‘There is Nothing Here for Us..!’ How Girls Create Meaningful Places of Their Own Through Movement

‘There is Nothing Here for Us..!’ How GirlsCreate Meaningful Places of Their OwnThrough MovementPia Christensen*Institute of Education, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK

Miguel Romero MikkelsenThe Research Unit for General Practice, Department of General Practice, University of Copenhagen,Copenhagen K, Denmark

This article focuses on how girls create places of meaning and opportunity through collective

movement. It is based on an ethnographic study of the everyday experiences and mobility of

10–13 year old girls living in a suburb of Copenhagen, Denmark.1 The girls ventured for a

sense of freedom and a ‘place of their own’ to pursue their interests and social relationships.

For some girls the creation of places where they felt ‘at home’ would entail breaking rules

and transgressing spatial boundaries set by adults. � 2011 The Author(s). Children & Society

� 2011 National Children’s Bureau and Blackwell Publishing Limited.

Keywords: children, education, gender, middle childhood, play.

In this article, we focus on the mobility patterns and place-making activities of 10- to 13-year-old girls living in a suburb to Copenhagen. We found significant gender differences inthe suburban children’s use of outdoor space; girls were less physically active and morelikely to stay indoors or in close vicinity of their homes than the boys participating in thestudy (Mikkelsen and Christensen, 2009). These findings resonate with Hart’s (1979) classicstudy of children in North America that concluded that boys spend more time outdoors thangirls at the same age. Hart’s analysis related these differences in children’s geographies toparents’ greater concern for the safety of girls and that the girls were given far more house-hold obligations than boys. Also, recent UK research found that boys were more likely thangirls to engage in outdoor activities and were granted greater freedom by their parents toroam around their neighbourhood on their own (O’Brien and others, 2000). Matthews andTucker’s study of teenagers living in a rural area found that the streets, greens and squaresof the community constituted a moral landscape where girls appeared far more peripheralthan boys (Matthews and Tucker, 2006: 170–1). After school, girls were more likely thanboys to keep to the confines of their home for two reasons: their parents urged them not to‘hang around’ outside; and the girls themselves would avoid going outside when groups of‘rough’ looking boys gathered in the streets. When the girls went outside they would walkaround the village instead of ‘hanging around’ in one place, as the boys did (Matthews andTucker, 2006: 167–8). In this article, however, we wish to move beyond the differences foundin girls’ and boys’ mobility patterns. Drawing on ethnographic observations and the girlsaccounts of their lived experience we explore their outdoor movement against the hegemonyof the institutional organisation of space that forms the context of children’s everydaylife. We will show that the girls’ quest was met with support but also resistance from

CHILDREN & SOCIETY (2011)DOI:10.1111/j.1099-0860.2011.00413.x

� 2011 The Author(s)

Children & Society � 2011 National Children’s Bureau and Blackwell Publishing Limited

boys, parents and teachers. However, we are not suggesting that it is only girls that sharesuch experiences. Indeed our discussion includes aspects of contemporary Nordic and Euro-pean childhood that are common to the everyday lives and experiences of both boys andgirls.

Study design and methods

The suburb where we conducted the study has 20,000 inhabitants with one-fifth of the popu-lation under the age of 15. A relatively high concentration of enterprises employing skilledand unskilled labourers was reflected in the demography of the area, and fewer people withhigher education than the national average (Statistics Denmark). The suburb is located withinan industrial and commercial centre with approximately 25,000 people commuting daily toand from the suburb. This means there is a high volume of motor vehicle traffic on the majorarterial road that cut through the suburb, connecting it to Copenhagen and neighbouring sub-urbs. While only about half of the households within the suburb had a car, all but one of theparticipating families had one or more vehicle(s). The housing estates and apartment blocksare connected by paths, tunnels and viaducts. The aim of the research was to explore theeveryday mobility patterns of 10- to 13-year-old children and their perceptions of the facilita-tors and barriers to movement in their socio-physical environment. The sampling strategythus considered children’s everyday mobility as a complex of personal variables such as gen-der, age, ethnicity and social class2 (O’Brien and others, 2000; Valentine, 1989; Hart, 1979;Matthews, 1987) and contextual factors such as family form and parenting practices, the builtenvironment, transport forms and networks (Poole and others, 2005; Page and others, 2010).The study3 employed a mixed-methods design to facilitate children’s active participation inthe research process combining ethnographic methods: family and child interviews, partici-pant observation and guided-tour interviews (Christensen 2003) with GPS technology and amobile phone survey to generate an in-depth understanding of the children’s experiences ofand movements in their neighbourhoods (Christensen and others, 2011). Over eight monthsthe fieldworker (Mikkelsen) observed and participated in the children’s everyday activities atschool, in their homes, after-school club and the wider community.

