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Children's Geographies
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On children's independent mobility: the interplay of demographic, environmental, and psychosocial factors
Francesca Romana Alparone & Maria Giuseppina Pacilli
a a b

Department of Neuroscience and Imaging, University of ChietiPescara, Italy

b

Department Istituzioni e Societ, University of Perugia, Italy Version of record first published: 22 Feb 2012.

To cite this article: Francesca Romana Alparone & Maria Giuseppina Pacilli (2012): On children's independent mobility: the interplay of demographic, environmental, and psychosocial factors, Children's Geographies, 10:1, 109-122 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2011.638173

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Childrens Geographies Vol. 10, No. 1, February 2012, 109 122

On childrens independent mobility: the interplay of demographic, environmental, and psychosocial factors
Francesca Romana Alparonea and Maria Giuseppina Pacillib
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Department of Neuroscience and Imaging, University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy; bDepartment ` , University of Perugia, Italy Istituzioni e Societa
In the past 50 years, a marked reduction has occurred in European and North American childrens freedom of movement and outdoor play. Using a structural equation model, the present study investigates the interaction between personal, environmental, and psychosocial factors that affect childrens independent mobility. The study involved 313 mothers of 8 10-year-old Italian children. The results supported the hypothesized model: the age of the child, the maternal perception of social danger, and positive potentiality of outdoor autonomy were the most inuential variables on childrens independent mobility, measured as an index. Further, the maternal perceptions mediated the inuence of the other demographic, psychosocial, and environmental variables on independent mobility. Keywords: childrens outdoor mobility; childrens independent mobility; social danger perception; potentiality of outdoor autonomy; structural equation model

Introduction In recent decades the deterioration of childrens relationship with urban space has come under the scrutiny of researchers, policymakers, and politicians. Some of the environmental, social, and cultural transformations that have taken place in industrialized countries over the last few decades might account for this phenomenon. Among these changes, it is worth mentioning the way urban planners have conceptualized the urban space, the increase in trafc, the m steady impoverishment of neighborhood networks, and increasing rates of crime (Wikstro n 2001) which jointly contributed to develop stronger feelings of insecurity. As a and Dolme result, currently, adults often perceive the city as a dangerous place and have thus signicantly increased their protective behavior towards their children, sometimes even going so far as to overprotect them. These fearful attitudes have led parents to strongly limit how much they let their children go and play freely outdoors (Hillman et al. 1973, 1991) as well as how much they consider the home as the safest and comfortable place for children (Forni 2002). The data available that illustrate this situation justify the concern expressed by experts. For example, in Italy in 1997 only 14 31% of children aged 8 11 went to school on their own

Corresponding author. Email: f.alparone@unich.it

ISSN 1473-3285 print/ISSN 1473-3277 online # 2012 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2011.638173 http://www.tandfonline.com

