Abstract
Emerging concerns of international organizations, such as the UNICEF child-friendly cities movement, include the recognition of children and young people as a vulnerable group in society, and an emphasis on policies and actions for them to thrive in a safe environment. However, policy and planning responses do not always take into account the perceptions and local knowledge that children and young people already have about their community and quality-of-life conditions. The aim of this chapter is to present an analytical framework that includes the concepts of community well-being/quality-of-life/risk together with the application of participatory mapping methodology. The framework is informed by quality of life studies, children’s geography, and participatory mapping perspectives. We argue that this multidisciplinary lens is required to translate children’s and young people’s views and visions about their own communities into effective urban action plans. We illustrated the analytical framework with case studies, where innovative approaches elicit children’s and young people’s viewpoints that are meaningful for planning. From the cases we studied in Portugal, we learn that participatory approaches stimulate children and young people to critically and actively involve with their community in the identification of problems as well as in the co-design of solutions. Schoolchildren’s perceptions of risks in their urban environment were elicited through PGIS (participatory GIS) and web applications to geographically describe and explain sites and causes of risk. We conclude by presenting the potentials of participatory mapping of children’s and young people’s perceptions and the challenges of integrating participatory approaches.
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Notes
- 1.
For a discussion on etic and emic views in quality-of-life, see Martinez et al. (2016). Emic is considered as the community’s internal view and is a perception of living conditions according to the people experiencing them first hand. Etic is the view from outside, from the external observer who comes in and sees living conditions from the outsider perspective.
- 2.
It should be noted that adult parents often have very different values and perceptions from adult experts (e.g. planners). For a full discussion on etic and emic views in quality-of-life, see Martinez et al. (2016).
- 3.
We should note that children do not require access to every service (e.g. services that are specifically targeted or restricted to adults or elderly).
- 4.
This right is certainly relevant for children in the Global South. Adequate housing and heating may be more relevant depending on the context.
- 5.
E.g., Should planning be guided by children, or, with children? Should adults define the boundaries of the process?
- 6.
According to the classification suggested by Costa (2002).
- 7.
According to the latest census of 2011. Instituto Nacional de Estatística (2013).
- 8.
CyberTracker (http://www.cybertracker.org) is an open source geo-tagging application.
- 9.
The categories were based on keywords (or sets of keywords) associated with a particular theme. The keywords were extracted from the students’ responses to the questionnaire, and the rules of categorization were defined joining keywords connected by a common theme.
- 10.
- 11.
Chi-square independence test (χ 2 = 222.5, df = 84, p = 0.000 < 0.05).
- 12.
According to the adjusted standardized residuals provided by the Chi square independence test from SPSS IBM 22.0.
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Martinez, J., McCall, M., Preto, I. (2017). Children and Young People’s Perceptions of Risk and Quality of Life Conditions in Their Communities: Participatory Mapping Cases in Portugal. In: Tonon, G. (eds) Quality of Life in Communities of Latin Countries. Community Quality-of-Life and Well-Being. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53183-0_11
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