Les expériences sensibles enfantines dans le processus d’autonomisation

Abstract

The place of children in the city raises the question of their ability to move around freely. This experience of independent movement has become less familiar over the last thirty years. However, it can be both a routine and a unique opportunity to experience the spaces of the city. It is in this perspective that this article from the MOBI’KIDS research is situated.Using an ecological approach to children’s behaviours, this article aims to show what the forms of children’s sensibilities reveal about the experience of daily travel in the city and how they vary from one urban context to another. Thus, the article is based on a corpus of data derived from forty or so walk along interviews carried out with 9–10-year-olds during their school-home journeys in two urban contexts (Rennes center and Orgères, on the outskirts).The results presented allow to (1) describe the children’s sensitive experiences during these journeys and the diversity of attentional forms, as well as (2) their role (search for comfort, adaptation, socialization) in the independent experience of city spaces and (3) the nature and role of these experiences (social; cognitive; evaluative/affective; signifying). The results also return to the place of emotions (pleasure/ displeasure; fear; confidence; etc.) in the experience of moving and to the forms of improvisation that constitute these experiences.

Keywords

• childhood
• city
• children’s autonomy
• sensitive experience
• commute