‘It’s a good start to the day’: Urban Australian children’s understandings of active mobility and place

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ABSTRACT Research from a variety of ontological and theoretical positions has made a significant contribution towards understanding children's local active mobilities within a public health context. However, children's perspectives have been limited within the positivist literature, and alternative scholarship exploring children's understandings has often focused on specific experiences (e.g. walking or playing). We examined how children from Melbourne, Australia understood and made sense of their local active mobility experiences and urban space. Results are drawn from a reflexive thematic analysis of child-led walking tours and semi-structured interviews with 15 children in Grade Five or Six (11–13 years old) from areas of middle and upper socio-economic advantage (alongside photographs, writing and maps). Our analysis is situated within a critically constructivist ontological position. The children in our study reproduced dominant urban, Western constructions of mobility and place. They understood mobility as utilitarian, active mobility as healthy, urban mobility as managing risk, and a good neighbourhood as one that is accessible and well-maintained. While children from similar backgrounds may respond well to policies that carry these understandings, our analysis suggests further embodied and participatory enquiry, particularly amongst lower socio-economic groups, may help better understand and address health inequities.