Exploring why girls don’t cycle to school: Student and parent/guardian focus group findings on barriers to cycling

Increasing active travel by 2030 is one of Ireland’s important objectives in achieving its 2030 emissions reduction targets. Therefore, encouraging cycling at a young age is important. Irish Census data indicates a gender difference in cycling to school rates exists among primary school pupils and widens as children progress to secondary school. If active travel habits are formed among students, there is a likelihood that they will continue among individuals into adulthood. To design strategies to promote the uptake of cycling, especially to girls, the explanatory factors for not cycling must be understood. This study builds on previous work by the authors and uses qualitative methods to explore barriers to cycling to school. Focus groups of students and separately parents/guardians were conducted. The results are categorized under the main components of the Theory of Planned Behavior and show that subjective norms, particularly the descriptive norms of peers are significant explanatory factors affecting cycling to school behavior. The, mostly negative, attitudes toward cycling to school and their perceived behavioral controls, such as uniforms and bags, also strongly discourage cycling among girls. Almost all factors affected girls more than boys.