Role of Public Spaces in the Development of Children's Outdoor Games in a Suburban Town

The presentation can be retrieved at http://conference.europoint.eu/childinthecity/presenation/Alain%20Legendre.pdfThe study focuses on the development of 6 to 11 year olds' knowledge and usage of outdoor public spaces of their town, i.e. places, play areas, block and public parks, woods surrounding the city. The objective was to identify which outdoors public spaces children declared to be places where they engaged in plays as a function of age and gender. The survey was carried on with 378 children attending primary schools in a small town of Paris suburban area. Children answered a short questionnaire. They were shown 10 sets of photos corresponding to 10 outdoor public spaces and said if they knew the place. If they did, they reported how frequently they used that place, whether they had already gone alone and played there. The development of the children's knowledge of the outdoor public spaces slightly increases between 6 and 10 years, the younger ones already know most of the major public spaces of the city. On the other hand, there is a tangible progression in the autonomous use of these outdoor spaces (without adult supervision), yet the spatial autonomy in the city appears limited even for the older children. Moreover, whatever age is considered, the autonomous use of outdoor spaces is more restricted for girls than for boys. The findings comfort the idea that outdoor public spaces providing children with specific age amenities are the most attractive, but they differ for boys and girls. The attributes of friendly outdoor public spaces for boys are related to features and facilities supporting physical activities and risk taking in places with low social control. For girls those friendly attributes are related to presence of natural elements in green parks that offer open areas enabling to see and to be seen. The results also underline that for the age range considered outdoors spaces close to the home, as block parks, are essential.Additionally, extensive observations were carried on in the two places that resulted to be the most popular for these primary school children. The objective was to assess: Who are the people visiting theses two public spaces? Where do people visiting these sites distribute themselves inside the parks? When are people visiting these public spaces? The results are presented through detailed behavioural mapping and chronograph of the use of these public spaces as a function of age and gender. They highlight marked differences between males and females in the use of public spaces over life span. They point to some of the reasons that could explain why girls dramatically decreased their use of public spaces over childhood and adolescence