Thierry Ramadier

Knowledge of the environment and spatial cognition: JRS as a technique for improving comparisons between social groups

In this paper we compare the sketch-map technique with a spatial modelling task based on a set of eight separate items. The aim of the comparison is to verify, thanks to a special spatial reconstruction set, Jeu de reconstruction spatiale (JRS), whether the difficulties often encountered by unskilled persons when asked to draw a sketch map can be avoided. If so, the JRS could help to improve comparisons between different social groups. Thirty university students majoring in geography and twenty-one unskilled staff members were asked to represent the centre of Strasbourg both by drawing a sketch and with the JRS. The results show that, on one hand, the difference between the two groups regarding the number of items mentioned is smaller with the JRS than with the sketch map. On the other hand, in both groups, the same proportion of respondents increased the number of urban elements produced in the second trial with the JRS. This was not the case with the sketch map. Also, the JRS is more stable than the sketch map from one trial to the next. Furthermore, the respondents preferred the JRS to the sketch map. However, the JRS is more suggestive than the sketch map, but only for elements which are more rarely represented (railway tracks, etc). Thus, in terms of scientific research, the JRS makes it possible to improve comparisons between social groups. In terms of applications, it offers interesting possibilities for promoting citizen participation in urban planning.

La conduite inégale : le permis de conduire au prisme des sciences sociales1

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. La conduite inégale : le permis de conduire au prisme des sciences sociales Simon Borja, Guillaume Courty, Thierry Ramadier

Adjustment to Geographical Space and Psychological Well-Being

This chapter considers whether individual well-being can be analyzed in the light of both social and cognitive rationales. In other words, it argues that individual well-being might depend on psychological dimensions that do not necessarily relate to constraint (vs. choice), frustration (vs. completing a project) or the physical or economic difficulty (vs. ease) in accessing a resource perceived as indispensible. Instead well-being might be shaped by adjustments to the socio-physical environment, with socio-cognitive processes of appropriation in actions (scripts, routines, etc.) and representations (social dispositions, cognitive schemata, anchorings, etc.) of an environmental context that can be illegitimate (vs. legitimate), unfulfilling (vs. fulfilling), painful (vs. enjoyable), or even impossible (vs. easy) for individuals. It follows that it is not the context of well-being that will be perceived as fulfilling, enjoyable or easy, but the processes of adjustment to that context. This approach to well-being is addressed on the basis of a study of the spatial routines of daily mobility in the city. The concepts of social legibility of geographical space, socio-cognitive accessibility of places and geographical replacement are used to describe and understand adjustments and person/surroundings congruences involved in the well-being of individuals in their relationship to urban space.

Socio-Cognitive Accessibility to Places

Accessibility is a core concept in human geography when it comes to geographical mobility. And yet residential mobility is never addressed in terms of geographical accessibility! Choices, preferences, and decision-making processes are generally at the heart of descriptive and explanatory models of residential mobility. At best, geographical accessibility is only considered to be an issue for residential mobility when it relates either to anticipation of daily mobility (access to school, work, shops, etc.) when moving home, or to determining the price of housing when buying or selling a property.