abstract
- This chapter reviews Romantic ideas that first defined the modern theme of childhood and nature and contributed to the hermeneutic tradition of research to which this chapter belongs. It introduces the ideas of the Swiss philosopher Jean Gebser, who extended this tradition, as a framework for describing different ways of knowing nature in childhood, as well as different ways of knowing nature in adulthood, with an emphasis on dimensions of experience that have received limited research attention. The chapter closes by reflecting on where research has currently brought efforts to understand how children develop different ways of knowing and being with respect to the natural world. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)(create)