"Där man bor tycker man det är bra": <br>Barns geografier i en segregerad stadsmiljö

"Where you live you like it": Children's Geographies in a Segregated Urban Environment

Because of the socioeconomic and ethnic segregation in many Swedish towns, residents with different social backgrounds are often living in separate neighbourhoods. This thesis focuses on children aged between 11 and 14 and explores the spatial extent of their social networks, their spatial mobility and spatial representations. By studying these aspects of childrens daily lives the study attempts to contribute to a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms behind neighbourhood effects.

The spatial extension of the daily lives of children in seven adjacent neighbourhoods in a medium sized Swedish town is mapped. By using childrens activity diaries, surveys with parents and childrens maps the study explores to which extent children with different personal characteristics and from different neighbourhoods have friends outside their own neighbourhoods, where they spend time and what kind of activities they engage in and with whom. The study shows that the possibility to get their own direct experience of other neighbourhoods differs between groups of children, much depending on the geographical extension of their social networks, which in turn appears mainly to be a consequence of school reception areas and, indirectly, school popularity.

By using childrens maps and group interviews childrens perspectives of their own and other neighbourhoods are analysed. The thesis illustrates how children feel about and discuss their own neighbourhoods and other neighbourhoods in town. The children in the study emphasize their own neighbourhood as a good and quiet neighbourhood, irrespective of the neighbourhoods character and status. One of the neighbourhoods is stigmatised in the public discourse. Among the children there is a living debate in relation to this neighbourhood. In group interviews the children sometimes confirm, sometimes critically question the rumours about this neighbourhood. The children which live in this neighbourhood are aware of the bad reputation and also act and react upon it.