Space, place and movement of contemporary childhood

Our theoretical starting point is the phenomenological framework advocated by Casey (1996)that understands space not as an absolute, prior and neutral setting for subsequent socialinteraction, experience and cultural meaning but rather space as emplaced from the verystart, animated and constituted by the human cultural body. ‘Just as there are no placeswithout the bodies, that sustain and vivify them, so there are no lived bodies without theplaces they inhabit and traverse’ (Casey, 1996: 24). It is through the body, its corporeal pres-ence and activities that space becomes cultural, that is a place of particular meaning andvalue (Feld and Basso, 1996; Olwig and Gulløv, 2003). The human body is always emplaced,always physically situated and integrated in its immediate environment. Whether, we lie inbed, run for the bus or sit in an airplane we always find ourselves in place. Thus the body isnot a stationary object but a lived and sensuous subject in motion.

However, whilst the phenomenological approach generates an in-depth, sensuous and con-crete knowledge of children’s lived spatiality it is important to recognise how children’s livesrelate to the socioeconomical and political structures of society (Ansell, 2005). Children’sexperiences are influenced by national and international policy-making and their everyday

2 Pia Christensen and Miguel R. Mikkelsen

� 2011 The Author(s) CHILDREN & SOCIETY (2011)


spaces are as local, immediate, social and material contexts already interwoven in politicaland economic networks across all scales. This form of spatiality is, in part, given by the pastbut nevertheless shaping the present, taken-for-granted milieu of children’s everyday move-ment and their sense of emplacement.

During the past 50 years the development of the urban landscape in European and NorthAmerican cities instigated radical changes to children’s everyday lives, including their out-door mobility patterns when compared to that of previous generations (Hillman and others,1990; O’Brien and others, 2000). Children’s lives have been seen as mirroring the spatialfragmentation (Qvortrup and others, 1994; Zeiher, 2003) caused by the increased genera-tional segregation characteristic to the contemporary urban landscape (Christensen andO’Brien, 2003). The home, school, day-care, public playgrounds and leisure activities ‘arescattered like islands on the map of the city’ (Zeiher, 2003: 66). The institutionalisation ofchildren’s everyday lives has led children to spend more time under closer adult supervisionwithin spaces particularly designated for them. Several studies suggest that the decline inchildren’s outdoor play and mobility should be seen as a product of heightened risk aware-ness among parents and the children themselves (Gill, 2007; O’Brien and others, 2000;Valentine, 1997; Valentine and McKendrick, 1998). This is fuelled by fear of traffic accidentsand mass media attention to events like child murder and abduction (Pooley and others2005:155–156; Furedi 2002). In order to guard children against the dangers of the street,parents increasingly escort children by car4 to and from educational and leisure-time activi-ties (Fotel 2007; Barker 2003; O’Brien and others, 2000; Hillman and others, 1990).

The study was carried out in Denmark, where childhood is notable for its highly institutio-nalised form. On the basis of a higher taxation system than that found in its European coun-terparts, the Nordic welfare state model has provided a high level of social services for itsusers (Esping-Andersen, 1996), providing school and childcare services in part to supportdual-career and single-parent families. Such national legislation evidences the social andmaterial production of ‘technocratic space’ (Lefebvre, 1991), found tangibly in the social andspatial formation of school and after-school buildings and grounds influencing the everydaylives of children and their families. Prout (2005: 82), from an actor-network perspectiveargues that: ‘...the locales of childhood [should be understood] not as ‘containers’ but asplaces constructed through flows of heterogeneous materials. Schools, for example, arerelated to other schools, to households, playgrounds, after-school clubs, firms, local authori-ties, trade-unions, ministries, courts and so on. People cross these boundaries bringing withthem different and conflicting ideas, experiences, ideals, values and visions (all the thingsthat make up discourses) and different material resources.’