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or with children the same age (Giuliani et al. 1997) and equally few were allowed to play outdoors, either in public parks close to home or in their apartment building courtyards, without constant adult supervision (18 32%; Prezza et al. 2000). In a wide-ranging study on six small and medium-sized Italian cities (Tonucci et al. 2002), it was discovered that about 67% of primary school children (6 11 years of age) were accompanied to school every day by car. The results of more recent studies corroborate this negative trend in Italian childrens daily habits. For example, Prezza et al. (2010) found that only 11.7% of 382 children (8 11 years of age) of three primary schools in Rome ever went to school unaccompanied by an adult. Moreover, a review by Prezza (2007) conrmed that many children between the ages of 8 and 11 never played outdoors without adults to keep a close eye on them (between 34 and 65%), but, even more worryingly, a large number (between 23 and 46%) never played outdoors even under adult supervision. Moreover, it is noteworthy that nowadays the teachers of most Italian primary schools cannot let children free at the end of the school unless an adult is waiting for them. What is more, parents who permit their children to return from school alone must sign an authorization that frees the school of every kind of responsibility. This procedure thus establishes the rightness of the social norm by which in Italy good parents are expected to accompany their children to school and implicitly to overprotect them. Similar studies carried out in other industrialized countries for example, in the UK (OBrien 2004), Sweden (Johansson 2006), Australia (Timpero et al. 2004), et al. 2000), Finland (Kytta and New Zealand (Tranter and Pawson 2001) conrmed that children have less and less freedom of movement. The serious health-related consequences of the lack of independent outdoor mobility on childrens development and wellbeing have been demonstrated by many studies. Negative effects have been found on the development of spatial, motor, and analytical ttenmoser 1995, skills (Rissotto and Giuliani 2006), on the acquisition of social competence (Hu Prezza et al. 2001), on weight control (Mackett 2004) and on overall physical health due to the related decrease in exercise (Fox 2004, Cooper et al. 2005, Salmon et al. 2005). Additionally, a recent study demonstrated that adolescents who felt lonelier and who were more fearful about going out at night and had weaker ties to their community had been less autonomous during early childhood (Prezza and Pacilli 2007). Although research has indicated various factors connected to the independent mobility of children, to the best of our knowledge, the relative strength of the relations as well as the interaction among these factors has been rarely analyzed. The aim of the present study, therefore, was twofold: rstly we were interested in reviewing the research literature which has hitherto examined the predictors of childrens independent mobility and secondly we wanted to test empirically the interplay of socio-demographic, environmental, and psychosocial factors in predicting childrens autonomous mobility. Factors connected with childrens independent mobility As mentioned earlier, a wide range of factors may facilitate or hamper childrens independent mobility. For simplicity, we will distinguish these factors in three main areas of investigation which are strongly related to each other. Socio-demographic factors The childs gender, age, and degree of maturity have been frequently studied in relation to independent mobility. Several ndings in this area show that independent mobility increases with age (Blakely 1994, Heurlin-Norinder 1996, Giuliani et al. 1997, Sissons Joshi et al. 1997, Timpero et al. 2004, Fyhri and Hjorthol 2009), but changes in relation to gender, so that boys appear to be granted more autonomy than their female peers are (Hillman et al.

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1995, Heurlin-Norinder 1996, Hart 1997, OBrien et al. 2000, Tranter and Pawson 1991, Kytta 2001, Alparone et al. 2003, Johanshon, 2006, Brown et al. 2008, Fyhri and Hjorthol 2009), particularly in outdoor activities (Tonucci et al. 2002). However, it appears that parents also take age into account when evaluating how capable their children are of assessing and reacting to environmental risks (Alparone et al. 2003, Johansson 2003). An additional consideration in a parents assessment is whether or not there are older brothers or sisters. In fact, children who are not rst-borns or only children gain independence slightly earlier (Giuliani et al. 1997, Valentine 1997, Prezza et al. 2000, Prezza 2007), because they can partly benet from informal supervision by their older siblings (van der Speck and Noyon, 1997).

Environmental factors Another area of research has analyzed the role played by the various characteristics of the physical environments where children live. The exponential increase in city trafc and pollution is rklid 1995; Bonanomi 1994; Fyhri and Hjorthol one of the main factors that researchers (Bjo 2009; Heurlin-Norinder 1996; Hillman 1997; Johanshon, 2006; Noschis 1994; van der Spek and Noyon 1997) have found to be responsible for changes in childrens freedom of outdoor movement and play (for a review, see also Prezza 2007). Trafc danger to children is linked to trafc intensity, to types of roads (e.g. fast roads, dangerous intersections), and to disregard for trafc laws (e.g. parking on sidewalks, no respect for trafc lights). There are, however, physical characteristics of the environment that promote childrens outdoor autonomy, such as smaller urban contexts (van der Spek and Noyon 1997), the presence of usable play areas close to home (Gaster 1991), and a lower degree of urbanization (Kytta 1995, 2002). For instance, compared to cities, rural towns offer contexts and characteristics which children benet from during socialization and creative play (water, hiding places, 1995, 2002, Mikkelsen and Christensen 2009). Another factor that posithings to climb; Kytta tively inuences parents evaluations of the time children spend outdoors is the presence of parks and gardens in the area where they live. In fact, these green areas allow children to engage in a wide range of activities and to come into contact with a variety of materials and organisms (Moore 1986), which promotes creative play and social interaction. In a previous study, Prezza et al. (2005) found that the presence of green areas mediated the relation between the size of context and the mothers perception of the positive potentiality of outdoor autonomy for children. Further, studies indicate that both mothers and childhood professionals consider green areas one of the most fundamental characteristics of a child-friendly environment, and children themselves say that they enjoy natural landscapes (Chawla 1992, Haikkola et al. 2007).

