Changing recess geographies: children’s perceptions of a schoolyard renovation project promoting physical activity

ABSTRACT

Insights into children’s perceptions of their changing recess geographies are absent. The current paper provides qualitative evidence from 5 renewed schoolyards by investigating children’s perceptions of their new schoolyards. Ten focus groups (2 at each school) including go-along interviews were conducted, in total 57 4 to 8 graders (28 girls). The functional aspects of the altered child–environment relationship were assessed using Gibson’s concept of affordance, and changes in the meanings ascribed to the schoolyards by the children were studied by engaging a concept of place. Our findings reveal that schoolyards offering multiple potential affordances for physical activity seem more likely to engage a broader group of children in recess physical activity. The analysis, however, could point to a difference between places designed for children’s play and places where children actually play. To optimise actualisation of the potential affordances for recess physical activity, involving children throughout intervention planning and decision-making is crucial.     

DETERMINANTS OF IMMIGRANTS’ ENTRY TO HOMEOWNERSHIP IN THREE NORDIC CAPITAL CITY REGIONS

The extent of homeownership among immigrants may be seen as an indicator of integration and as a determinant of ethnic residential segregation. Studies have shown differences in the determinants of homeownership between immigrants and natives, indicating that variation in homeownership is not only a function of differences in economic resources. These studies have largely focused on Anglo‐American contexts, using mostly cross‐sectional data. We apply survival analysis methods to analyse the determinants of entry to homeownership in the capital regions of three Nordic countries – Denmark, Finland and Sweden – utilizing longitudinal individual‐level register‐based datasets. We find that differences in entry to homeownership between natives and different immigrant groups cannot be explained by differences in socio‐economic background factors. We also find differences in the effects of these factors. Effects of income are generally weaker among non‐Western immigrants and immigrants are less responsive to changes in household composition. The share of non‐Western immigrants in the neighbourhood is only weakly related to entry to homeownership, while immigrants and natives living in public rental housing tend to be slightly less inclined to move to homeownership. Weaker income effects among immigrants, weak effects of ethnic segregation and the importance of the public rental sector differentiate our results from earlier findings. Weaker income effects may indicate that uncertainty about the future also affects middle‐income immigrants. Differences between the three contexts in housing markets and policies do not seem to matter much, although the results indicate that difficult access to the private rental sector may push immigrants to homeownership.     

Lydia Wilson Marshall (Ed.): Landscapes of Slavery in Africa

African Archaeological Review -     

Style and self‐making: String bag production in the Papua New Guinea Highlands

The looped netbag or bilum is one the most culturally significant of everyday objects in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Made exclusively by women, bilum are also iconic of female productive and reproductive labour. In this article, I analyze how growing social stratification is expressed through the types of bilums young women produce and wear. I argue that the choices that young women make about what kinds of designs, shapes, colours, and fashions to incorporate into their bilums can tell us a great deal about their desires, experiences, and imaginings. While previous analyses have focused on the bilum as an ambiguously gendered object expressing complex ideas about sexual difference, I argue that bilum style increasingly indexes complex ideas about geography and social location, materializing contemporary Papua New Guinean ‘imaginaries’ of space.     

Amarillis Pompei: The Napatan Cylindrical Sheaths. A Catalogue and Analysis of Precious Objects from the Royal Cemetery of Nuri

African Archaeological Review -