Teodorescu, Ioana (2024) Challenges and opportunities of digital technologies in facilitating children’s participation in urban planning and design: a Swiss case study. Master thesis.
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Abstract
Children remain largely excluded from participatory planning and design processes. Yet, their participation is key in meeting sustainability agendas and creating inclusive cities. Their exclusion largely stems from knowledge deficits and misconceptions on children’s capabilities. Stereotyping and prejudices made on children’s capabilities and willingness to participate have until now largely led planning professionals to overlook them in participatory decision-making. This research investigates the potentials and challenges of digital technologies in supporting children’s capabilities and facilitating their participation in urban planning and design. While minimally studied with children, digital participatory tools have been extensively explored with adults and reveal many advantages, particularly in broadening and facilitating participation. By enhancing accessibility, digital technologies can lead to the inclusion of new socio-demographic profiles and hard-to-reach groups and thus hold great potential in facilitating children’s participation. Ten semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with both (1) planning professionals and (2) educational experts who utilize digital tools with children, giving rise to three key findings. Firstly, the findings demonstrated that children have the capabilities to meaningfully engage in participatory planning and design processes. However, tailored methodologies are crucial in effectively engaging children. Creative and informal participatory elements, together with extended support, are key in supporting children’s dynamic capabilities. Digital technologies can further support children’s capabilities and make participation more engaging for children. Secondly, digital methodologies hold great potential in broadening participation through digital participation, especially for adolescents. Lastly, digital technologies must be seen as complementary rather than substitutive tools to current practices so as to combine unique advantages of both methodologies. Challenges of digital technological use can be overcome through a balanced integration of digital and non-digital methods, among other mitigation strategies discussed in this paper. Overall, the use of digital technologies holds great potential in both supporting children’s capabilities and broadening participation. For adolescents, digital participatory methodologies are especially crucial to explore, as they remain the least represented group in current practices. At a less immediate priority, digital participatory tools can be explored to enhance existing processes and further expand participation among younger children too.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Master) |
|---|---|
| Degree programme: | Society, Sustainability and Planning (MSc Socio-spatial Planning) |
| Supervisor: | Ataol, O. |
| Date Deposited: | 08 Jul 2024 12:20 |
| Last Modified: | 08 Jul 2024 12:20 |
| URI: | https://frw.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/4567 |
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