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Psychosocial factors Parents perceptions of their environment strongly shape their parenting practices. The parents decision to restrict or allow their childrens autonomy of movement does not depend solely on their evaluation of the childs ability and of the environmental limits/opportunities. This decision often depends on their own personal fears and subjective perception of the dangers that children may encounter outdoors without adult supervision (Fyhri and Hjorthol 2009). Risk of road injury is one of parents greatest concerns (Alparone et al. 2003), and, in fact, the degree of childrens independent mobility diminishes when parents anxiety about trafc increases (Fyhri and Hjorthol 2009). However, qualitative studies have shown that the most recurring parental worries, after trafc danger, regard the social environment and, more specically, the possibility that their children will encounter ill-intentioned adults, witness or be the victims of petty crime, or come into

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contact with drugs (Blakely 1994, Valentine and McKendrick 1997, OBrien et al. 2000, Alparone et al. 2003, Cicognani 2003, Timpero et al. 2004, Pinkster and Fortuijn 2009). Social fears, and above all the fear of crime, have increased considerably in the last few decades, particularly in industrialized societies. It results strongly linked to the size of the n 2001) as well as to other characteristics, m and Dolme urban context (Kuo et al. 1998, Wikstro such as high heterogeneity, high residential density and low social integration. Research on this topic indicates that the fear of crime is highly and inversely correlated with an individuals degree of integration in the local social network and with the degree and quality of neighborhood relations (Farrall et al. 2000, Ross and Jang 2000, Gibson et al. 2002, Amerio and Roccato 2005). Conversely, less fear of crime is associated with a stronger sense of community (Santinello et al. 1998, Chipuer 2001) and neighborhood attachment (Riger et al. 1981, Brown et al. n (2001) further highlighted the protective function of the psycho m and Dolme 2003). Wikstro social characteristics of urban context against social insecurity and fear of crime, demonstrating that social integration and informal social control are capable to mediate the effect of the level of urbanization on fear of crime. Thus, it is reasonable to believe that the psychological link to the community as well as the level of social integration in ones own neighborhood play a buffer effect on parental social insecurity, indirectly encouraging a childs freedom of movement. Although parents might represent an important barrier to childrens mobility, they may also be important facilitators of childrens mobility (Mikkelsen and Christensen 2009). Parents often acknowledge that the urban environment provides their children with opportunities for cognitive, social, and physical development (Alparone et al. 2003) and try to overcome their fears in order to enable and support the mobility of their children. Recent ndings have proven that a positive parental judgment regarding the potentiality of the environment can counterbalance a negative perception of the neighborhood, helping parents to see their childrens autonomy as a positive growth agent (Prezza et al. 2005).

Overview of the study The present study extends a previous research carried out by Prezza et al. (2005) whose scope was to construct and validate two scales aimed to detect important parents perceptions connected to the autonomous mobility of children: Social Danger Perception Scale and Perception of Positive Potentiality of Outdoor Autonomy for Children Scale. That study found that the two constructs (perception of social danger and perception of positive potentiality of outdoor autonomy) were strongly and negatively associated with each other. It also presented interesting and different relations with other variables regarding the mothers and the environment. For example, mothers perception of social danger was found to increase linearly with the size of the urban context and with their own personal fear of going out unaccompanied in the evening. However, mothers perception of social danger was inversely associated to sense of community and neighborhood relations, highlighting the protective effect of social integration over feelings of not being safe. Moreover, sense of community and neighborhood relations positively inuenced the parental perception of the positive potentiality of outdoor autonomy for children. Unfortunately, this previous study did not consider childrens independent mobility. Our intention was therefore to clarify whether and how all the variables investigated inuence that mobility.

