Article

Risk-Taking in the New Zealand Bush: Issues of Resilience and Wellbeing

Author

Amanda Bateman,Jane Waters

Information

pp. 7~29 / 2018 Vol.12 No.2

Abstract

This article discusses a single case analysis of teacher-child interactions on an everyday bush walk inNew Zealand. It uses a combination of the Leuven wellbeing scale (Laevers, 2000) and aconversation analysis approach to explore how children and teachers attend to specific features of theoutdoor environment in a way that encourages risk-taking and builds resilience through problemsolving. The collaborative achievement of the activities between the pre- school teacher and the fouryear-old children are discussed as an important and necessary aspect of the interactions, which wesuggest may represent physical sustained shared thinking, for supporting wellbeing whilst buildingresilience and risk-taking. Implications for future practice are considered with regard toimplementation of early childhood curricula.

Keywords