Public knowing of risk and children's independent mobility

Global Studies of Childhood

Malone

2011

Self Cite

This article presents the research results from a study conducted in New South Wales, Australia about primary school children's independent mobility (CIM), their concerns, and the concerns of their parents. These results are compared with a similar study conducted in 1992. Data were collected using written questionnaires, one for children and one for their parents, distributed via three primary schools. The key findings indicate that school travel has not substantially changed over the past 18 years, although there has been a slight mode shift from walking to school bus travel. Children would like to engage in active transport and have more freedom to do other activities on their own; however, parents restricted CIM based on age, and concerns about traffic and strangers. Although there were localised differences in the survey results, it is hard to determine what influence these factors had on CIM.

Section: Limitationssupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Childhood in the Suburbs and the Australian Dream: How Has it Impacted Children's Independent Mobility?

Global Studies of Childhood

Malone

2011

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“…The independent and active mobility of children is an outcome of a very complex set of developmental (Ahmadi, 2007;Burgmanis et al, 2014;Rissotto and Tonucci, 2002), familial (Barron, 2014;Jensen et al, 2014), sociocultural (Depeau, 2001;Malone and Rudner, 2011;Valentine, 2004), and environmental characteristics (Alparone and Pacilli, 2012;Mitra and Buliung, 2014;Villanueva et al, 2013), as well as the policy context (Fyhri and Hjorthol, 2009;Rudner, 2012). Individual and family characteristics that are affecting CIM include children's age, maturity and gender (Johansson, 2006), family structure, socioeconomic status, ethnicity (Loebach and Gilliland, 2014;Weir et al, 2006), gender of parent, and parent employment (Valentine, 2004;Witten et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The last free-range children? Children’s independent mobility in Finland in the 1990s and 2010s

Kyttä

Hirvonen

Journal of Transport Geography

et al. 2015

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126

a b s t r a c tThe study reports the degree of children's independent mobility (CIM) in Finland for over two decades, from the beginning of the 1990s up to 2011. The first part of the research examined the differences of CIM in five different settlements in 2011: inner city, suburban, large town, small town, and rural village. A cross-sectional survey was used on a total of 821 7-to 15-year-old children in various settlements in different parts of Finland. Independent mobility was operationalized both as mobility licenses, meaning parental permits to perform certain activities independently, and as actual mobility, the proportion of active and independent school travel and independent weekend activities. In the second part of the study, we used the same measures to compare the independent mobility of Finnish children in the 1990s and 2010s. The second sample consisted of a total of 306 8-to 10-year-old children and their parents who participated in the CIM study in 1993-94 or in 2011. The major finding of the study was that in Finland children's independent mobility had decreased significantly during a span of 20 years, even more noticeably in the small town and rural village settings than in the inner city settlements. Finnish children, nevertheless, still enjoy a very high degree of independent mobility when compared with the children from the 16 countries involved in the large international comparative study for which the current research was conducted. In the discussion, we give some possible factors that can provide some understanding of and explanation to these trends.

“…Using case studies, students learn about the relationship of children/young people with the built form, active transport, physical activity, social relations and risk (Lynch, 1977;Malone, 1999;Owens, 1994;Rudner, 2012).…”

Section: Segment 3 Purpose Content Activitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Educating Future Planners about Working with Children and Young People

2017

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Planning and urban design professionals should ensure they engage children/young people in their work so planning systems and strategic policy can be more inclusive of the needs and aspirations of children/young people. Yet practitioners do not necessarily view children/young people as legitimate stakeholders, and professionals do not necessarily have the skills to be inclusive. To shift current policy and practice, planners and designers need to be better educated so they can facilitate children's/young people's contributions as well as advocate effectively for systemic change. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UNICEF Child Friendly Cities provide legitimacy and direction for current and future professionals about why engagement with children/young people should be a fundamental part of professional practice. However, it's important that students and practitioners learn how to engage with children/young people ethically. A key starting point is the way in which education is constituted as ethical practice when conducting research and engagement activities with children/young people. Lansdown's (2011) requirements for ethical engagement are applied to reflexively evaluate the design and implementation of a university subject, delivered in Victoria, Australia, that trains future planners about how to work with children and young people.