Samenvatting

Parents are worried about the safety of their youngsters in public space, although they do not define all public space as dangerous for their children. This article discusses empirical research of the views of parents of fourteen and fifteen year olds on the safety in different environments. Parents in cities, suburbia and the countryside in the Dutch province of Groningen all worry about the safety of their children. Nevertheless, differences exist in the ways in which they reproduce images of 'the city as a jungle' and the 'rural idyll.' These dominant images influence the parental concerns and the way parents protect their youngsters. At the same time, parents hold alternative and sometimes contradictory views about the appropriateness of their residential environment. Furthermore, parents' opinions on safety are not exclusively based on the places their children visit. Besides local experiences, national and international news frame the parents' views. This is of considerable importance for local safety policies.