The objective of this project is to produce knowledge of the ways in which child–animal relations are significant in order to accommodate their existence in a rapidly urbanising world. In studies that map important individuals in children’s everyday lives, children themselves repeatedly include animals. Systematic in-depth studies on how significant child–animal relations form and evolve on children’s own terms thus contributing to their experienced wellbeing, are still missing however. At the same time there is a growing concern in urbanising societies of the diminishing of direct, spontaneous contact between children and animals. If societies respond to this challenge by fostering child–animal relations animals and children can form strong bonds, meaningful ‘networks of learners’ and ‘communities of knowers’. Such communities exemplify ’common worlds’ in which the human actors are intensely aware of their interconnectedness with the environment. Fostering such worlds will not be possible, however, before we know how significant child–animal relations form and are sustained by children and the animals as part of their everyday lives.
