THE SOCIAL DIMENSION OF CHILDREN’S SPATIAL REPRESENTATIONS IN URBAN CONTEXTS.

International audienceWhile the process of representation covers many meaning spatial representation is a fundamental process to understand children-environment relationships. It constituted a strong paradigm in the 1970s and 1980s where it commonly refers to the development of knowledge of space properties. However an ecological view of children development enabled to approach space as more than a physical support. It is considered as a context made of daily activities situations where time, space, social relationships (behavior-setting) and place evaluation are intertwined (White & Siegel, 1982). The study of the development of spatial representations cannot be free from the social dimension of relationships to space (Dias & Ramadier, 2015). Indeed, mental maps are directly linked to spatial behavior (orientation, preferences, etc.) and they are not isolated from social learning. The process of spatial representation of children is anchored in daily activities, and so in pre-existing language and social structures. This communication is aiming at describing and understanding the importance of places considered as socio-spatial meaningful situations/places (closed to behavior-settings) in spatial representations of children aged 9-12 years. The study investigated the position of the social dimension, particularly the normative dimension (associated to procedural process) in the cognitive structuration of space. Children aged 9-12 years were recruited by school and met in classrooms for some and at home for others. A series of children’s cognitive maps was produced about their daily space of action (n= 41) and school-home travel (n= 49) at different school levels and in various urban contexts. Based on a categorical and qualitative analysis of sketch map components and their meaning for children, a transversal discussion points out how the spatial representation as a figurative form (using verbal and iconographic languages) reveals the continuity of some part of child cultures over different periods, and the normative forms in their spatial cognition