CM3-21 Utilization of Urban Space and of Free Time by Urban Children in Distress： Some Highlights

This paper will analyze new information that emerges from careful large-scale surveys as well as from life histories and participant observations with children carried out in large and in middle-small cities in the Philippines, Brazil, Kenya and Italy during an action research project planned by UNICEF in the early 1990s. The paper will carefully develop comparisons between the use of space and of free time by girls and boys in their middle years and early adolescence (ages 7 to 15 ) in specific cities, given different cultural and economic contexts. Each of these cities is also rapidly changing, thus providing new challenges, obstacles and opportunities for the young people involved. The often-detailed information provided by the children or elicited through participant observation was never analyzed by the project because of time constraints. It however raises interesting questions and highlights hypotheses for future research on a set of issues for which we have limited information and which are particularly important, respectively, for urban planners, policy-makers, and scholars interested in listening to children and in understanding their perspectives and viewpoints.