Browsing by Author "Laatikainen, Tiina"

The aim of this study was to explore adolescents' free-time activities around Greater Helsinki. There has been a growing interest towards studying children and youth but few have focused on adolescents free-time activities from a regional perspective. The study took place in greater Helsinki region and consisted of SofGIS data collected from and focus group discussions made with 11- and 14- years old youth. Respondents of the SoftGIS study were asked to tell what they think of the places in their environment and to mark to a map places they spend their free-time. The GIS data was comprised of 919 free-time place points located by the young people. The underlying theoretical framework of the study rests on environmental psychology's affordance theory and current place and location theories from the field of geography. The theory of affordances by J.J Gibson states that environmental perception is a direct process and that perception takes the form of the individual perceiving affordances in the environment. Affordances are the possibility for action afforded to an observer by an object in the environment. Another theoretical concept, theory of assemblage, was adopted to study the multidimensional free-time places of youth. The assemblage is thus a conceptual framework that potentially connects both the feel and the form but also the social and the physical dimensions of place. The concept of place through the lens of assemblage theory can be seen not as bounded location but as an assemblage of connections. The results of the study indicate similar results of valued places found around the world among youth. Young people value free-time places where there is strong social coherence but that are away from parental and adult control. Yet there seems to be a strong wish for places that feel safe and are diverse with the activity possibilities. Hanging out, meeting friends, positive and safe atmosphere and adult free control were most often found affordances in the most popular free-time places. The most popular place clusters around greater Helsinki region were fulfilled with social, emotional and functional location points. Home environments and neighborhoods are very much valued free-time environments for the respondents. Homes and neighborhoods are especially emotionally and socially important places to spend free-time. School surroundings stood out as socially important places even outside school hours. Indoor and outdoor sports facilities play an important role among the respondent's free-time activities. Most versatile free-time environments were found around suburban areas while the urban area studied was most plain and the rural area studied was in between the two. Main themes of the valued places were found within all of the three different areas studied.