Das Projekt "Raumaneignungen und Raumwahrnehmungen Jugendlicher im öffentlichen Raum" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Zürich, Geographisches Institut durchgeführt. Access, use and appropriation of spaces and places as products of social processes are gendered (Bauhardt 2004: 7). Spaces and places have the potential to in- and exclude groups of peoples as well as spaces and social identities influence each other. This PhD project focuses on the perception and appropriation of public spaces in Zurich by male and female adolescents. It aims at analysing which values and norms in public spaces young females and males are exposed to, which affect only male or female teenagers. I will focus on following research questions: How do they perceive places in public space? How do they perform identity in public, what kind of in- and exclusion do they experience? Which factors influence the uses of public spaces? According to gender other identity markers such as ethnic affiliation, social-economic background etc. will be included in the analyses. The concept of 'public space' will by analyse critically in the tradition of feminist perspectives in planning. Triangulation of methods will be used. Based on literature, observation, expert interviews and explorative interviews with an on-line survey with teenagers of different education levels shall be conducted (topics: use and perception of public places, profiles of the users, rating of places). The empirical data relating to subjective structures of meaning will be collected in semi-structured interviews with about 20 male and female teenagers of different socio-cultural background. Added to the interviews visits to often-frequented places by the research participants are planned. Furthermore the teenagers will be asked to make photographs of different places (i.e. their favourite places).