Investigating the Mobility Capabilities and Functionings in Accessing Schools Through Walking: A Quantitative Assessment of Public and Private Schools in São Paulo (Brazil)

Abstract

Despite being recognised as an appropriate tool to address different dimensions of transport-related social exclusion, the Capability Approach still lacks application within the domain of school transportation. This study conceptualised the vectors of collective functionings and capabilities of preschools and nurseries in São Paulo. From the location of 204 schools, the conditions to access schools through walking were assessed using georeferenced datasets relating to mobility, road safety, and the built environment. The schools were analysed according to their conditions to walk (resources) and the corresponding conversion rates to achieve higher shares of pedestrian trips (functionings), considering the idiosyncrasies between public and private schools. That enabled the estimation of the mobility capabilities, which presented gaps when compared with the functionings. Results corroborated with the class and race disparities in the access to education in Brazil, in which schools with poorer conditions to walk do not have any other options than walking to go to school (e.g. transit or bicycle), requiring investments in the upgrading of the urban infrastructure. On the other hand, schools in wealthier regions present barriers to the fulfilment of active mobility even when the resources are considered sufficient, in which the implementation of educational programmes in recommended.

Keywords:

• Urban mobility
• Children and youth
• Latin America
• Collective capabilities
• Education
• Inequality

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of our manuscript and for the valuable comments and suggestions that helped to improve this work.

Disclosure Statement

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

ORCID

Mateus Humberto http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6602-5708

Notes

1 Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk tests for normality of distributions were all significant considering a 99% confidence interval.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology [FCT, grant number PD/BD/128057/2016]; the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development [CNPq, grant number 310908/2017-5]; the Brazilian Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel [CAPES, grant number 1898793]; and the São Paulo Research Foundation [FAPESP, grant number 18/10878-7].

Notes on contributors

Mateus Humberto

Mateus Humberto holds a degree in Civil Engineering from Universidade de São Paulo (USP), where he joined the Dual-Degree Programme Architect-Engineer both at USP (Brazil) and the EPFL (Switzerland). Before starting his PhD, he worked for NGOs (Techo, apē, and ITDP) and transport consultancies (Logit and TC Urbes). His research is mostly focused on the interactions between active transportation, the formation of habits and public policies in Latin America, with emphasis on childhood and gender studies.

Bruna Pizzol

Bruna Pizzol is a PhD student at the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo. Graduated in Civil Engineering, with a certificate of special studies in Transport Engineering (School of Engineering of São Carlos of the University of São Paulo, 2013) and Master of Science in Transportation Planning (Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo, 2018). Her project intends to evaluate the accessibility of children to public and private schools in São Paulo, based on focus groups held with parents and school professionals.

Filipe Moura

Filipe Moura belongs to the Civil Engineering Department Research Centre (ceris.pt), where is coordinates a group of 12 researchers (M.Sc. and Ph.D. Students / Grant holders). His research focuses “sustainable urban mobility”, “active modes”, “travel behaviour” and “technology diffusion in transport systems”. He published over 70 international publications, including 24 articles published in ISI journals and 4 book chapters. Filipe holds a PhD in Transportation Systems from the Instituto Superior Técnico, having developed part of his research at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and is a Fulbright Scholar since 2017.

Mariana Giannotti

Mariana Giannotti is an assistant professor at the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo (EPUSP) where she coordinates the Geoprocessing LAB. She holds a Master in Remote Sensing from the National Institute of Space Research (2001) and PhD in Spatial Analysis at EPUSP (2010). Part of her PhD was developed in the Laboratoire d’InfoRmatique in Image et Systèmes d’Information (INSA - Lyon), France, from 2008 to 2009, with the support of CNPq sandwich scholarship. Her main research interests are transport related social exclusion based on spatial analysis.

Marcos Paulo de Lucca-Silveira

Marcos Paulo de Lucca-Silveira is a post-doc researcher at Center for Metropolitan Studies (University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil). He holds a PhD and a M.S. in Political Science both at USP. He was a visiting researcher at Kennedy Institute of Ethics—Georgetown University, United States, from 2015 to 2016. His research topics are focused on distributive justice, allocation of scarce resources, health inequalities and democratic theory.