.The a¡ordance map (Figure 6) of the Finnish sub-urb indicates that only few a¡ordances are foundin the natural environment that surrounds theneighbourhood.

The results stress the importance of the yard andthe immediate surroundings as an important sourceof a¡ordances for children. It is possible that thehome yard acts as the ¢rst arena for ¢nding a¡or-dances outdoors which can later extend to other en-vironments. Correspondingly Prezza et al. (2001)found that the home yard acts as a springboard toindependent activities for a child in Italy.

Another explanation for the di¡erence betweenthe a¡ordance availability of Finnish and Belaru-sian neighbourhoods might be the restrictions of in-dependent mobility in Belarus. In an earlier studywith the same children, KyttC (1997) found that theFinnish children had a licence to move around quitefreely. In a forthcoming study (KyttC 2002) the inde-pendent mobility of Belarusian children will be ana-lysed in order to learn more about the relationshipbetween the availability of a¡ordances and indepen-dent mobility. In the Finnish sample, those childrenwho enjoyed most freedom to move around, i.e. rur-al children, also found the greatest amount of a¡or-dances. The theoretical causality betweena¡ordance availability and independent mobilityneeds, however, further investigation.

The scarcity of a¡ordances available in the Belar-usian neighbourhoods is poorly supplemented byother environments. Most of the Finnish and Belar-

usian children found their a¡ordances mainly intheir immediate neighbourhood and only about 12per cent of the listed a¡ordances were discoveredelsewhere. However, the polluted area in Belarusand the city environment in Finland were excep-tional in that more than 20 per cent of a¡ordanceswere identi¢ed in areas outside the immediateneighbourhood. According to the information pro-vided by Finnish city children, this ‘other’ neigh-bourhood was usually the summer cottage or‘granny’s house’. Like Finland, also Belarus has astrong tradition of summer cottages. It is possiblethat the Finnish city children’s experience appliesin Belarus as well. The city children interviewed inFinland came from well-to-do middle class familieswho can provide their children with the experiencesof alternative environments. The reason for the highproportion of a¡ordances found in the alternativeenvironments to the contaminated areas of Belarusmay stem from parental fears of the e¡ects of pollu-tion on the children. This might urge the parents toseek safer environments for children’s outdoor play.The interpretation is supported by the fact thatdata from other Belarushian communities does notcorroborate the result of the importance of alterna-tive environments. Belarus has also many rehabili-tation programs for children living in theradioactively contaminated areas. These programsinclude camps in safe areas in Belarus and abroad.(UNICEF, 1995). It is possible that the children inthe study referred to these experiences.

It is possible that at least well-to-do city childrencreate a so-called dual environmental identity (Kyt-tC, 1995). This means that they identify with andcommit themselves to more than one environment.Thus, the summer cottage, for instance, can be usedto compensate for the shortcomings in a child’severyday environment. A similar phenomenon wasidenti¢ed by Jovero and Horelli (2000) among Fin-nish suburban young people who regarded the coun-tryside as an important restorative place and asource of emotional and physical support. AlsoNordstr˛m (2000) found that city children tend tobe attracted by distant environments, often by theidealized countryside.

The second research question dealt with how thelevels of a¡ordances vary in di¡erent communities.The varying levels of a¡ordancesFpotential, uti-lized and shapedFdi¡ered signi¢cantly in the Fin-nish data but not in the Belarusian data.Information about the shaped a¡ordances was notavailable in Belarus. However, this does not a¡ectthe interpretation of the data since shapeda¡ordances are, in e¡ect, a special type of utilized

122 M. Kytt*

a¡ordance. In Belarushian data shaped a¡ordancesare included in the classi¢cation of active and uti-lized a¡ordances. The di¡erences between the uti-lized a¡ordances followed the general trend of thevariability of a¡ordance availability: in the nonur-ban Finnish communities (the rural village and thesmall town), utilized a¡ordances were recordedmore frequently than in the urban (the city and thesuburb) communities of Finland. The number of pas-sive a¡ordancesFperceived but not utilizedFwereparticularly high in the suburb. The rural village,on the other hand, di¡ered signi¢cantly from theother communities in the large number of shapeda¡ordances.

The rural environment seems to encourage chil-dren to create their own a¡ordances. The type ofwork done by parentsFoften agricultural work oranimal husbandryFis likely to have an impact byproviding the children many examples of how tomanipulate their environment. Furthermore, thehome environment provides a wealth of materialwhich encourages, for instance, building of struc-tures. The high number of passive a¡ordances inthe suburb can be explained by the fact that mostof the used a¡ordances were situated in the corearea of the suburb, within the built area. The sub-urb is surrounded by green areas that provide at-tractive potential a¡ordances, which, however, maynot be utilized because of mobility restrictions.

