Attributing activity space as risky and safe: The social dimension to the meaning of place for urban adolescents

The social dimension of urban adolescents' interpretation of their activity space was investigated by examining reasons for attributing place as risky and safe, and analyzing these reasons by social network quality. Activity space and social network data were collected on 301 teens presenting for routine medical check-ups. SPSS Text Analysis for Surveys performed linguistic analyses on open-ended survey responses, applying concept derivation, concept inclusion, semantic networks, and co-occurrence rules. Results produced 13 categories of reasons for locations attributed as risky and safe. Categories were then transformed into dichotomous variables and analyzed with chi-square tests by social network quality. Results indicated two categories of reasons for locations attributed as risky: alcohol and drugs and Illegal activity, which were dependent upon social network quality. Two categories of reasons for locations attributed as safe, namely protective place and Neighborhood, were also dependent upon social network quality. These findings assert that adolescents' social networks influence their interpretations of risk and safety, highlighting a social dimension to the meaning of place.