Exploring children's everyday journeys with user-generated AR

This paper describes the design of a tool to allow children to create their own Augmented Reality (AR) content as part of creative engagement with their local environment. We are exploring AR Maps (physical maps with augmented digital content) as a way of documenting children's experiences of their local area and encouraging their understanding and appreciation of objects and sites in their communities. We have piloted the approach with children in a local primary school, with positive feedback. However, children were not able to create the AR content themselves, and their physical artwork had to be scanned by researchers. In this paper we give an overview of the design context and describe the design and implementation of a tool to allow children to create their own 3D models for the AR environment by digitising their own artwork

'Are we there yet?': Exploring aspects of automobility in children's lives

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This thesis examines children's experiences of cars, by using personal diaries, photographs, in-depth interviews and surveys, to conduct applied research with children aged 4-11, parents and local transport planners in schools within Buckinghamshire and North London. The thesis challenges existing research on automobility, that is the increasingly central role of cars in societies, for focusing predominantly on adults and ignoring children's experiences. Adopting a postmodern approach, the research explores how cars are not only journey spaces for children, but are also sites for play, relaxation, homework, companionship, technology and the consumption of commodities. Using a postmodern conceptualisation of power, insights into wider familial processes are provided by exploring how cars are sites of conflicting power relations between parents and children. Massey's power geometry of mobility is utilised to consider how the role of cars in children's lives is differentiated by complex interconnections between place, gender, age, ethnicity and social class. Whilst aspirations for car ownership are powerful, many children participate in initiatives to reduce congestion such as 'Safer Routes to School' programmes. However, these initiatives challenge and control children's mobility and fail to include them in decision-making. Whilst a postmodern approach maps the diversity of children's experiences, insights are also drawn from Marxist geographies, indicating how cars are increasingly commodified spaces, and illustrating how the broader economic context influences children's accounts. The work of feminist geographers helps to explore how children's mobility is often the responsibility of, and embedded with the mobility patterns of mothers. Working with local transport planners, although contributing to social change, is criticised as a rather conservative approach to applied geography. Some of the contradictions between postmodernism and applied geography are explored, such as the inability, from a postmodern position of relativism and fragmentation, to speak with authority and offer solutions for policy makers

Fitting the bike to the chain: An analysis of transitions towards households integration of multi-modal cycling

This study explores the integration of cycling with public transport (Cycling-PT) from a household perspective. Varied household types were reflected in the individuals and families who participated in fourty-seven interviews and small group discussions in Nottingham and Leeds. Participants were recruited at railway stations, bike hubs and via activist and bicycle user groups and other gatekeeper organisations in the voluntary, local authority and education sectors between June 2016 and January 2017. Drawing on literature from the Activity Approach (AA), Mobility Biographies and structuration theory, an interview topic guide was used during individual interviews and small group discussions, supported by visual cue cards. Additional visual elicitation methods supported a second phase of discussions with individuals and families, the participants assembling 3D Styrofoam models of railway stations, using miniature Lego characters to recreate scenarios of journeys when they had combined Cycling-PT. Together, these methods provided insight into the variability of household travel behaviour over the life-course, mental models and reflexive processes. Interviews with eight family groups who took part with their children revealed how Cycling-PT had enabled the everyday activities of families through specialisation of roles for childcare and employment. Benefits to households included access to employment, particularly for people unable to drive. Time-savings over using buses to access rail journeys contrasted with more divided opinions on cost savings. Families integrated taking children to daycare, or school, with regular combined Cycling-PT commutes, carried by bicycle and train with their parents. Adolescent children travelling independently to visit relatives during school holidays. Childcare provision was influential in family travel decisions, collecting children at the end of the working day acting to constrain the combination of Cycling-PT. Parents valued secure storage for bicycles (and other mobility devices) at nurseries, schools, transport hubs and workplaces. Qualitative thematic analysis of interview transcripts using NVivo revealed beliefs and related to physical activity shared within households that had motivated the combination of cycling with PT. Participants associated improved mood with the integration of cycling with PT, the combined modes enabling the transition between work or study and household activities. Bicycle parking at PT hubs complemented carriage of bicycles on board trains to enable a full range of activities to be achieved. Workplace facilitation included flexible, or negotiated working arrangements, changing facilities, storage and showers for cyclists, salary-sacrifice bicycle purchase schemes and supportive colleagues. These findings have implications for policy, transport design, and offer directions for future research

