Crossing roads, crossing boundaries: empowerment and participation in a child pedestrian safety initiative

Abstract

Children's journeys between home and school have become increasingly problematic in Western cities as a result of intensifying traffic and safety concerns. Many parents now take their children to school by car and, through driving, exacerbate congestion. In response to this situation, a number of school communities, in partnership with local authorities, have established walking school buses (WSBs). In this paper the WSB phenomenon is critiqued, with particular reference to the initiative adopted by a primary school in Auckland, New Zealand. It is concluded that WSBs offer participants a highly ambivalent form of empowerment and spatial freedom that is contingent upon adult surveillance and disciplinary power.

The body as a battlefield: approaching children's politics

“…Following de Certeau (1984), to survive within the nets of discipline, one needs to create an anti-discipline, a counter act, which is presented in tactics. As argued above, children's resistance and conformity can both be understood as such (Kearns and Collins 2003;Skelton and Valentine 2003), being the means by which children participate in the reconstruction of childhood.…”

“…The particular case chosen to illustrate these arguments, the medical examination, accentuates the role of the body. It reveals how the children's bodies functioned both as policy objects and political subjects when the demands of the policy were met and challenged by the children (Barker 2003;Kearns and Collins 2003).…”

“…The reasons for this may be obvious, as the two do not seem to have much in common. Politics is linked with rights and responsibilities, from which children should be excluded, as well as burdens, from which they should be spared (Kearns and Collins 2003). Childhood, likewise, is reserved for children only, making politics appear irrelevant in that context.…”

“…In policy-making and traditional childhood studies, children are frequently seen as vulnerable, fragile beings, 'the archetypal victims' (Christensen 2000, p. 41;Kearns and Collins 2003). Also, critical childhood studies are often concerned with improving childhoods (Mayall 2000;Prout, 2003;Rayner 2003;Holt 2004).…”

“…Their belonging to such institutions as the family, school and health care go unquestioned, yet the conditions of the institutional settings are constantly negotiated by all members (Kallio 2006). Thus, children's autonomous politics can be defined as 'the politics of resistance and participation ' (Pile 1997, p. 1;Kearns and Collins 2003).…”