Los ataques de la Komintern

5.4.1 Location and characteristics

Voorschoten is a village and municipality in the South Holland province of the Netherlands, with a population of approximately 25,000 people. It is surrounded by the cities of Leiden, Wassenaar and The Hague and is located in the Randstad. The Randstad is the major industrial and commercial centre of the Netherlands and includes the provinces of South Holland, North Holland and Utrecht and the major cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and Den Haag. Voorschoten was chosen as the location for this part of study as it is the location of the British School in the Netherlands– an independent international school. Like most of the Netherlands, the topography of Voorschoten is flat. The Netherlands is a small country with a land area of approximately 41,500km2. As a consequence, the climate does not vary much throughout the country and it experiences a temperate maritime climate with daytime temperatures of between 2-6oC in winter and 17-20oC in summer (WeatherOnline, 2014). In 2010, 25% of all trips in the Netherlands were taken by bicycle, 19% by foot and 4% by tram, bus, train and metro. The percentage of all trips undertaken by walking, cycling and public transit was approximately 50%. The country is densely populated with 16.5

million inhabitants and an average population density of approximately 500 people per square kilometre (Ministry of Transport Public Works and Water Management, 2010).

5.4.2 Focus Groups

As discussed in relation to focus groups held in Christchurch, focus groups provide an opportunity to hear the views of study participants in their own words and to observe interactions between participants as they express these views.

Focus groups were held in Voorschoten to enable comparisons to be made with the cycling- related attitudes, values and beliefs of students in Christchurch, New Zealand (see Chapter 6). All students spoken to in Voorschoten cycled to school, spoke fluent English and, with the exception of one student, had lived in countries other than the Netherlands. As a

often grown up in a country (and culture) other than the Netherlands, but subsequently lived in the Netherlands where the percentage of people cycling is the highest in the world (Bassett et al., 2008).

This is useful as it enables the comparison of adolescents who have grown up in places where few teenagers cycle to school (such as the UK) and moved to the Netherlands where almost everyone cycles, with those who have lived all their lives in NZ where few people cycle. The students interviewed in Voorschoten had previously lived in a range of countries including Oman, Malaysia, Scotland, Singapore, USA, Russia and England. None had ever cycled to school in any country other than the Netherlands. Additionally, none of the

countries the students had lived in contained cities ranked in the top 20 bicycle friendly cities of the world according to the Copenhagenize Index for 2013 (Copenhagenize EU Design Company, 2014) and cycling rates for countries such as the United Kingdom and the USA are around 1-2% (Bassett et al., 2008).

Guidelines and permissions

Prior to holding focus groups, parents of students asked to be part of the focus groups were sent an information sheet, a list of questions to be asked and consent form (Appendices G and L). Students were given an information sheet at the beginning of each focus group (Appendix E) regarding the research. Students also signed an assent form (Appendix K) and their parents were asked to sign a consent form (Appendix L).

After completing the assent form, the same guidelines for conversation (as explained to the Christchurch groups) were explained to each group:

o Respect the views of others

o What is said within the focus group is confidential and should not be repeated outside the group

o Individuals are encouraged to discuss the questions with others in the group rather than directly with me.

Venue and recording

Focus groups in Voorschoten were held at the home of two of the boys in the focus groups whose mother was my key contact. Focus groups were recorded aurally to allow transcription of the dialogue following the interviews. They were not recorded visually as this was not favoured for ethical reasons and as it would have been difficult to video and ask questions at the same time.

Participation, size of groups and group composition

In Voorschoten, the mother of the two boys who organised the groups, asked friends and classmates of the two boys to attend the focus groups. The plan was to have six students in each focus group. However, three students failed to show up. Consequently the year 9 and 13 groups included four and five students, respectively. To ensure participants were as

homogeneous as possible, as recommended by Bosco (2009) and Conradson (2005), focus groups were divided by year group. Each group however included both girls and boys, due to the difficulties in organising groups to meet in a distant, foreign country. Food was provided for these focus groups, partly as a reward for their attendance in their own time.

Questions answered

The two focus groups were held in the weekend, outside school hours. As a result the focus groups were able to continue until all the questions were completed. The questions asked of students were the same as for students in Christchurch, with the exception that only one group in Christchurch was asked why they chose to cycle, whereas both groups in

Voorschoten were asked this question. Students were asked to rank the following reasons for cycling in order:

• I enjoy it

• It’s habit, I don’t really think about it • It fits with how I see myself

• It gives me freedom. • It’s a healthy thing to do. • It’s good for the environment.

The year 13 students were given all seven options to consider. As the year 9 group met after the year 13 group, this was cut back to the first five options for this group as it was thought five choices provided sufficient choices for group discussion.