City Research Online

Abstract

Women are advised to avoid urban settings after dark and to carry a mobile phone. These precautions can reduce experiential fear of crime (EFC), which is influenced by the surrounding environment. However, these measures do not allow women to completely avoid potentially risky spaces. Women students commuting to urban universities are a prime example of this challenge. However, research on higher education and fear of crime (FoC) has largely focused on the university campus as the main site of activity, utilizing conventional methods that overlook experiences beyond campus, which limits a comprehensive understanding of student life. Between May and June 2022, 24 women students attending an urban university used a custom chatbot that documented their experiences commuting to campus over two weeks, before being interviewed. This research explores (1) women students’ self-protective behaviors commuting to an urban university, (2) the settings these students use their mobile phone to alleviate EFC and (3) the impact that these behaviors have on students. Our findings reveal the protective behaviors that women students exhibit beyond campus, the limits of mobile devices to alleviate EFC in situ, and how experience methods can help articulate a more nuanced understanding of student life.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2026 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Publisher Keywords:	Experiential fear of crime, mobile phone, mobilities, protective behaviors, urban university, women students
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs School of Policy & Global Affairs > Department of Sociology & Criminology
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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