Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book deals with interdisciplinary issues at the interface between individual behaviour and social structure. It considers the urban environment as a place of danger and hazard. The book examines accidents to children and the strategies developed by parents to maintain child safety in an urban setting fraught with danger. It describes discourses in which various experts are invoked to comment upon the dangers lurking within what is supposed to be the safe, trustworthy environment of family and home. The book explores the interface between the professional directives and the cultural context within which individuals make sense of both the 'risks' to their health, and the exhortations to change their behaviour. It deals with what one might call internal loci of control, and the ways in which societal agencies attempt to inculcate selfrestraint in order to reduce risky behaviour.