“Where Do Children Go?”: Exploring Children’s Daily Destinations With Children, Parents, and Experts

Zahra Tavakoli, Owen Waygood, Shabnam Abdollahi and Antonio Paez
Additional contact information
Zahra Tavakoli: Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering, Polytechnique Montréal, Canada
Owen Waygood: Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering, Polytechnique Montréal, Canada
Shabnam Abdollahi: Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering, Polytechnique Montréal, Canada
Antonio Paez: School of Earth, Environment & Society, McMaster University, Canada

Urban Planning, 2024, vol. 9

Abstract: Research on children’s destinations has primarily focused on school trips, yet their lives are more than that. Different destinations contribute to children’s quality of life in different ways, but this is rarely examined. For our research, focus groups were conducted with different stakeholders to better understand non-school destinations, namely by identifying common, daily, and informal destinations and perceptions of how they relate to children’s well-being. Online focus group discussions were conducted with children (aged 8–12), parents (with children aged 7–13), and experts from different cities across Canada in May and June 2023, to obtain diverse opinions about children’s destinations. The analysis was conducted based on a prior review to categorize children’s destinations, identify informal destinations, green and grey places, and the relation between those destinations to children’s well-being. Discussions with parents, children, and experts highlighted the diversity of destinations relevant to children. Leisure destinations were one of the most mentioned in the discussions. Spaces without specific rules or structures were identified by experts as beneficial for children’s cognitive, social, physical, and psychological health. Parents mentioned primarily formal places, whereas children and experts mentioned primarily informal ones. Green destinations were more associated with physical well-being, though children dominantly associated green destinations with psychological well-being as well. All groups dominantly associated grey-type destinations with social and cognitive well-being. Using these results, urban planners can develop strategies to improve children’s access to their daily destinations that support their well-being.

Keywords: children’s destinations; children’s travel; focus groups; health and well-being; non-school trips (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cogitatiopress.com/urbanplanning/article/view/8478 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:urbpla:v9:y:2024:a:8478

DOI: 10.17645/up.8478

Access Statistics for this article

Urban Planning is currently edited by Tiago Cardoso

More articles in Urban Planning from Cogitatio Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by António Vieira () and IT Department ().