Aim and hypotheses The aim of the present study was to investigate the independent as well as interactive effects on childrens independent mobility of (a) the mothers perceptions of social danger and of the

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positive potentiality of childrens autonomy, (b) the mothers psychosocial characteristics, (c) the childs demographic characteristics, and (d) the characteristics of the environment. It was assumed that a childs independent mobility was primarily dependent on two important maternal evaluations: (1) the level of social danger in the environment where the child lived and (2) the potential of outdoor autonomy to promote the childs physical, psychological and social development. We predicted that a more acute perception of social danger would lower mothers perception of the positive potentiality of outdoor autonomy, inducing in turn a reduction in the childs independent mobility. Instead, a mothers positive evaluation of potentiality of outdoor autonomy would increase independent mobility in spite of their social fears (or at least counterbalancing them). With respect to the demographic characteristics of children, it was predicted that being older and/or having older siblings would inuence the independent mobility regardless of other environmental and psychosocial variables, whereas the childs gender would inuence the mobility through the mediation of maternal perception of social danger. Because the literature indicates that neighborhood relations and sense of community are often related to the characteristics of the environment in which people live, we predicted an interaction between the environmental features of the area where children live namely, the size of urban context and the presence of green areas and these psychosocial characteristics of mothers. Specically, we predicted that living in a smaller urban context would favor the mothers neighborhood relations and sense of community; in turn, stronger neighborhood relations and a greater sense of community would encourage the perception of informal social control leading mothers to evaluating the environment as less dangerous for their children. Moreover, we expected that the presence of green areas (not only specically parks or playgrounds) would be inversely proportional to the size of context and would have, in turn, a positive effect on the mothers perception of positive potentiality of their childs autonomy of movement. Indeed, we predicted that the inuence of childs gender as well as of the environmental and psychosocial variables on the childrens independent mobility would be mediated by maternal perceptions of social danger and of the potentiality of outdoor autonomy. Method Areas of investigation It has been shown that parents in various European countries are more willing to let their children go out unaccompanied if they live in small towns rather than in the big cities (OBrien et al. 2000, Alparone et al. 2003). We decided, therefore, that small contexts would be more suitable to study childrens autonomy and its correlates since these contexts are likely to present more variability of this phenomenon. The present study was carried out in ve urban areas in central and southern Italy chosen on the basis of convenience: two small coastal cities of approximately 35,000 inhabitants (Nettuno and Vasto) and three small towns of between 4,00 and 7000 inhabitants (SantAngelo dei Lombardi, Grifalco and Serra S. Bruno). Sampling procedure and participants Participants were contacted through their childrens primary schools. After being granted permission by the school authorities, we asked several third, fourth, and fth grade teachers for their collaboration. Teachers invited all the pupils mothers to take part in the research study, stressing that participation was voluntary and that the data would be analyzed only in an aggregate form. About 81% of the mothers took part in the study and an undergraduate psychology student administered the questionnaires to small groups of 10 15 mothers in rooms made available by the school.

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A total of 313 mothers (Mean age 37.50; SD 4.56) with at least one child aged 8 10, took part in the study. Of the 313 mothers, 45 were from SantAngelo dei Lombardi, 45 from Serra San Bruno, 45 from Girifalco, 76 from Nettuno, and 102 from Vasto. All the mothers have lived in their area of investigation for at least one year, and the average length of residence was 11.9 years. With respect to their education level, 4% only completed primary school studies, 23% only completed their secondary school studies, 49% had a high school diploma and 10% were university graduates. Almost 49% of the mothers worked and, of the whole sample, 17% had only one child, 56.5% had two children, and 26.6% had three or more children. At the time of the interview, 15.7% of the target children were 8 years old, 35.5% were 9 years old, and 48.9% were 10 years old. Forty-seven percent of the target children were only or rst-born children and 51.4% were girls.

