Children's Mobilities: Methodologies, Theories, and Scales

Drawing upon an extensive review of the literature, this chapter presents the main theoretical and methodological perspectives utilized in the study of children’s everyday mobilities. These range from sociohistorical perspectives focused on concerns about children’s lack of independent mobility to more recent global perspectives focused on the notion of children’s interdependent mobilities. The methodological implications and the diverse geographical scales involved in these different approaches are discussed. Theoretical and methodological shifts are presented in relation to the wider discussions within mobility studies, geographies of children, and the social studies of childhood; these are characterized by changing notions of movement, childhood, agency, scale, and heterogeneity and a shift toward perspectives less dominated by dichotomous oppositions.