Talk, technologies and teenagers: understanding the school journey using a mixed-methods approach

Abstract

This paper focuses on the methods used in a project which set out to capture the movements and to consider the wellbeing of 30 teenagers on their journeys to and from school. A mobile phone linked to a GPS receiver was used to automatically log travel patterns whilst the respondents added 'blog' images and text about how they felt on the journey. Follow up interviews further explored the data. The paper shows that by using a range of methods the young people became involved in the project in different ways providing a rich picture of contingent and complex school journeys.

“It Seems Like No One Cares”

“…Action-oriented photographic methods, most notably Photovoice, evolved from educator Paulo Freire's model of empowerment that suggested that education for marginalized groups needed to begin with issues of importance to their lives and communities and that these issues could be best identified and acted on through visual methods (Freire, 1970(Freire, , 1973Wang & Burris, 1997). These methods have proven effective in engaging young people in assessments of neighborhood features related to their well-being, while building civic engagement and fostering community partnerships and mentoring relationships (Dennis, 2006;Dennis, Gaulocher, Carpiano, & Brown, 2009;Gant et al, 2009;Nicotera, 2008;Walker et al, 2009;Wang, 2006;Yonas et al, 2009). These methods have proven effective in engaging young people in assessments of neighborhood features related to their well-being, while building civic engagement and fostering community partnerships and mentoring relationships (Dennis, 2006;Dennis, Gaulocher, Carpiano, & Brown, 2009;Gant et al, 2009;Nicotera, 2008;Walker et al, 2009;Wang, 2006;Yonas et al, 2009).…”

Digital methodologies and practices in children's geographies

“…To make sense of, and gain better understandings of, children's everyday life, studies have followed children with a GPS tracker (Alarasi, Martinez, and Amer 2015;Ergler 2011;Loebach and Gilliland 2010;Walker et al 2009), videoed and photographed children's routes to school (Kullman 2012;Pooley et al 2010) or engaged in participatory videoing or Soft (qualitative) GIS for representing young people's lives in a neighbourhood (Blazek and Hraňová 2012;Kytta 2011). Researchers have also used Facebook and Twitter as discussion forums and phones to respond to surveys or interventions (Korson 2014;Lim et al 2008;Luh Sin 2015).…”

A Least‐Cost Approach to Personal Exposure Reduction

“…Gulliver and Briggs (2005) applied their STEMS model to generate estimates of journey‐time exposure for a sample of 50 children travelling to school in Northampton, UK. As details of the individual travel routes were not available, home and school addresses were used to derive surrogate route information using ArcInfo's PATH function, however, evidence suggests that in reality the choice of route used for the school journey is more complex than this (Duncan and Mummery 2007, Bamford et al 2008, Walker et al 2009). The use of derived route information in journey‐time assessment is therefore likely to over‐generalise both the route taken and the speed of travel.…”