Measures
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We administered a questionnaire comprised of the following different areas. . Childrens independent mobility: Our denition of independent mobility corresponds to van der Speck and Noyons (1997, p. 103) freedom of movement and is interpreted as children being able to play outdoors, go to school, visit friends, go to clubs or associations, and go shopping all by themselves. The method adopted was similar to that used by Prezza et al. (2001) both for the questions and for the procedure used for the calculation of the total score for independent mobility (alpha .66; see Appendix). . Maternal perception of social danger: To assess this variable, the Social Danger Perception Scale (Prezza et al. 2005) was used, which consists of seven items (alpha .72) on a 4-point Likert scale (from 1 unlikely to 4 very likely) assessing parents perception of the social dangers in their area of residence considered as problematic for childrens freedom of movement (e.g. drugs, robberies, and purse snatchings, ill-intentioned adults, people who dress or behave strangely, potentially frightening things). . Maternal perception of the positive potentiality of outdoor autonomy: To assess this variable the Perception of the Positive Potentiality of Outdoor Autonomy for Children Scale (Prezza et al. 2005) was used, which consists of ve items (alpha .74) on a 4-point Likert scale (from 1 unlikely to 4 very likely) describing the positive potentiality for childrens growth linked to the experience of independent mobility (e.g. becoming more responsible, learning to cope by him/herself, making new friends and meeting and/or playing with other children). . Neighborhood relations: The Neighborhood Relations Scale (Italian version by Prezza and Pacilli 2002) was used to assess this variable. This consists of seven items measuring the quality and quantity of neighborhood relations on a 5-point Likert scale. Four items were taken from Buckners (1988) scale1 (from 1 never; to 5 all days), while the other three were formulated as follows: How many of your neighbors would you ask without qualms to lend you small things? (from 1 nobody to 5 everybody); How many of your neighbors do you consider as friends? (from 1 nobody, to 5 everybody); I spend some time with my neighbors and we do things together (from 1 never to 5 very often) (alpha .84). . Sense of community. To assess this variable, The Italian Sense of Community Scale (Prezza et al. 1999) was adopted, i.e. an Italian version derived from Davidson and Cotters (1986) Sense of Community Scale, made up of 18 items on a 5-point Likert scale (from 1 strongly agree to 5 strongly disagree) (alpha .77). . The presence of public parks in the area around the home: Two items were used: In the area where you live public parks are (1 non-existent, 2 few, 3 sufcient,

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4 many) and Near your home it is possible to be in contact with nature (from 1 completely false to 4 completely true). The responses to the two questions were strongly correlated (r .56, p , .01) and the variable presence of green areas (from now on) was created from their mean. . The childs age and gender (0 boy; 1 girl); . The childs position within the family (birth order from now on; 0 eldest or only child; 1 second/third or fourth child); . The size of the context in which participants lived (1 10,000 inhabitants, 2 30,000/ 40,000 inhabitants).

Results To test our model of multivariate relations, a structural equations model was implemented (we used at this aim Bentlers (1995) EQS6 software for Windows). The signicance of the parameters was estimated by xing error probability at .05. Structural equations models present two main parts: a measurement model and a structural model. The former regards the relationship of the measures with the correspondent theoretical constructs while the latter pertains the causal or correlational links between the theoretical variables. For the construction of the measurement model, the single indicator item procedure was used (MacCallum and Austin 2000). Five indexes were used to test the goodness of the model: the Chi square, the Goodness of Fit Index (GFI), the Bentler Bonett Non Normed Fit Index (NNFI), the Comparative Fit Index (CFI), and the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA). Model t is typically indicated when GFI, NNFI, and CFI are above 0.90. For RMSEA, values around 0.08 indicate an acceptable t, while values equal to or lower than 0.05 indicate a good t (Bentler and Bonett 1980). Our model displayed excellent indexes of t (x2(24) 35.17, GFI 0.98, NNFI 0.92, CFI 0.95, RMSEA 0.04). Furthermore, all the path regression coefcients reached statistical signicance ( p , .05) except for two: the path from Size of context to green spaces and the path from Neighborhood relations to Perception of Social Danger (see Figure 1). In our model, therefore, Neighborhood Relations did not directly inuence the Perception of Social Danger but they did so indirectly through the mediation of Sense of Community. Finally, contrary to our hypothesis, Size of context positively inuenced Sense of Community. Overall, the model we hypothesized was adequate and satisfactory. Discussion The proposed structural equation model explained a satisfying percentage of the variance (37%) of independent mobility and allowed for a coherent examination of a wide set of variables that research suggests is involved in childrens independent mobility. In addition, our results conrmed the validity and usefulness of two measurement scales Perception of Social Danger Scale and Perception of Positive Potentiality of Outdoor Autonomy for Children Scale (Prezza et al. 2005)2 2 for studies on this topic. These two constructs proved to be strongly related to childrens independent mobility, and to be signicant mediators of the inuence of gender of the child, size of context, presence of green areas as well as of sense of community and social relationships of mothers in their neighborhood. Examining the strongest predictors of childrens independent mobility in the model, our hypothesis about the importance of maternal perception of social danger in the environment was conrmed. Moreover, the hypothesis regarding female childs gender as a factor that signicantly increases maternal perception of social danger was supported as well. This result can be