Studies of children and young people have argued that urban spaces are never neutral andopen for all but always contested and imbued with social meanings (Cahill, 2000; Matthews,2003; Matthews and others, 2000a,b). The socio-material space is a locus of inclusionaryand exclusionary practices (Sibley, 1995). Children’s and young people’s visible presenceand gathering in the street, the shopping centre and other public places are often seen asinappropriate and disapproved of, leading to close surveillance and careful regulation(Matthews and others, 2000a). Historically, children and young people, like other socio-economically disadvantaged groups, tend to become excluded and negatively stereotyped inthe urban landscape, literally ‘out of place’ by not ‘keeping to’ the spaces they are somehowexpected to stay within (Addams, 1909 ⁄ 1972). This uneven distribution of power and statusreflected in different conceptions and access to space is central to understanding children’s

Girls Create Places of Meaning and Opportunity 3



use of space (Olwig and Gulløv, 2003: 8). Rasmussen (2004) draws an analytical distinctionbetween ‘places for children’ and ‘children’s places’. ‘Places for children’ describes the mate-rial and social environments made for children, for example school, day-school and after-school facilities. ‘Children’s places’ refers to the social, material and symbolic places createdby children. This distinction highlights the importance of children’s own place-makingactivities. Children are not passively given places they are also (co-)creating them. In every-day life children create their own sense of place within the institutionally context of theirlives and activities and they are not left entirely without influence on the governance andsocial production of space (Cobb and others, 2005). Even, children as young as two to threeyears old actively engage in transforming their playroom space, through appropriating, rec-onfiguring and negotiating space in the course of their day-to-day nursery life (Gallacher,2005).

Echoing a Foucauldian understanding of power, Sharp and others (2000) points to the doubledimension of power as being both repressive and productive. Power can express itself to thebenefit of both the dominant and the dominated. In favour of the dominant it works as ameans of coercion and control, while the dominated may use it as a power of resistance. Thistheoretical point supports Solberg (1994), who notes children’s opportunity to negotiate free-dom of action: ‘Although in many ways children’s position is a weak one they do notpassively adapt themselves to what elders say and do. Children have and make use of a con-siderable freedom of action. They are in a position to influence the outcome of the negotiat-ing process in directions, which they perceive to be favourable ...’ (Solberg, 1994:106). Associal actors and co-creators of their lives children, in many circumstances, actively influ-ence their own lives and the lives of others (Christensen and James, 2000 ⁄ 2008). However,the above notions of child agency have been criticised for treating agency as a given ratherthan a produced ‘effect’ (Lee,1998,2001; Prout, 2001, 2005), suggesting that what is neededis an account of how children are able to exercise agency through their networks and alli-ances with other actors, including other children, adults, technologies and artefacts. In thisarticle, we will show how girls are enabled or failing in their place-making through creatingsuch networks and (partial) connections (Christensen, 1998; Strathern, 1991).

Girls’ bodies in motion

To identify the various ways that the girls aimed to create places that were meaningful to themwe adopt Casey’s (1996) framework for understanding bodily motion. Casey distinguishes threeforms of bodily motion. First, movement whilst staying in place, characterising motion madeby the body moving whilst remaining in one place; for example the bodily motion that ayoung child undertakes when he ⁄ she is carried around on the shoulders of his ⁄ her parent. Theyoung child stays seated in one place whilst moving because the young child’s ‘unmoving’body is transported by another moving body, their parent. The literature has provided illustra-tive examples of how children are not only in places but of them for example, when at schoolthey hold and shape their body posture to the classroom layout, school rules and adult author-ity (Christensen and others, 2001). Children sitting in straight postures facing the blackboardand the teacher’s desk adopting ‘the choreography of schoolwork’ (Paludan, 2009). However,such standardization of bodies is often accompanied by the children’s subtle, non-conformingmovements such as their discreet wriggling and twisting of legs and feet hidden under thetable tops. At school we observed many examples of such movement.




However, we wish to focus more fully on Casey’s (1996) second definition of bodilymotion: moving within a place. This applies to the whole body moving within the confine-ment of a particular space. This form is habitual to children in institutionalised spaces. Atschool such movement was routine to break time, when the younger children played inthe playground, the older boys played football on the grass and the older girls playedindoors in the classroom.

One lunch break, a teacher decided not to allow the girls to stay indoors in the classroom. Itwas a sunny autumn day and the teacher insisted, ‘It would do you good to spend the breakoutside’. Somewhat reluctantly the girls entered the playground. Quietly forming a circleholding their arms tightly across each others’ shoulder they slowly began to move aroundthe school yard bowing their heads towards the middle of the circle. Their bowed heads verydramatically appeared to represent their passive submission and collective obedience to theauthority of the teacher. However, the circle of bodies also formed a protective shield of‘moving bodies’ that literally enabled them to cut off the world around them and thusuphold the precious private place they usually enjoyed indoors in the classroom. Contrary tothe lively activities of the children around them, the girls’ motions were slow, almost static.The girls kept the formation — a large entangled circle of lethargic bodies — during the entire(20 min) lunch break, except when one of the girls briskly turned around and pushed away ayounger girl who accidently bumped into their circle. During this incidence the girls createda hybrid form of motion combining ‘staying-in-place’ with ‘moving within a place’.

