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Understanding Australian parents' attitudes about their children's travel behaviour: results from the CATCH and iMATCH projects
Parents are important decision makers about children’s activities. It is critical to identify their attitudes and how they differ across neighbourhoods, and for what reasons parents grant ‘licences’ to their children for independent mobility and active travel. Past research on parental attitudes has produced a range of findings, possibly relating to the different approaches used, but highlighting the role of social environments in influencing parental attitudes and decisions. There have been few comprehensive studies on parental attitudes and perceptions about children’s independent mobility, though work has advanced more so in Australia than many countries. There remain research gaps about the relative importance of key factors (e.g. ‘stranger’ danger and road traffic danger) in parental decisions. The paper explores on data from 232 questionnaire surveys completed by parents and guardians of 10-13 year olds who were recruited from primary schools in six neighbourhoods in Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane/Ipswich. Three of the schools had been part of recent travel behaviour change programs, three had not. Analysis of key elements of parents’ decision making about their children’s independent and active travel is provided, highlighting differences between the two groups. The paper concludes with recommendations for policy initiatives to increase parental support for children’s active travel.
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The State of Australian Cities (SOAC) national conferences have been held biennially since 2003 to support interdisciplinary policy-related urban research.
This paper was presented at SOAC 6, held in Sydney from 26-29 November 2013.
SOAC 6was the largest conference to date, with over 180 papers published in collected proceedings. All papers presented at the SOAC 2013 have been subject to a double blind refereeing process and have been reviewed by at least two referees. In particular, the review process assessed each paper in terms of its policy relevance and the contribution to the conceptual or empirical understanding of Australian cities.
