Children’s experiences and perceptions of street culture, parental supervision, and parent mediation in an urban neighbourhood

Abstract

Local street cultures may appear more or less ‘extreme’, depending on several contextual factors. Using focus groups, the current study aimed to explore what children, aged 7 to 12, think of the assumption that parents play an important role on the street to increase safety in the public domain. Involvement of parents can either be helpful or contribute to escalation of the conflict. Children’s biggest concern was that parents are not able to be neutral or that children did not know the parent who intervened. They can imagine intervening being helpful when the intervening parents are known and trusted. We expect that, when the public environment is safe and social cohesion is strong, the amount of conflicts will reduce, and the help of parents will be generally accepted. We expect that increasing public familiarity and strengthening social control in disadvantaged neighbourhoods can further limit the negative influences of street culture.