Casey’s third notion is that of moving between places featuring the movement of the body inand across a number of places, such as a journey. This does not include motion conductedwith the help of assistive transport facilities (such as the bike, car or train that combines themotion ‘staying in place’ with the motion ‘within a place’). Moving between places definesmotion brought about by the exertion of the whole body. The most conspicuous of such casesare pilgrimages; nevertheless, we would include, everyday journeys, such as children’s walk-ing between home and school. As we will go on to show, children’s self-directed movementsbetween places are regarded as somewhat threatening to the social order of the institutionalsettings of children’s everyday lives. Although, Smith and Barker’s (2000) study of children’sexperiences of out-of-school care in England and Wales found that children may transgressthe material and social boundaries, hence attributing their own meanings to the place.

Girls, institutional space and outdoor mobility

During fieldwork most of the girls attended the after-school club. In their accounts the clubwas ‘boring’. ‘There is nothing here, for us to do’ and nowhere to be ‘on our own withoutbeing disturbed by the boys’, they argued. The girls’ preferred activities were computergames, singing, dancing and listening to music or making arts and crafts. Few outdoor activ-ities seemed to attract them. Compared with school, where boys and girls rarely playedtogether, the club staff expected the children to accommodate both girls and boys in playactivities, for example in outdoor ball games. From the perspectives of the children this wasa highly contested activity, articulated in terms of gender identity. The girls often did notwant to take part in outdoor ball games because the boys were ‘too serious’ and played ‘toorough’ and the boys excluded them, insisting that they were not ‘good enough’ to play (seealso Smith and Barker, 2000). In an attempt to remedy the girls growing discontent with theafter-school club, the staff decided to dedicate a small room for the use of girls only. Theroom was quickly inhabited by the girls, who decorated the walls and furnished it with an




old couch. This room allowed the girls to reverse the situation out on the football pitch. Thegirls claimed the room ‘for girls only’ and insisted that boys were not allowed in. However,very quickly, the room failed to fulfil the girls’ wish for ‘a place of their own’. The popularityof the room necessitated the staff to introduce a booking arrangement, allowing them to taketurns in using the room. Consequently, the girls gradually dropped out of the club with theirparents’ permission. Our data showed that the girls hereafter spent the afternoons at home,sometimes in the company of siblings and friends. They watched television, chatted withfriends on the internet, walked the family dog or did their homework. When outdoors theystayed in the vicinity of their home. Early in the evening children’s club-based and home-based self-organised activities were replaced by organised activities such as music lessons,dance and drama and for a minority of girls sport.

On a neighbourhood odyssey

In the following section we explore the theme of ‘children’s places’ through an atypical butilluminating instance about girls’ place-making beyond the confinements of the after-schoolclub. The example involved Camilla and Mia, two ‘best friends’. At school they both felt bul-lied, which had led Mia’s parents to move her to another local school. Almost one yearearlier the girls had been caught in shoplifting, which had led their parents to ban them fromseeing each other outside the after-school club for a whole year. At the time when the othergirls gradually left the club Mia and Camilla’ parents declined to let them do so. The twogirls preferred to spend their afternoons together and felt their parents veto constraining oftheir friendship and of their wish to be in their own place.

At the time of the fieldwork, Mia and Camilla were the subjects of much negative attentionas the girls had left the after-school club on numerous occasions without permission. Thusthe girls violated not only the rules of the local institution but also the national regulationon truancy that has delegated to professionals working with children to be responsible forthem. In meetings with Mia and Camilla present, their parents and the staff attempted toenforce the regulation by prohibiting the girls leaving the institution unless accompanied byan adult. However, despite intensified monitoring, the two girls continued their disappearingacts. Although it was never explicitly articulated, the adults’ aggravation, expressed in meet-ings, indicated that they still suspected the girls capable of shoplifting or other types of anti-social behaviour on their trips out.

To understand Mia and Camilla’s use of their neighbourhood the researcher asked for permis-sion to join the two girls on a guided walk. The walk around the neighbourhood becamesignificant to the study because what the two girls presented, as they took the researcher ona trip around places they valued, was a narrative of their lives, including the problems theyfaced at home, at school and in the after-school club. Although the social situation of thetwo girls differed from that of the other girls, we found that they shared the cultural valuesof girls expressed in their challenges of the use of space at school and after-school club.

