This thesis is the result of two studies concerning children’s independent mobility, which means the freedom for children to walk or bike on their own or together with friends but without being escorted by parents. The studies are accomplished in four different areas and are also searching for different environmental qualities. The areas differ concerning traffic planning and architecture but also concerning commercial and cultural choice. The aim is to understand and describe how places are constructed and designed when they are used and experienced in a positive – or a negative – way by children. I emphasize, that we – through the responses in meeting with other people – learn hidden and visible rules and also how to change perspective and roles. I therefore focus on the meeting between children and other people but also on meeting between children and places. The issue is: What do places look like – what qualities or qualifications – can be notified as important to children to perceive coherence that consequently make them learn to control their environment and develop to harmonious grown-ups. The main questions are: In what degree can children’s independent mobility be related to the planning and design in the four areas? Why do some neighbourhoods/places appear as more important to children than others, making children use them in a varied way? Is it possible to describe qualities in neighbourhoods in a way that can be interpreted as meaningful for children’s development? In the first study 732 children in grade two and five in compulsory school, filled in a questionnaire and the questions focused on how they got to school, to friends, to activities etc. The results showed that in the area with more traffic than the other three areas, children were more often taken by car to school and to leisure activities. Even international research in the nineties did show that children had lost the accessibility to their neighbourhood. In the second study, 32 children in the same areas guided me around in their environment showing me the way to school and places they used to visit. At the same time they told me what they liked or disliked in their neighbourhood. Afterwards they were interviewed and they also had the opportunity to fill in so called “mobility maps”. The content in this text mainly focuses the second study. From the children’s statements, a summary of the most important differences looks as follows: I The accessibility in neighbourhoods and places: i.e. children’s independent mobility – or if they had to be escorted by grown-ups – and if they could fiddle about. II Children’s play and activities: i.e. if they had something to do, if they played in pairs or in groups and if play could take place without planning. III Children’s experiences of places and people: i.e. if they had something to show me and to tell me, if there were any meetings with other persons, if the children talked about their own yard and appreciated green areas, if they had fun or not, if they were afraid being out and if they told me any memories from some places. The theoretical framework is based on Johan Asplund’s theory on social responsivity and G. H. Mead’s theory on social relations and his view of the importance of objects. The study also is based on three different place theories as expressed by David Canter, Christian Norberg-Schulz and Clarence Crafoord and Asplund’s view of place and placelessness. This study has made it clear that everything children do in their neighbourhood can be related to concrete places and things but it differed concerning what and how they played, what they experienced and what the meetings looked like – if any. Environmental qualities arise, as I have interpreted my results, when neighbourhoods and places are safe, when there are landmarks, places for meetings, possibility of orientation and sense of locality and when the places are varied and challenging. Conclusions are drawn regarding differences in social responsivity, if there is a sense of having a place of one’s own – that in the same time is shared by other people – and if places are responding. From these statements place identity can be seen as a merging of the qualities in places and the perceived sense of place as described above. To have opportunity to investigate the neighbourhood is also an important part of children’s informal learning. They learn how to read the surroundings and how to find the way in a town or in an environment. They get to know the neighbourhood and the world outside and so they also learn how to behave and how to control themselves and even the life. Results showed though that the children in the four areas made those experiences but, certainly, in different ways.

Children are being used as marketers and consumers for the purpose of financial gain. Although much research exists about children's stance as consumers, very little is known about their role as marketers. Such lack of information indicates that children's authentic voices about their experiences are seldom articulated, heard, listened to, and acted on. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological heuristic study was to explore the lived experiences of former child participants in commercial activities in order to understand their perceptions as well as, the meaning, and impact of the experiences on their childhood development. The theoretical framework used included the theories of Bandura's social learning, Bronfenbrenner's ecological system, Vygotsky's social constructivism, Knowles' andragogy, and Meziro's transformative learning. The primary questions focused on participants' perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes, as well as the meaning, and impact such lived experiences had on their childhood development. The final sample consisted of 13 adults above age 18 who participated in commercial activities during their childhood and were selected through the snowballing technique. Data were collected, analyzed, and manually coded from multiple individual and focus group interviews. The thematic results and findings are necessary labor, cultural practice, belief system, power of tangible and intangible rewards, independent mobility factor, social dangers of risk factor, participants' affective response, and experiential learning. Implications for social change include the establishment of partnerships among schools, children, parents, and commercial industries to strengthen advocacy for, and effect improved conditions and treatment of child participants in commercial activities.

As children’s independent mobility in urban environments continues to decrease, children become further removed from all realms of city life. There is a need for children to practice and demonstrate their autonomy in public, and a properly planned and designed environment can support such skill building in urban settings. This practicum envisions wayfinding as a pivotal intervention in the urban environment to enable children’s independent mobility and environmental familiarity. The research focuses on the planning of a wayfinding strategy for Canadian school-age children (ages 8-10) as a way to encourage independent mobility in an urban context. This research is based on a review of children’s wayfinding psychology and planning strategies, inspiring design precedents, a detailed site audit and hands-on mental mapping exercises with children. The result is a set of research, consultation, planning, policy, and design recommendations to develop a child-friendly wayfinding strategy in the Exchange District neighbourhood of Downtown Winnipeg, Manitoba. / October 2015

