An Ecology of Childhood
A child's environment comprises all the external conditions and influences under which he lives. If I separate them it is partly for convenience of description, and my headings are no more than pegs, sometimes interchangeable, on which to hang facts.When West Indians migrate to England, or Englishmen to Africa, they take with them some components of their environment. The environment is usually considered in physical terms; but there are also cultural, social, and psychological factors, which may influence or overlap with others. This is not a suitable subject for demarcation disputes, for the environment is a continuum. It is a continuum that is unceasingly being modified, by Nature or by man himself; and to all the modifications the child, with his internal environment, has to adapt. We call it good health if adaptation is satisfactory, ill health if it is not; and health, too, must