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Figure 1. Model of structural equations with signicant parameters (path coefcients) typed in bold and as continuous arrows. Note: In the graph only the structural model is depicted.

understood in the light of the widespread social stereotype that establishes strong differences between males and females in terms of their daily lives, how they should socialize and interact, and how they should use their free time. This stereotype assigns males more freedom (Spencer and Wooley 2000). Differently, females are more likely to interiorize prohibitions and censure regarding freedom of movement since they are more exposed to warnings about dangers (Davoli et al. 2003). It is important to reect upon the fact that this gendered nature of independent mobility extends through to adult life. Women are in fact deterred from traveling alone, especially at night, because of their perception of being more subject to victimization (Gordon and Riger 1989, Tranter 1995). The importance of a childs age, as indicator of childs maturity/ability to cope with environmental dangers, was conrmed too, as it was having older siblings, as well. Examining the relationship between the other independent variables in detail, interesting results emerged with reference to the link between context size and mothers perceptions. In line with our hypothesis, the size of context negatively predicted childrens independent mobility through the mediation of mothers perception of social danger, such that the larger the town, the more the mothers were likely to perceive a threat and the less they granted autonomy of movement to their children. The size of context was also a predictor of the mothers social links and sense of community: in larger contexts the mothers contacts with neighbors were less frequent yet their sense of community was stronger. This latter nding, contrary to our hypothesis as well as to the research on this topic, might be explained by the fact that our study examined only small and medium-sized towns of Central and Southern Italy which are often characterized by limited cultural resources and opportunities for work and leisure, compared to the city and metropolis, that adversely affect the inhabitants attachment of to the community. Thus, in these specic contexts, the trend of the sense of community may be the opposite

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of what is generally expected. In accordance with the literature, instead, neighborhood relationships positively inuenced sense of community. Our hypothesis that weaker community relationships would increase maternal perception of social danger in larger contexts, thereby negatively affecting independent mobility, was partially conrmed. Context size did in fact directly inuence the perception of social danger as well as through the mediation of the mothers sense of community. In addition, the expected result about relationships with neighbors was partially obtained. The data conrmed that living in larger contexts predicted fewer neighborhood relationships, but this variable did not have the hypothesized mediating effect on maternal perception of social danger. Conversely, both sense of community and neighborhood relations signicantly mediated the inuence of context size on the perceived positive potentiality of outdoor autonomy. Therefore, in line with our hypothesis, the smaller the urban contexts, the higher the mothers level of social integration, which in turn was in relation with positive consideration of childrens outdoor autonomy. Finally, our study also conrmed that the presence of green areas in the neighborhood positively inuences the perception of positive potentiality of outdoor autonomy in child development. In sum, mothers resulted more inclined to allow autonomy of movement especially when their child was less young therefore more competent when they perceived fewer social dangers and held a more positive attitude towards outdoor autonomy. However, positive affective links of the mothers with their own community were capable from, on the one hand, to contrast the effect of some negative features of urban context such as the size and the absence of green areas on the perception of social danger; on the other hand, they were able to increase the perception of positive potentiality of the autonomy of movement. Thus these ndings show that the socio-psychological variables of mothers until now scarcely investigated in the literature on independent mobility of children can play a protective role against social fears as well as can stimulate a more positive view of children environment experience. Further, our results highlight the importance of a variable entirely new to research on this topic, namely the maternal perception of positive potentiality of childrens outdoor autonomy, showing that when the mothers acknowledged that the autonomous exploration of the urban environment could provide children with opportunities for cognitive, social and physical development (Alparone et al. 2003), they tried to overcome their social fears in order to enable and support the mobility of their children. Conclusion The reduced independent mobility of children has recently received more and more attention in Italy and abroad, and various projects have been developed to improve the relationship between children and their urban environment. The main aim of the present study was therefore to identify which factors were principally involved in childrens independent mobility to provide useful suggestions for planning future actions and projects. Our results contribute to the understanding of the processes that link individual, contextual, and psychosocial variables to independent mobility in line with Bronfenbrenners (1979) overarching theoretical framework which emphasizes the crucial role on childrens development of multiple contexts from the proximal level (i.e. the family) to the distal one (i.e. the neighborhood). The environmental features of the childrens living area in fact do not simply imprint themselves on children since their effects are related to and mediated by other social domains in which children grow up, specically the family context (Pinkster and Fortuijn 2009, p. 324). From our results it emerged that the deterioration of parents social ties, such sense of community and neighborhood relations, increases their social danger perception in public space. On the base of this, parents tend to build multiple barriers which severely restrict their childrens daily life as well as childrens experience of the surrounding environment. De

