In an increasingly mobile and risk-centred world, the focus of academic attention is often on global movements of people, commodities, wages, finance and information, and on global risks such as environmental deterioration, pandemics and terrorism (Beck 1992 Beck, U. 1992. Risk society: towards a new modernity, London: Sage. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], Adams 1999 Adams, J. 1999. The social implications of hypermobility, Paris: OECD. [Google Scholar], 2005, Urry 2000 Urry, J. 2000. Sociology beyond societies, mobilities for the twenty-first century, London: Routledge. [Google Scholar]). However, everyday life, with everyday mobilities and everyday risk are more often the predominant concern of the majority of citizens in the West (Tulloch and Lupton 2003 Tulloch, J. and Lupton, D. 2003. Risk and everyday life, London: Sage. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). This paper is situated at this more local level, aimed at understanding a microcosm of everyday life: the corporeal mobilities of the journey to school, drawing out broader implications for a society shaped by both risk and mobility. In particular, the discussion here follows on from Jenkins' (2006 Jenkins, N. E. 2006. ‘You can't wrap them up in cotton wool!’ Constructing risk in young people's access to outdoor play. Health, risk & society, 8(4): 379–393. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) paper on risk, parenting and young people in using socio-cultural theory to question the assumptions made about parental management of risks to their children and particularly theories of ‘paranoid parenting’ (Furedi 2001 Furedi, F. 2001. Paranoid parenting, London: Penguin. [Google Scholar]). It is argued here that it is localised everyday risk discourses, and their construction according to gender and generation, that are most significant in shaping mobility.
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Lesley Murray (2009) studied this question.