Katharyne Mitchell, Geography

Contact kmitch@u.washington.edu 353550

Reclaiming Childhood

The Reclaiming Childhood project is an inter-disciplinary,
collaborative research project that engages faculty from the University of
washington with the K-12 community of students, teachers and
administrators in an effort to address the changing nature of childhood
today.  I embark on this project under the auspices of the Simpson Center
for the Humanities, where I hold a three-year professorship. The project
consists of a research colllaborative of four University Professors
(Katharyne Mitchell- Geography, Patricia Campbell-Music, Sharon
Sutton-Architecture, Walter Parker-Education), a graduate student
assistant (Mona Atia-Geography) and Frances McCue, Director of the Richard
Hugo House.  I am writing a book entitled 'Stealing Childhood' on the
changing nature of childhood today and would like to use video to gather
reserach materials from teachers and parents.  In addition, I am
developing a component of the project that works with community
organizations that involve youth and the arts to address the defunding of
arts education. Next year, my research assistant and I will focus more
specifically on the creation of a documentary film on the themes explained
above.  At that time we would need access to editing facilities in
addition to a digital videocamera.