The Life Space of the Urban Child: Perspectives on Martha Muchow's Classic Study by Günter Mey and Harmut Günther

Abstract

Book Reviews 297 Acknowledgments Thanks to Clayton Lewis for invaluable conversations (my opinions are of course my responsibility alone); and thanks to Angela Kreutz and Willem van Vliet-- for the opportunity to write this review (and for their patience in receiving it). References DeSilver, D. (2014). “Who's Poor in America? 50 Years into the 'War on Poverty,’ a Data Portrait.” Available at: http://www.pewresearch.org/facttank /2014/01/13/whos-poor-in-america-50-years-into-the-war-on-poverty-a-dataportrait / Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Review by Michael Eisenberg Michael Eisenberg received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1991. Since 1992 he has been on the faculty of the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he is now Professor in the Department of Computer Science and the Institute of Cognitive Science. His research interests focus on mathematics and science education, with a particular emphasis on blending traditional children's crafts and new technologies. The Life Space of the Urban Child: Perspectives on Martha Muchow’s Classic Study Günter Mey and Harmut Günther, editors (2015). New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 307 pages. $59.95 (hardback); ISSN 978-1-4128-5491-7. As more and more children grow up in cities, the study of urban children continues to gather momentum. Interdisciplinary researchers are trying to discover ways in which the physical and social make-up of cities can better accommodate and nourish the needs of young people. Martha Muchow’s study Der Lebensraum des Großstadtkindes (1935) [The Life Space of the Urban Child], first published in Germany by her brother Hans Heinrich Muchow following her untimely death, is possibly one of the earliest empirical studies of children’s relationships with urban environments. This classic study has now been translated into English and is of timely importance to contemporary discourses around urban children. This new book also includes numerous contributions that frame the original study within discussions on relevant historical, theoretical, methodological and assumptive contexts. For contemporary researchers this book will be of interest to those in the fields of developmental psychology, environmental psychology, pedagogy, education research, sociology, anthropology, and design-based research. Book Reviews 298 The editors Günter Mey and Harmut Günther, a developmental psychologist and environmental psychologist, respectively, state that they “hope that the wealth of perspectives presented in this work will help the reader follow the footprints left by Muchow, and lead them to future actions” (xiv). To achieve this goal the book is divided into four sections: Section 1, titled “Background,” discusses the rediscovery in the 1970s of Martha and Hans Muchow’s study in Germany; Section 2, titled “The Study,” is the original study translated into English by Harmut Günther, who in a prologue also offers reflections as the translator; Section 3, titled “Theoretical Foundations,” critically assesses Muchow’s theoretical inspirations arising from William Stern’s critical personalism, Jacob von Uexküll’s Umwelt, and Husserl’s concept of phenomenology; and Section 4, titled “Perspectives,” pursues and expands various lines of research from the Life Space study. Sections 1, 3, and 4 are comprised of contributions from several authors who offer reflection on Muchow’s original study in Section 2. A critical understanding of the historical, cultural, and educational context in which Martha Muchow’s study on the Life Space of the Urban Child evolved is necessary to understand that her groundbreaking study did not occur in isolation. Elfriede Billmann-Mahecha, who characterizes the field of childhood and adolescent research during the Weimar Republic, makes this evident when she asserts that several child-focused psychological studies at the time marked the beginning of ecologyoriented childhood and adolescent research that did not regain importance until the 1970s. Kurt Kreppner provides an intimate portrait of Martha Muchow the scientist, who began her career as an educator and was guided into academia by her advisor, the psychologist William Stern. Yet, after many successful years working at the Psychological Institute at Hamburg University she, along with many other intellectuals, was in great despair when the Nazis took power in 1933. On September 25...