In a place of one’s own

One winter’s day, the researcher went with Mia and Camilla on a guided walk around theneighbourhood. Whilst leaving the after-school grounds, the girls decided to followthe main road to show the researcher their secret hideout in some bushes at the side of theroad.




Camilla: I thought we could go to the small hideout (pointing to the shrub across the road). We havea small hiding place there.Researcher: Who do you hide from?Camilla: Adults.Mia: The after-school club and our mum and dad.Camilla: The after-school club and our mum and dad. And then we just sit there and it’s really cosy.(Guided-tour int.2: 440–8).

The girls went on to explain that they did not use the den as their hideout during wintersince the bushes had no leaves at that time and it was too cold to sit there. However, a fewmonths earlier they had brought a blanket, food and soft drinks to enjoy there. Sometimesthe traffic noise from the road would make it difficult for them to hear each other, but thegirls saw this as yet another enchantment since the noise also made it difficult for passers-by to detect their hide-away. The girls cherished this place because it was a place of theirown hidden away from any intrusion except for the motion of nature.

Own speed, tempo and interests

The girls took the researcher to eight different places, most of these, places of particularsocial value to the girls. They explained that they would take the researcher to meet their‘really good friends’ including: three dachshunds, a disabled woman in a wheelchair and ashop assistant in their favourite clothes shop in the shopping centre. It was usual for the girlsto take the dogs for a walk in the park. The dogs lived close to the after-school club. Onebelonged to Camilla’s cousin, who had entrusted Camilla with a key to her flat. The othertwo dogs belonged to the disabled woman. The girls decided to use the companionship ofthe researcher to go to the shopping centre. They did not usually go to the shopping centrebecause they feared meeting their parents or others familiar with their disobedient ventures.However, they felt it safe to go there in the presence of the fieldworker because, in theirexperience, adult company in many situations worked to legitimate their presence in a placeand their outdoor movements.

When entering the shopping centre the girls were very excited about this unexpected oppor-tunity to go shopping together. Window shopping that is. The girls strolled around the cen-tre, stopping whenever something caught their attention, looking, touching and discussingthe goods displayed outside the shops. ‘This is our favourite clothes shop’, Camilla saidpointing ahead as a signal to speed up. ‘I know the shop assistant’, she proclaimed with abig smile. Before they slipped in between the rows of clothes in the shop they stopped for abrief chat with her. Camilla then suggested: ‘Let’s go to the pet shop. We always used to gothere. It’s downstairs on the first floor’. The moment they entered the pet shop they quick-ened their pace and headed towards the back of the shop ‘This way! The pets are down here’the girls shouted before they disappeared out of sight. Surprised to find the girls sitting onthe floor each holding a rabbit the researcher asked: ‘Are you allowed to touch them?’ ‘Yeah,that’s the idea!’ Camilla said. ‘We’re saving up so we can buy a rabbit together’ Miaexplained. After cuddling the rabbits the girls decided it was time to leave the shopping cen-tre. Outside, the researcher asked about the difference between shopping with parents andshopping on their own. In the girls’ experience a shopping trip with parents would be at aforced speed and to a fixed schedule. Camilla explained: ‘Because … we have to gointo Føtex, we have to go into Netto [Supermarkets], and then we have to go home. And ... Isimply can’t be bothered! (Camilla’s emphasis) (Int.2: 780–92). The girls wished for shopping




trips that allowed them to enjoy (with all their senses) the shops and things that they consid-ered interesting and amusing.

Freedom and being in control

From the shopping centre the walk continued on small residential streets. Because of thelong visit to the shopping centre, the girls decided not to take the dogs for a walk that after-noon. Instead they decided to pass by to ‘say hello’ and reassure the dogs and their ownersthat they would come back the next day to take the dogs out. On the way back to the after-school club the girls raised the issue of the many conflicts they usually encountered. Camillaexplained:

We can go where we want! If we fall out with our parents or them (the staff) down the Club, thenwe’ll just walk out. One time after school, I called Mia and she said: ‘‘I am fed up!’’. I said, ‘‘So am I.Now I’m going to the Centre’’ (the shopping centre). [Mia said] ‘‘I am going as well. We’ll meet upthere’’.