The third question in the study concerned the var-iance of the distribution of a¡ordances within thecategories of the a¡ordance taxonomy (KyttC, 1995;Heft, 1988). The used taxonomy consisted of 10 di¡er-ent categories. Both in the Finnish and in the Belar-ushian data swinging and hanging opportunitieswere classi¢ed on average as the strongest a¡or-dances in every community. Water play was foundto be on the average the weakest type of a¡or-dances. In the Finnish data, the a¡ordance avail-ability of the rural village outperformed all theother communities in almost all categories. Surpris-ingly enough, also a¡ordances for sociality werestrongest in the rural village and weakest in thecity. The Finnish rural villages in the study were,however, so small that there were only few childrenof the same age and gender. The city environment,on the other hand, could be expected to compensatefor the restricted availability of functional a¡or-dances by stronger social ones. That was not, how-ever, the case in this study.

Boys found more a¡ordances of smooth slopesand even a¡ordances for sociality than girls. Thisresult may be due to the gender di¡erences foundin the location of the a¡ordances. Boys found more

a¡ordances in the immediate surroundings, whereasgirls found more opportunities in the home environ-ment and in the yard. Thus, the availability of a¡or-dances located in the immediate surroundings mayhave been richer than that in the home and the yard.

Di¡erent categories of a¡ordances seem to havedi¡erent weights in varying environments. The total-ity of the weighted categories in one setting can becalled an a¡ordance pro¢le of the setting. The Fin-nish suburb contained, for instance, water a¡or-dances that were weak and smooth slopes thatrepresented strong a¡ordances. Water a¡ordanceswere hard to ¢nd also in the Belarushian suburbwhere the category of attached objects (that a¡ordsjumping over and jumping down) was easily avail-able. These pro¢les, which reveal the weak andstrong environmental aspects from the perspectiveof di¡erent user groups need further studies in di-verse settings.

Good planning might enable to increase theamount and type of a¡ordances by providing, for in-stance, safe facilities for water games and by creat-ing hiding places and secret nooks, while avoiding asense of social danger (cf. Appleton, 1984; Herzog &Chernick, 2000). It is probably more di⁄cult to planfor improved a¡ordances for sociality. Nevertheless,it is possible to create spaces where children canmeet. Consideration should be given, in particular,to the creation of environments that support socialinteraction between children. Children’s participa-tion projects indicate that children are well awareof the weak points of their neighbourhood, espe-cially when they are making plans for water playor designing sheltered places and sites for cross-generational meetings (Horelli, 2001). The basic af-fordance taxonomy applied here for a¡ordances forsociality needs further elaboration in the future.

A¡ordances for sociality were not included inHeft’s (1988) a¡ordance taxonomy which was basedon observational studies of the activities of childrenaged 7F12 years. The ages of the children and thequality of the settings in the original observationalstudies might have in£uenced the content of the tax-onomy. Therefore, further studies are needed to ¢ndout the age-related and cultural impact on the corecategories of a¡ordances.

Acknowledgements

This research was ¢nancially supported by the Fin-nish Academy, Anna S. Elonen Foundation and Kau-hajoki Cultural Foundation. I am thankful to AlexStetsko, Vladzimir Litvinov, Z’mitier Murashka,

A¡ordances of Children’s Environments 123

Ludzmila Bratennikava, Dmitry Davidovits, EugeneMorozov, Alesya Belaya and Katya Naumava for con-ducting the interviews in Belarus, Raisa Sulamaafor translating the interviews, Niko Lipsanen fordata preparation and classi¢cations. Liisa Horellisupervised the research and o¡ered valuable com-ments for the earlier versions of the manuscript. Ialso thank Louise Chawla for suggestions and com-ments.

Notes

Correspondence and reprint requests should be addressed toMarketta KyttC at the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies inHelsinki University of Technology, PL 900, 02015 TKK, Finland.E-mail: marketta.kytta@hut.¢1Excluded variables ^ water games, jumping down from, jumpingover, looking out from, hiding, playing with animals.2Note! The study takes into account that an a¡ordance may befound both in the yard as well as in the immediate surroundings.This level of the analysis includes the a¡ordance only once in thecalculations, as the maximum number of a¡ordances wouldotherwise be exceeded.

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IntroductionFIGURE 1TABLE 1

MethodologyTable 2FIGURE 2

ResultsFIGURE 3FIGURE 4TABLE 3FIGURE 5FIGURE 6FIGURE 7FIGURE 8

DiscussionAcknowledgementsNotesReferences