Intersectional problems, intersectional solutions : A whole-of-community approach to co-produce local park-based physical activity interventions for ethnically diverse adolescent girls in a socio-economically deprived city in the United Kingdom

Istiko, Satrio Nindyo and Bednall, Eve and Barber, Sally and Dawkins, Nathan P and Seims, Amanda and Crowther, Jamie and Porter, Alice and Heywood, Steven and Sheard, Laura (2026) Intersectional problems, intersectional solutions : A whole-of-community approach to co-produce local park-based physical activity interventions for ethnically diverse adolescent girls in a socio-economically deprived city in the United Kingdom. Wellbeing, Space and Society, 10: 100373. ISSN 2666-5581

Abstract

Parks are important spaces to engage with physical activity (PA) for adolescents, but challenges remain in transforming them into inclusive spaces for adolescent girls. Guided by intersectionality as a critical inquiry and praxis, with gendered understanding of Lefebvre’s notion of ‘the right to the city’, this paper presents a whole-of-community approach to co-produce local park-based PA interventions for ethnically diverse adolescent girls in socio-economically deprived urban areas in Bradford, United Kingdom (UK). We facilitated eight workshops, each was comprised of photo-elicitation discussion and feeding back research findings activities, with 37 adolescent girls, boys, and parents across two local parks – one was in a predominantly White British neighbourhood, and the other British Pakistani which was also co-developed with local adolescent girls. Three themes from the workshops are: 1) the limitations of focusing on park quality; 2) social support to improve adolescent girls’ confidence as active citizens, and; 3) multi-sited educational interventions to transform restrictive gender norms. Building on these themes, intervention ideas related to walking, youth workers, and Park Ambassadors are assembled into complex interventions called Girls and Their Parks (S-PARKS). We also call for greater use of a whole-of-community approach to intersectionality for co-producing PA interventions for adolescent girls.