Researcher: Did you tell your parents [that you went there]?Camilla: No... and afterwards you feel really guilty. (GTI0:431–5)

The long and eventful walk with the two girls drew attention to the girls’ wish for settlementin a place where they could pursue their own interests, friendship and happiness. Throughwalking out Mia and Camilla succeed, at least temporarily, to escape the emotional stress ofconflicts with adults and the bullying by other children and replace such experiences withactivities that to them were socially rewarding and meaningful. Most days the girls walkedthe dogs in the park and chatted with the local people they met on their way. The schooland the after-school club were to them spaces of conflict and confinement, within whichthey felt in no position to form social bonds or to create their own place. From their perspec-tive the institutional regulation concerning children’s safety that states that children are notallowed to leave the premises did not serve its caring purposes. The regulations merelyappeared as an obstruction to their mobility and companionship. The girls expressed guilt oftransgressing the social and material boundaries set for them — and obviously they did notlike the reprimand that followed each episode. However, the joy they had walking the dogsdeciding their own route, speed and tempo seemed to compensate for this. It is notable thatthe girls emphasised the companionship of their experiences through the repeated use of thefirst person plural: ‘We’.

Conclusion

The ethnographic data reported in this article reveal the importance for girls’ of creatingplaces of their own. Whilst studies of children’s mobility have concluded that girls’ use ofoutdoor place is less extensive than boys, we have shown how girls strategically pursuedtheir interests, social relationships and well-being through companionship in movement.Girls acted on, rather than passively accepted, their sense of ‘there is nothing here for us...!’.Instead they actively sought and created places that were meaningful to them. For the girlsthe emphasis was on pursuing a place of one’s own rather than rule-breaking as an aim initself. Although none of the girls participating in the study were involved in social conflictsas intense as those of Mia and Camilla, the girls collectively regretted the lack of space forplace-making activities.




The girls sought companionship whilst creating ‘places of one’s own’. Creating ‘places ofone’s own’ did not mean a place to be alone. Their concern was to create a sense of privacytogether. This enabled the girls to set their own tempo and pursue their own (shared) inter-ests. Through the creation of togetherness and the pursuit of shared interests, the girls bothrecognised themselves and sought recognition from others.

The success of the girls’ project was also dependent on the sustainability of the places theycreated and their agency partially produced through alliances and connections. The sustain-ability problem is apparent in the girls’ moving playground circle. As the routine of school(the end of break time) was re-asserted their circle dissolved, even though, we can envisagethat it could be easily re-formed. The two girls’ absences from the after-school club resultedin intense surveillance and restriction of their place-making. Their den in the bushes by theroad was a seasonal event — as the leaves dropped from the trees it ceased to function as ahiding place. At the after-school centre the girls were, for a time, successful in creating adurable place of their own through their campaign to establish a ‘girls’ room’. They accom-plished this through persuading sympathetic adults to their idea of creating a place that hada chance of being more than temporary. However, soon the room proved inadequate to theirneeds and eventually the girls collectively stopped attending the club altogether, underliningthe importance of adult cooperation in supporting girls’ agency in place-making.

Notes

1 The analysis presented here derives from a large research project entitled, ‘Children, Move-ment and Urban Space’. The project was carried out with colleagues at the Department ofEducational Studies at Roskilde University Centre, Denmark. The project was funded by theDanish Humanities Research Council 25-03-0546 and the Danish Health Sciences ResearchCouncil 22-04-0088.2 The sampling criteria included age and gender, factors identified as key to understandingchildren’s mobility patterns (Brown and others, 2008; Hillman and others, 1990; O’Brien andothers, 2000). Although previous research has suggested that ethnicity and social class, andhealth-related factors such as obesity and disability are also important, we decided to let theimportance of these emerge from the data rather than impose them on the sampling strategy.We were interested in exploring further, findings suggesting that at the age of 10, childrenenjoy a greater freedom of mobility away from home (e.g. Matthews, 1987; O’Brien andothers, 2000).3 See Christensen and others (2011) for detail of the mixed-methods design and the particu-lar use of new mobile technologies in combination with ethnographic research.4 In Denmark, for example, the number of children driven by car to school doubled in theperiod from 1993 to 2000 and children aged 11–15 years tripled their car trips on all jour-neys from 1978 to 2000 (Jensen & Hummer 2002 in Fotel & Thomsen 2004: 538).

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*Correspondence to: Professor Pia Christensen, Institute of Education, University of Warwick. Coventry CV4 7AL, UK,

Tel.: +44 (0)24 7652 3938; Fax: +44 (0)24 7652 4177. E-mail: [email protected]

Accepted for publication 29 October 2011




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