Urban School Travel

Exploring Children's Qualitative Narratives about Their Trip to School

Abstract

A wide range of correlates of active school transport (AST) have been studied including demographic, individual and family factors, school factors, and social and physical environmental factors. Children’s qualitative experiences of AST or non-AST have received less attention inthe AST literature. This paper seeks to redress this imbalance. We present findingsfrom children’s qualitative narratives about their journeys to and from school in four specific built environments in Toronto, Canada. Forty-one children—21 who walked to school (AST)and 20 who were driven to school (non-AST)—in grades four, five, and six from four elementary schools consented to participate. We selected the schools based on the design of the built environment and socio-economic status. We began our study with some assumptions about how the built environment might impact on AST; however,once we immersed ourselves in thechildren’squalitative stories, we realized that their relationships to the built environments’ were not straight forward. Children responded to our questions about health and well being, neighborhoods, social relationships, personal safety, traffic and environmental conservation in interesting and nuanced ways. We conclude that future research on AST should continue to consider the heterogeneity of children’s social and geographic relationships to, and experiences of, the built environments that may impact on their everyday school travel.