Independent mobility to school and Spanish children: go, return, or both?

ABSTRACT

Little research about children’s independent mobility (CIM) to school has distinguished between the schoolchildren who only go or return (one way), from those who go and return (both ways) from school. We examined some factors associated with these forms of CIM. We examined the data of 1106 Spanish girls and boys (8–12 years old). We evaluated CIM to/from school, CIM for outdoor leisure activities, distance from home to school and children’s perceived distance. The following variables related CIM to school: perceived difficulty, attitudes and willingness for CIM to school. The children who showed independent mobility for both ways reported more CIM for their leisure activities, perceived their home as being closer and had a low perception of difficulties compared to those who only commuted to school one way. The predictors for each CIM type also differed. These findings highlight that CIM both ways is a greater form of autonomy.

KEYWORDS:

• Independent mobility
• children
• leisure
• attitudes
• willingness

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all the schools that took part in the study, especially the children for their collaboration.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was co-funded up to 65% by European Funding to regional development (FEDER) through Interreg V-A Spain, France, Andorra (POCTEFA 2014–2020). Funding was complemented by the University of Zaragoza (Spain); CAPAS-CIUDAD [I-2016-013].