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Groof (2008) showed, e.g. that the higher the parental supervision, the higher the fears were experienced by adolescent children. Moreover, the importance of the parental perception of social danger and its connection with independent mobility in childhood has also been indirectly conrmed in a study conducted by American physicians and pediatricians on a very large sample of 7-year-old children (Lumeng et al. 2006). In fact, Lumeng et al. (2006) found that parental perception of a neighborhood being unsafe was associated with an increased risk of childhood obesity, independently of maternal and child characteristics. With respect to the anticipated interaction between mothers perceptions, their psychosocial characteristics, and environmental features, we found some unexpected results. First of all, we predicted that sense of community and neighborhood relationships would mediate the inuence of context size on the perception of social danger due to the degree of perceived informal social control. We found instead that context size exerted a strong direct inuence on the perception of social danger as well as an effect mediated by the sense of community. The former result is, however, in line with the studies on the fear of crime, which show how the structural features of context (size, degree of urbanization) largely affect fear of crime (Amerio and Roccato 2005). Furthermore, as demonstrated by the ndings summarized above, sense of community would be stronger in small cities or in rural towns than in contexts with a greater degree of urbanization (Obst et al. 2002, Roussi et al. 2006), while our study revealed the opposite. However, a recent study (Prezza et al. 2009) found a greater sense of community in one city neighborhood compared to four small towns in central and southern Italy. According to the authors, this may have been due to the unfavorable socioeconomic and cultural conditions that make the small towns in southern Italy (especially those that are farther away from the cities or metropolis) unpopular and make their inhabitants particularly dissatised with their communities. This explanation, based on the similar geographical collocations of the contexts in which our data was collected may support our results. Although this justication is sound, it calls for further investigations. The model we tested may represent a valid guide for future research on this topic, although our study has some limitations that need to be dealt with. The inuence of parents perception of local trafc danger on childrens independent mobility was not considered in the model. We acknowledge that this represents an important drawback, but, at the time of data collection, there was no valid measure of this variable in Italian. We therefore strongly recommend using a trafc measure in future research. At the methodological level, the present research does not fully satisfy the criterion of representativeness as it was carried out only on samples of convenience and did not consider large urban contexts. As explained above, small communities were chosen as research sites, in order to obtain greater variability of the dependent variable but this choice, anyway, weakens the chance to generalize the model we tested. Nonetheless, we think that Italian large urban contexts deserve special and distinct attention since they are often comprised of neighborhoods similar to several micro towns, each with peculiar features. We would also like to explain why there are no evaluations of fathers and children. Because data collection was performed through collaboration with primary schools, and mothers have much more daily contact with their childrens schools and teachers than do fathers, it was much easier to contact and involve them in the study. Moreover, although family organization in Italy has evolved considerably over the last few decades, and parental roles are no longer so rigid, mothers still play a more active role in the day-to-day management of their children than do fathers. In an Italian study conducted with both parents and adolescent children (Pacilli et al. 2006) it emerged that while there was a strong relation between sense of community of mothers and their children, the relationship between sense of community of fathers and their children did not reach signicance. This seems to conrm the privileged role of mothers in the environment

