A STUDY OF CHILDREN'S SPATIAL KNOWLEDGE AND THEIR MOBILITY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD WITH FOCUS ON THE SCHOOL JOURNEY: A COMPARISON OF THREE TYPICAL DISTRICTS IN THE CITY OF TEHRAN

摘要

To understand the influence of the school travel pattern on children's acquisition of spatial knowledge and its correlation to children's mobility within the neighborhood in general, three typical contexts were surveyed: a home-zone district, a recently developed district, and a traditional district developed organically. The results show that age is significantly influential on children's spatial knowledge as well as on their mobility within the school journey and other travel in the neighborhood. In this study, the influence of gender on spatial knowledge and mobility in the school journey was partially offset respectively by the longer home-school distance for boys and the propinquity of the girls' schools with the neighborhood center. Travel mode had a significant influence on spatial knowledge: those children who were driven had the weakest representation of their itinerary. Additionally, they had less licensed mobility within the neighborhood and were more car dependent for travel other than the school journey. The level of car dependency and licensed mobility were influenced by neighborhood context and parental fear of traffic and social dangers.