Interest in acquiring children’s opinions about their neighborhoods has surged as researchers connect the health benefits of neighborhood activity and the built environment, understand the psychological and social influences of community cohesion and networks and attempt to fulfill the international agreements The United Nations Convention on the Right’s of the Child (1989) and the Child Friendly Cities Movement (2004). Since the late 1970’s, from pioneering work by Roger Hart and Kevin Lynch, we know that children are capable of evaluating their neighborhoods but how does that information get used or understood by community developers and planners? What methods can be used to provide a clear picture of “good”, “bad”, “scary” or “favorite” places? Relatedly, how can this information assist in determining how to modify neighborhoods so kids are more likely to play outside, walk or ride to school, connect with their neighbors or develop a sense of pride and ownership in their community?

A recent research study by Janet Loebach and Jason Gilliland (2010) in London, Ontario, provides an example of some of the innovative strategies being used today to engage children in community assessments. Working with grade 3 students from a local elementary school, they combined three strategies for child engagement and community assessment: child tours, photovoice and geographic information systems (GIS). The child-led walks were the main strategy employed by the research team. Pairs of children decided on a route to take that would highlight their favorite and least favorite community places and features. The students then led a researcher and city planner around their neighborhood and described its characteristics. As well as a verbal description, students took pictures with a digital camera. These pictures were part of the photovoice component of the project. Photovoice is a participatory method used to describe places, events and situations. Typically associated with social change initiatives, photovoice involves taking pictures and then describing them either in groups or individually in order to identify themes. Finally, at points of interest to the children, the adults tracked the location with a portable GPS unit. In total, 16 children participated in this exercise to describe their neighborhood. A week later, after the researchers conducted preliminary analyses on the data and narrowed down the number of pictures into potential themes, the adults and children met together as a group. Pictures were presented to the entire group of children and they were asked to discuss their importance. After this elicitation phase, all of the data were then analyzed, compared and contrasted.

Ten main themes emerged from the data: 1) community features that evoked a sense of ownership, belonging or pride; 2) sites associated with recreational activity; 3) features that reflected good community design or aesthetics; 4) how far and where children were comfortable venturing; 5) what installed fear, a sense of danger or annoyance; 6) sites of commercial interest to the children (or not); 7) community features associated with accessibility and mobility; 8) elements that reflected poor community design or aesthetics; 9) natural elements; and 10) features that reflected environmental or community advocacy. Quite a lot of information from grade 3 students! Watch for future posts about neighborhood likes and dislikes identified by these children and others.

Back to methods. The routes that the children took, their descriptions of what they liked and disliked, the photos they took, the group discussion about the photos and the use of maps (aerial and GIS generated) together provided information about mobility, neighborhood perceptions and use. A few highlights are worth mentioning. The maps of the routes chosen indicated that certain barriers existed that impeded the children’s mobility such as train tracks and busy streets. Most of the children’s favorite places were close to their homes, which makes sense for this age group. Available services and amenities were also easily identified when mapped, such as the school or local park as favorite places to play. The use of photovoice provided a visual aid in the group discussions and was a method identified as useful for less verbal children. As well, it served to illustrate the children’s preferences and thus was important for information dissemination. The child-led tours were considered very successful for identifying important places in neighborhoods. Having pairs of children give tours provided additional information as their discussions about specific places added additional detail (although it also added difficulty to data capturing–authors suggest audio taping instead of writing down notes). The larger group discussions also added another layer of information and assisted in confirming or enhancing preliminary themes. The GPS units were not shown to be as effective as originally thought, resulting in inconsistent data, perhaps due to the technology used or satellite interference. The authors did however find the aerial photographs very useful for place and route tracking.

All in all, the children’s neighborhood assessments provided valuable information and lessons for the researchers and city planners. As the authors indicate “The exercises were effective in demonstrating to both the researchers and the urban planners that children are capable of shrewd and sophisticated evaluations of their neighborhoods, in addition to providing an evocative profile of their neighborhood perspectives and priorities. Both methods were well-received by the planners, but the intimate nature of their dialogue with the children during the guided walks made a particularly favorable impression for the rich picture of experience that they evoked. The exchanges with the children also highlighted for the planners the more localized nature of the children’s activities than those of adults, and the more personal and intimate relationships they have with their neighborhood spaces and places than is likely true for adult residents” (p 81).

Reference: Loebach, J., & Gilliland, J. (2010). Child-led tours to uncover children’s perceptions and use of neighborhood environments. Children, Youth and Environments 20(1), 52-90.