The social sustainability of neighbourhood-schools: a qualitative study with Iranian children and youth about their neighbourhood perceptions

ABSTRACT

The design of neighbourhood facilities must take into consideration an understanding of a range of residents to create flexible and sustainable communities. The current study focuses on the participation of young residents from Kerman, Iran, highlighting how it can strengthen the possibilities for socially sustainable neighbourhoods. It also presents a creative option to evaluate the needs of young residents, in order to improve their well-being and satisfaction within their neighbourhood and a critical facility, the neighbourhood-school. This study employed a rating and ranking questionnaire to better understand the youth’s views, in conjunction with drawing and painting as a method for children’s participation. This paper offers an approach to a participatory research process with children and youth using a social sustainability perspective, to better understand their neighbourhood perceptions.

KEYWORDS:

• Neighbourhood-school
• social sustainability
• children and youth
• painting
• drawing

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the interviewees who kindly gave up their time to talk to us, and to the anonymous reviewers whose comments improved this paper significantly.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Parisa Ziaesaeidi http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1323-6066

Debra Flanders Cushing http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2192-0637

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 One of the important dimensions of safety for having social sustainable and child-friendly neighbourhoods is the avoidance of crime. However, children and youth did not mention it as much as traffic safety.