Moving on : the role of transport in the everyday mobilities of children and young people in urban Australia

This grounded study explores the role of transport, broadly conceived, in shaping and differentiating the everyday mobilities of children and young people in contemporary urban Australia. Drawing on approaches from across urban, transport and children and young people’s geographies, and the sociology of mobilities, the research investigated the everyday travel of 82 children, aged 9 to 12 years, and 176 young people, aged 13 to 15 years, living in Blacktown, Western Sydney who described their use of transport to a range of educational, social, cultural and recreational activities. Blacktown epitomises many aspects of urban Australia. Blacktown is a local government area with a large, rapidly growing, comparatively youthful, culturally and socially diverse population of more than 300,000 people. It has a variety of urban forms and is serviced by a mix of public transport, local buses and rapid bus transit ways, and the metropolitan road and rail networks. The research was conducted in government schools (five secondary and three primary schools) located in five different neighbourhoods. The neighbourhoods were distinguished by their location in relation to the Blacktown city centre, urban form and socio-economic characteristics. The research adopted a child-focussed methodology and a mixed method design. A variety of quantitative and qualitative data was derived from classroom discussions, local area walking tours with photography, video recordings, individual drawings, maps, travel and activity diaries and interviews. From the materials produced this thesis illustrates how children and young people are negotiating their everyday mobilities afforded by the available transport network as well as by the dynamics of their own households. It argues that children’s and young people’s ‘everyday mobilities’ are irreducibly situated within the context of their households and urban spaces, which must be better understood and adequately addressed in policy and planning to achieve a more age-responsive, socially-inclusive urban transport policy and planning

Moving on : the role of transport in the everyday mobilities of children and young people in urban Australia

This grounded study explores the role of transport, broadly conceived, in shaping and differentiating the everyday mobilities of children and young people in contemporary urban Australia. Drawing on approaches from across urban, transport and children and young people’s geographies, and the sociology of mobilities, the research investigated the everyday travel of 82 children, aged 9 to 12 years, and 176 young people, aged 13 to 15 years, living in Blacktown, Western Sydney who described their use of transport to a range of educational, social, cultural and recreational activities. Blacktown epitomises many aspects of urban Australia. Blacktown is a local government area with a large, rapidly growing, comparatively youthful, culturally and socially diverse population of more than 300,000 people. It has a variety of urban forms and is serviced by a mix of public transport, local buses and rapid bus transit ways, and the metropolitan road and rail networks. The research was conducted in government schools (five secondary and three primary schools) located in five different neighbourhoods. The neighbourhoods were distinguished by their location in relation to the Blacktown city centre, urban form and socio-economic characteristics. The research adopted a child-focussed methodology and a mixed method design. A variety of quantitative and qualitative data was derived from classroom discussions, local area walking tours with photography, video recordings, individual drawings, maps, travel and activity diaries and interviews. From the materials produced this thesis illustrates how children and young people are negotiating their everyday mobilities afforded by the available transport network as well as by the dynamics of their own households. It argues that children’s and young people’s ‘everyday mobilities’ are irreducibly situated within the context of their households and urban spaces, which must be better understood and adequately addressed in policy and planning to achieve a more age-responsive, socially-inclusive urban transport policy and planning

Design revolutions: IASDR 2019 Conference Proceedings. Volume 4: Learning, Technology, Thinking

In September 2019 Manchester School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University was honoured to host the bi-annual conference of the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR) under the unifying theme of DESIGN REVOLUTIONS. This was the first time the conference had been held in the UK. Through key research themes across nine conference tracks – Change, Learning, Living, Making, People, Technology, Thinking, Value and Voices – the conference opened up compelling, meaningful and radical dialogue of the role of design in addressing societal and organisational challenges. This Volume 4 includes papers from Learning, Technology and Thinking tracks of the conference

