‘Tiny humans’ outdoors: Understanding the factors that mediate opportunities for babies and toddlers

This paper contributes new knowledge and understanding to an area of international interest in research, policy and practice about the marginalisation of babies and toddlers through its novel outdoor focus. Drawing on a qualitative systematic literature review and adopting a ‘spatialities’ lens, it explores the factors that mediate the experiences of ‘tiny humans’ in outdoor spaces. It finds that since their access to, and interactions within, outdoor spaces are dependent upon adults both directly and indirectly, who these adults are (social characteristics) and how they are (cultural values and practices), are critical mediating factors. This positions the outdoors as a socially stratified space in which socio-economic status, class, ethnicity, and (dis)ability intersect in ways that can either include or marginalise even from before birth. At the same time, it is a cultural space in which values are expressed, transmitted and reproduced through care practices which may (or not) foster a sense of social and spatial inclusion. Finally, the outdoors emerges as a political space in which power relations play out. We argue that, given the rise in babies and toddlers attending ECEC settings globally, these may offer potential sites for developing counter-hegemonic practices that challenge social boundaries, the dominant cultural narrative of the Global North and the associated power relations that marginalise tiny humans and those that care for them. Alongside this, we call for further collaboration between disciplines to extend and disrupt the normative discourses about babies and the outdoors that are being reinforced through research in this area.