Youth transitions: mobility and the travel intentions of 12–20 year olds,Reading, UK

ABSTRACT

Whilst Western societies may have reached ‘peak car’, young people are arguably the most significant group whose levels of car ownership, use and driving licence acquisition have declined. Against this backdrop, the paper discusses qualitative research conducted in Reading, UK, considering young people’s (aged 12–20) views about bus travel. Whilst current pricing structures (both in Reading and across the UK) often offer under 18s discounted travel, the paper explores young people’s intentions about future travel as young adults. Drawing upon theorisations around youth transitions, we discuss how young people expect their mobility patterns to change as young adults in complex, shifting, fluid ways, and to involve multi-modal travel. Young people construct complex choice biographies through which they plan pathways to navigate these mobility transitions. Although a small-scale study, this paper also offers some insights into the challenges, complexities and limitations of researching mobility intention.     

Everyday travel for families with children using wheelchairs: parents’ perceptions of constraints and adaptation strategies

ABSTRACT

There is a norm assuming high mobility in the Western world today, which can increase the social and geographical exclusion of those who have limited possibilities to travel, such as people with disabilities. When it is a child who has the disability, travel-related constraints are likely to affect the whole family’s travel patterns. This study explores travel constraints among Swedish families with children with cerebral palsy who use wheelchairs. A time-geographical framework is employed. Interviews with parents show that these families’ everyday mobility is affected by authority, capacity and coupling constraints, and that it is often a combination of these constraints that makes travelling difficult. The families use different strategies to negotiate these constraints. In addition to strategies controlled by the families, the findings suggest that there is also a need for governmental support and a barrier-free transport system to enhance their mobility.     

‘Our Bantustans are Better than Yours’: Botswana,The United States,and Human Rights in the 1970s

Many historians have upheld the 1970s as the ‘breakthrough’ decade for human rights. Botswana was a notable beneficiary of the efflorescence of these principles, especially as human rights gained greater prominence in the foreign policy of the United States (US). From 1966 to 1980, the government of Seretse Khama upheld one of the strongest human rights records of any African state, using it to acquire vital economic aid and psychological encouragement from the West. This study of US–Botswana relations is significant for showing the capacity of an underdeveloped and vulnerable state, surrounded by white minority regimes, to use internationalist ideals to improve its prospects for greater security and prosperity. The research also reveals the limits of Botswana's approach, particularly when the US could not align its strategic interests in Africa with its professed value for human rights. Botswana was therefore exceptional in perceiving its geopolitical priorities as closely tied to its integrity as a self-proclaimed model for non-racial democracy in Southern Africa. The article helps to show how the 1970s human rights movement was not just a Western one or an American one, but a truly transnational one, with unique, though often underappreciated, contributions from those in Africa.     

“It was amazing to see our projects come to life!” Developing affective learning during geography fieldwork through tropophilia

This research, conducted with groups of undergraduate students before and after a European fieldwork exercise, critically examines the pedagogic value of fieldwork and its ability to provide students with transferable skills. This is achieved using Anderson and Erskine’s lens of tropophilia – the aesthetic connection between people and place – to explore the influence of “being” in the field upon affective learning. In doing so, this research suggests (1) that encouraging students to recognize how their own affective skills may influence the types of knowledge(s) that are produced on fieldtrips and (2) that people-place connections have the ability to inspire students to become more self-reflexive about their position(s) as learners.