On the buses: a mixed-method evaluation of the impact of free bus travel for young people on the public health

Background In September 2005 London introduced a policy granting young people aged  60 years. An increase in assaults largely preceded the scheme. Qualitative data suggested that the scheme increased opportunities for independent travel, social inclusion, and a sense of belonging and that it ‘normalised’ bus travel. The monetised benefits of the scheme substantially outweighed the costs, providing what the Department for Transport (DfT) considers ‘high’ value for money. Conclusion The free bus travel scheme for young people appears to have encouraged their greater use of bus transport for short trips without significant impact on their overall active travel. There was qualitative evidence for benefits on social determinants of health, such as normalisation of bus travel, greater social inclusion and opportunities for independent travel. In the context of a good bus service, universal free bus travel for young people appears to be a cost-effective contributor to social inclusion and, potentially, to increasing sustainable transport in the long term. Further research is needed on the effects of both active and other travel modes on the determinants of health; the factors that influence maintenance of travel mode change; travel as ‘social practice’; the impact of driving license changes on injury rates for young adults and the value of a statistical life for young people

'Are we there yet?' : exploring aspects of automobility in children's lives

This thesis examines children's experiences of cars, by using personal diaries, photographs, in-depth interviews and surveys, to conduct applied research with children aged 4-11, parents and local transport planners in schools within Buckinghamshire and North London. The thesis challenges existing research on automobility, that is the increasingly central role of cars in societies, for focusing predominantly on adults and ignoring children's experiences. Adopting a postmodern approach, the research explores how cars are not only journey spaces for children, but are also sites for play, relaxation, homework, companionship, technology and the consumption of commodities. Using a postmodern conceptualisation of power, insights into wider familial processes are provided by exploring how cars are sites of conflicting power relations between parents and children. Massey's power geometry of mobility is utilised to consider how the role of cars in children's lives is differentiated by complex interconnections between place, gender, age, ethnicity and social class. Whilst aspirations for car ownership are powerful, many children participate in initiatives to reduce congestion such as 'Safer Routes to School' programmes. However, these initiatives challenge and control children's mobility and fail to include them in decision-making. Whilst a postmodern approach maps the diversity of children's experiences, insights are also drawn from Marxist geographies, indicating how cars are increasingly commodified spaces, and illustrating how the broader economic context influences children's accounts. The work of feminist geographers helps to explore how children's mobility is often the responsibility of, and embedded with the mobility patterns of mothers. Working with local transport planners, although contributing to social change, is criticised as a rather conservative approach to applied geography. Some of the contradictions between postmodernism and applied geography are explored, such as the inability, from a postmodern position of relativism and fragmentation, to speak with authority and offer solutions for policy makers.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Practice links [Issue 56, February 2014]

Practice Links is a free e-publication for practitioners working in Irish social services, voluntary and nongovernmental sectors. Practice Links was created to enable practitioners to keep up-to-date with new publications, electronic resources and conference opportunities. Issue 56 includes listings for upcoming conferences, resources, recent policy reports as well as reviews of publications

Insights on the Film Tourism and Archéocinema for the Promotion of Heritage Tourism: A Critical Review

The link between Cultural Heritage (CH), media, and film tourism has gained increasing attention in the literature over the last two decades. The 21st-century film tourism industry edutainment must reflect the experiences of 21st-century digital/virtual requirements. Film tourism is often considered a potential marketing channel for World Heritage Sites (WHS) and CH tourism. Limited research addresses how heritage film tourism providers employ and deal with the film industry and Archéocinema media for marketing communication. This paper attempts to discuss the relationship between the capability of heritage film tourism as a promotional tool combined with Archéocinema in constructing the optimistic destination image of heritage tourism and experience as it flows in both physical places and virtual environments. It argues that both environments, as dynamic and generate meanings, merge, and embody subjectivity and objectivity now in one process. This process suggests building a critical, informative, and promotional purpose by engaging in storyline and storytelling, learning about what and how film tourism and Archéocinema can offer and representing it in a modern key within and beyond the physical dimensions of place in an ethical and transparent approach according to the London Charter and the Seville Principles