Parents as Active Citizens: Production of Children's Space in Residential Districts

The master's thesis explores parental practices for the appropriation and making of «children's» space in residential districts in Moscow. The theoretical framework for the study is Henri Lefebvre’s theory describing production of social space. In-depth interviews with parents of preschool children were used to find out and describe parents' perceptions of their engagement in organizing the child’s leisure. Communication in different spatial situations was analyzed, and the image of “children’s space” was described. It was found that production of «children's space» is not typical for the studied group of parents. Parents normally use the existing structure of city’s space and act according to the planned scenarios for their use. The production of space is rarely shown in form of complains addressed to representatives of local authority agencies, asking for a change in «conceived space» according to parent’s sense of «lived space».