James Paskins

Gender differences in children's pathways to independent mobility

This paper presents some empirical findings relating to the independent mobility of children in two parts of south-east England – one a south London borough, the other a suburban county north of London. In both locations boys appear to enjoy greater mobility than girls, and become independent much earlier. But closer analysis suggests that girls manage to attain similar levels of independence from adults by travelling more in groups. This collective independence achieved through peers is often overlooked, and may compensate modern children to some extent for their loss of individual freedom.

A METHODOLOGY FOR EVALUATING WALKING BUSES AS AN INSTRUMENT OF URBAN TRANSPORT POLICY

Walking buses are a relatively new phenomenon to encourage children to use an alternative to the car to travel to school. They consist of a group of children walking in a line along a set route, escorted by adults, and stopping to collect children at specific stops. There have been few systematic evaluations of their effectiveness as policy instruments. This paper describes a methodological framework to evaluate walking buses that is being developed as part of a larger project on childrens car use. The paper uses preliminary data from five schools to demonstrate the types of outcome that can be considered within the framework.

Crossing Disciplines To Address Urban Sustainability

This paper presents findings from the evaluation of Bridging the Gaps: Sustainable Urban Spaces (BTG), a novel interdisciplinary sustainability research funding program at University College London (UCL), funded by the United Kingdom Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). All of the EPSRCs Bridging the Gaps programs aim to initiate and support interdisciplinary collaboration within a university. The program at UCL was designed to create research partnerships that focus on problems in the area of sustainable urban spaces, an area that features complex problems that often overlap different academic disciplines. The program initially focused on building relationships within the three UCL faculties: The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, The Faculty of Engineering Sciences, and The Faculty of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, but subsequently brought in participants from other faculties. Bridging the Gaps has brought together researchers working on different elements of a problem, allowing each of them to contribute approaches from their own discipline. This paper presents feedback from participants in the program. Respondents discuss their experience in cross disciplinary working and its importance for their work. We address the question of whether the benefits are outweighed by the complexities of crossing disciplines, and we investigate the role that programs like BTG can play in making the process easier. We also discuss the challenge of creating the conditions for interdisciplinary work and ways in which we can use our experience to minimize the barriers of crossing disciplines in the future.

Day length and weather effects on children's physical activity and participation in play, sports and active travel

Policy context Proponents of the Daylight Saving Bill currently under consideration in the UK parliament have hypothesised that extending afternoon daylight would promote child physical activity. Objective To investigate the relative contribution of day length and weather to childrens physical activity, and the behavioural mediators underlying these effects. Design Cross-sectional school-based study Setting Hertfordshire, UK Participants 325 children (170 girls) aged 8–11 wore RT3 accelerometers as an objective measure of physical activity (964 days of valid data) and simultaneously completed travel and activity diaries (995 days). Outcome Overall daily physical activity (mean accelerometer counts per minute). Exposures Our main exposure measures were day length, temperature rainfall, cloud cover and wind speed. We also examined the mediating role of time spent in out-of-home play, structured sports and active travel. Results Overall physical activity was higher on long days (≥14 h daylight), but there was no difference between short days (<9.5 h) and medium days (10.2–12.6 h). The effect of long day length was largest between 17:00 and 20:00, and persisted after adjusting for rainfall, cloud cover and wind. Around half this effect was explained by a greater duration and intensity of out-of-home play on long days; structured sports and active travel were less affected by day length. Higher rainfall was associated with lower physical activity in the morning and early afternoon, and this was not explained by participation in play, sport or active travel. Conclusion At least above a certain threshold, longer afternoon/evening daylight appears to have a causal role in increasing child physical activity. This strengthens the public health arguments in favour of daylight saving measures such as those currently under consideration in Britain.