After her own experiences with sound sensitivities , Sam Micka was eager to research how other Edmonton youth respond. Supervised by Assistant Professor of Sociology Annaliese Pope, Micka and co-researcher Ezra Richards partnered with Boyle Street Community Services to research how downtown soundscapes affect urban youth.

“Your environment – whether that's fluorescent lights buzzing or people talking in the hall – has an impact on you. We were interested specifically in the areas in which youth were seeking rest, and how that environment sounded,” says Micka, a Bachelor of Arts, Sociology student.

At Boyle Street Education Centre, the team spoke to high-school-aged youth with a variety of living conditions – and sound exposure. 

Through structured interviews over several weeks, the team got to know the youth’s experiences and personalities, and developed relationships with them. 

“My favourite part of this project has been talking with the participants, both inside and outside the interviews,” says Sociology Honours student Richards, who worked on the project with Micka. “I think it was especially important to get to know the students to bridge that gap between researcher and participant. I wanted them to know that we wanted to hear their stories, we valued their input, and that this project is for them as much as it is for the scholarly world.”

In those interviews, Micka expected to hear mostly negative experiences with sound, but many of the high school students she spoke to were able to create positive environments using white noise or music.

Though the pair are still analyzing data, Micka says that the experience made her reflect on her own relationship with sound, and how it differs from those of the youth she’d spoken to.

“If I’m overstimulated by a sound, I can usually remove myself from whatever space I'm in, shut the door, put headphones on, those kinds of things,” she says. “But a lot of these youth, because they're living in these precarious housing situations, don't necessarily have the freedom to move out of that space.”

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