The Beyond School Gates team examined how children’s and families’ perspectives, experiences, interactions and friendships networks feed into community integration in three towns in the Northwest of England: Bolton, Blackburn with Darwen and Preston. 

Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the research involved:

• Gathering children’s creative work across five schools exploring their own journeys and communities and interviews with 28 children about their work. 

• Surveying 444 children aged 9-11 years of age, using child-friendly psychological measures to examine their intuitions, understandings and feelings about diversity and integration.

• Mapping peer friendship networks for the same 444 children.

• Surveying 181 parents about their perspectives, experiences and networks.

• Interviewing 83 children to find out more about their networks and experiences and how these are shaped by local factors.

• Interviewing 57 local stakeholders and policy-makers to probe how they conceptualise and support children’s contribution to community integration in the context of local council initiatives, community groups and schools.