Barns mobilitet och möjlighet att på egen hand ta sig runt i staden har minskat och begränsas idag i stor utsträckning av otrygga trafiksituationer. I och med sin begränsade oberoende mobilitet exkluderas barn från stadsrummet och dess faciliteter. Oberoende mobilitet kan relateras till flera dimensioner av barns sociala, fysiska, psykiska och kognitiva välmående. Syftet med studien är att undersöka om och på vilket sätt autonoma bussar kan bidra till barns oberoende mobilitet och med hjälp av barns upplevelser och erfarenheter bidra med insikter i detta inför införandet av autonoma bussar i städer och kollektivtrafiksystem. För att göra det besvaras frågeställningarna “Hur kan autonoma bussar i transportsystemet bidra till barns oberoende mobilitet?” och “Vilka förutsättningar är nödvändiga för att autonoma bussar ska bidra till barns oberoende mobilitet?”. Undersökningen utgår från ett fall av införande av autonoma bussar i stadsmiljö och för att besvara frågeställningarna genomfördes med elever på en grundskola fokusgrupper med syfte att inhämta deltagarnas upplevelser och erfarenheter. Resultatet tyder på att införandet av autonoma bussar i ett urbant område kan bidra till barns oberoende mobilitet på flera sätt och att bussarna har vissa egenskaper som gör att de kan anpassas till barns förutsättningar. Insikter från studien kan bidra till en förståelse för hur, från barns eget perspektiv, oberoende mobilitet kan gynnas av autonoma bussar i kollektivtrafiken, samt hur tjänsten behöver utvecklas för att anpassas till denna användargrupp när autonoma bussar i större utsträckning ska implementeras i staden. / Children's mobility and the opportunity to get around the city on their own has decreased and is today limited to a large extent by unsafe traffic situations. Due to their limited independent mobility, children are excluded from the urban space and its facilities. Independent mobility can be related to several dimensions of children's social, physical, mental and cognitive wellbeing. The purpose of the study is to investigate if and in what way autonomous buses can contribute to children's independent mobility and, using children's experiences, provide insights into this before the introduction of autonomous buses in cities and public transport systems. To do so, the two research questions "How can autonomous buses in the transport system contribute to children's independent mobility?"and "What prerequisites are necessary for autonomous buses to contribute to children's independent mobility?" are answered. The survey is based on a case of introduction of autonomous buses in urban environments and to answer the questions three focus groups with students in a primary school were conducted with the aim of gaining the participants' experiences. The results indicate that the introduction of autonomous buses in an urban area can contribute to children's independent mobility in several ways and that the buses have certain characteristics that enable them to be adapted to children's conditions. Insights from the study can contribute to an understanding of in what way, from children's own perspective, independent mobility can benefit from autonomous buses in public transport, and how the service needs to be developed to adapt to this user group when autonomous buses are to be implemented to a greater extent in the city.

The aim of the thesis is to provide a qualitative analysis of the RightHear navigation system in the building of the Faculty of Education, Charles University (Magdalény Rettigové 4, Prague) as a means of providing assistance with spatial navigation and independent mobility to visually impaired people. In the introduction, the thesis provides an overview of various aids and systems supporting independent mobility of the visually impaired. It also discusses the RightHear navigation system. The research part of the thesis analyses the current configuration of the RightHear system and proposes ways to improve it in the Faculty of Education building. The research utilised the methods of participatory observation and an unstructured in-depth interview with two consultants. The output of the thesis is a proposal for a new configuration of the RightHear navigation system in the building and suggestions for general rules for creating descriptions used for indoor navigation with RightHear. This output is based on knowledge of spatial orientation, independent mobility of visually impaired people and indoor navigation systems as well as the consultants' comments. The thesis includes specific conclusions and recommendations for practice and future research.

Importance of seeing and implementing children’s needs in the urban public realm is widely discussed among urban researchers in recent years. It is becoming more challenging, as nowadays there are more than one billion children growing up in cities,which is more than ever before. In this research, I discuss a specific context of a modernist area, Sykhiv, which represents the most widespread type of residential area in Ukraine. The research aims to understand the quality of Sykhiv’s neighborhoods for children and to understand the different perspectives of experts and parents onchild-friendliness in the public realm of Sykhiv. The first research question is dedicatedto parents’ perspectives and children’s spatial practices, the second part is dedicated toexpert views on existing policies, practices, narratives towards child-friendly environment in Sykhiv. The third question represents the synthesis of two previous and reflects on the rethinking of public spaces in Sykhiv in terms of child-friendliness. Three key theories that help to frame this study are: holistic theory on Environmentalchild-friendliness helps to envision a complexity of a phenomenon of child-friendlinessof the environment, critical study on reconceptualizing the playground, which reflects onan extension of the focus of researching a play in the physical environment, andaffordance theory, which bridges the physical environment and human behavior. Theresults showed that Sykhiv has lots of features of a child-friendly environment, noticedboth by experts and parents, however, play infrastructure has numerous disadvantages.The holistic strategy, effective cooperation of all actors (public authorities, civic activists,parents and children, urban planners), awareness and knowledge are lacking in order tocontribute to a child-friendly environment, or at least to prevent negative tendencies tointensity of traffic, shortage of greenery, densening residential areas, etc. Extended safegreen spaces are more likely to perform children’s needs in a public realm, thanplaygrounds that are very frequent but of poor quality in Sykhiv.