儿童地理学是21世纪国际人文地理学新近兴起且蓬勃发展的学科。它关注儿童与地方之间丰富的关系及建立关系的过程。但过往研究多聚焦西方国家的儿童及国际难民儿童，对城市流动儿童及中国儿童关注不够。课题拟从“结构”与“能动”两个层面出发，着眼“儿童—地方”这一特定的人地关系，选择广州流动儿童集聚的城乡结合部、城中村及门禁社区三类宏观空间，“家”、“学校”和“社区”三种微观生活空间，构建流动儿童与地方关系的理论及实证研究体系，探讨流动儿童在迁移过程中的空间实践以及他们在城市不同空间的日常生活体验和地方建构。城乡的空间跨越和生境差异对儿童的成长带来深远影响，他们的城市融入和健康发展问题成为当下和谐社会建设的关键。研究旨在通过理论的本土化来揭示中国话语背景下城市流动儿童的日常生活和地方建构，为国际儿童地理学研究提供中国经验和中国知识。同时，研究对以成人为对象形成的人地关系理论也是一个有益的补充和完善。

Children’s geography is an new but thriving branch of human geography in 21st century. This circle of literature pays particular attention on the “children-place” relations, and the myriad dynamics associated within. The existing studies focus primarily on the children in either Western social context or refugee background, with little attention being paid to concern the children issues in the context of China’s rapid urbanisation. A special group known as “floating children” (流动儿童) has attracted increasing attention in the context of China’s new-type urbanisation. The floating children’s perceptions and experience on urbanisation will have far-reaching influence on China’s development in near future. This research focuses on the interrelationship between floating children and urban spaces, aiming to have understandings on China’s new-type urbanisation through the perspective of children. Based on the spatial segregation of migrant population in Guangzhou, this research aims to unveil the children’s spatial practices and the path of becoming urbanised in three everyday spaces: home, school and public space of community, and conducts comparisons in three typical urban spaces for migrants: rural-urban continuum(城乡结合部), urban village and gated communities. Rely on disclosing the heterogeneity of and the construction of space and place employed by floating children, this research attempts to deepen the understandings on the relation between floating children and urban spaces, which focuses primarily on how have the children become “urbanized” in various spatial contexts. In so doing, this research tries to provide the society with both theoretical and empirical evidences on the floating children. Meanwhile, echoing to the literature on geography of children at global scale, this research is expected to contribute China’s experience and strategies to the Western-based scholarship.