Snapshots of Doctoral Research at University College Cork 2010 Child surveillance in Ireland Aimie Brennan School of Sociology and Philosophy, UCC Introduction Ten year old James looks out the backseat car window. He’s familiar with the views and with speaking to his mom through the gap in the seat. For a moment he wonders what it would be like if it was different. Sometimes he would like to stay at home and play with his dog or cycle his new bike to soccer training. He’s used to having his mom drive him. . . but its boring. Then he thinks; what if a car knocks him down? What if a stranger talks to him? What if he gets lost? No, its much better this way, isn’t it? Could James’ experience be a memory from your childhood? Maybe not but my research would suggests that this is becoming a more common experience. The rapid globalisation of Ireland in recent years has hugely impacted many aspects of family life especially the lives of children, for many reasons; the return of women to work, the increase in financial resources, the decrease in public space. International research has shown that in countries which have experienced rapid globalisation like Ireland, children, are experiencing major changes. This paper focuses on just one aspect of these changes that is; freedom and mobility (children’s independent movement from place to place). I argue that the current behaviour surrounding children’s supervision may be having a negative impact on children and family life. What happened in other countries? In the UK, Amsterdam and the USA researchers have found that children‘s independent mobility has decreased since the 1970‘s. In the UK, Valentine (1997) examined children’s outdoor play, finding that fewer children were playing outdoors. Fotel and Thomsen sup- ported this, finding that almost 100% of parents admitted to restricting their children’s outdoor play. The result was that children’s play had become much less street-based and more home-centered. The movement of children from the street to indoors changed the kinds of games that children play. Valentine (1997) found that children began to take part in more organized activities. Two thirds of the children in the UK participated in some form of organised activity. In urban areas especially, these activities such as horse riding, dancing, rugby etc. take place in 13 https://doi.org/10.33178/boolean.2010.4 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/