Kids, Streets, and Activities

Abstract

Street activities are recognized as playing significant role in children and teenage socialization. However, the socialization mechanism of street activities is gradually changing. Active play and street gangs remain in past, as most parents today acknowledge. The present article investigates the forms of street leisure activities of Russian kids and teenagers born in different decades of late XX and early XXI centuries. The research is based on the answers of 251 participants to the two developed thematic questionnaires. Content-analysis of the answers allows to identify five principal categories of street leisure activities, namely: games, communication, exploratory activities, risk behaviors, and cultural activities. The article describes the main components of each of the categories and analyses their representation in both adult and teenage samples’ leisure time. The results allow to manifest the relation between children's leisure activities dynamics and their social environment, as regards increased social insecurity and uncertainty, urbanization rates, overpopulation, etc. The research also investigates the areas of street leisure activities, level of parental control, as well as types of rules and regulations set by parents regarding their children’s travel and leisure. The future research suggestions given the results are made.