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socialization of their children. Future research anyway should also consider the evaluations of fathers along with their relationship with mother evaluations. Regarding the choice not to involve children in our investigation, it is worth noting that several studies on the independent mobility of children have used only parents responses ttenmoser 1995, Prezza et al. 2001, Johansson 2006, Fyhri and Hjorthol 2009). However, (Hu studies involving both parents and children (Tonucci et al. 2002, Prezza et al. 2010) have obtained consistent responses. Furthermore, our choice was conditioned by our specic interest in verifying the inuence of the mothers psychosocial variables on the independent mobility of their children. As children from 8 to 11 years of age have limited decision-making power in the management of their everyday life outside the house, their parents point of view is of particular interest. Finally, apart from the importance of replicating this study in other Italian and European towns, we believe it represents an important step forward in studying the phenomenon of restriction of independent mobility of children, demonstrating for the rst time that many variables of different kinds environmental, demographic and psychosocial so far investigated as separate, are actually highly interrelated to each other but with a capacity of differentiated impact. Our results, can also offer valid indications from an applicative point of view. In fact, for many years now several European countries have promoted projects, inspired by UN Conventions on the Rights of the Child (1989) and Agenda 21, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (1992), which encourage childrens independent mobility and the autonomous use of outdoor space. In these projects, work at a structural level is often considered essential (e.g. reducing trafc and its concomitant dangers; providing accessibility to schools and services for children; making play areas close to home available; maintaining public parks, sidewalks, etc.). Nevertheless, our results, while conrming the importance of structural features of the urban environment, make it clear that their impact on childrens independent mobility is, at least partially, mediated by evaluations and fears of parents. As a consequence, any measure aimed at improving childrens independent mobility can be truly effective only if parents are encouraged to improve their environmental quality perception (see also Fyhri and Hjorthol 2009), reect on the legitimacy of their own social fears and have condence in the benets that the free use of the public space provides for children development.

Notes
1. 2. Items 3, 11, 15, and 17. Originally, we also constructed a third scale to measure the perception of trafc danger, called The Trafc Danger Perception scale. However, the scale had an unsatisfactory Cronbachs alpha (.64) and item-total correlations were too low for different items ( , .30). In a later study (Prezza et al. 2010), the scale was substantially modied and attained full reliability.

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Appendix
The overall score of childrens independent mobility variable was derived from the following six variables: (1) Home-school autonomy (0 never goes to or from school alone or with peers; 1 sometimes goes or returns alone or with peers; 2 often goes but never or sometimes returns alone or with peers/ never goes but often or sometimes (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) returns alone or with peers; 3 often goes to and from alone or with peers). Autonomy in going to organized activities (0 never, 1 sometimes, 2 often, 3 always). Autonomy in going to friends houses (0 never, 1 sometimes, 2 often, 3 always). Errand autonomy during the day (0 never, 1 sometimes, 2 often, 3 always). Errand autonomy after sunset (0 never, 1 sometimes, 2 often, 3 always). Outside play autonomy (0 the child is accompanied by adults and there are always adults who keep an eye on him/her; 1 he/she sometimes goes there autonomously and is not always supervised by adults; 2 he/she goes there autonomously/ stays in places very close to home; 3 he/she goes and plays autonomously, even in further-away places, in the open).

With these six partial scores of autonomy, a principal component factorial analysis was performed. The rst factor explained 38% of the variance and on it all six variables obtained a loading greater than .54. All item-total correlations were greater than .40 and Cronbachs alpha was .66. These results were considered satisfactory and the average response to the valid items was calculated (a maximum of two missing values was tolerated). Thus the overall score of childrens independent mobility was given by the sum of six score variables.