Representation Of Young People Research Articles

Listening to ‘the thick bunch’: (mis)understanding and (mis)representation of young people in jobs without training in the South West of England

Young people in jobs without training are ubiquitous but invisible, working in shops, cafes, and other low‐waged, low‐status occupations. Commonly elided with young people who are not in education, employment or training, they are positioned as the ‘thick bunch’ with empty and meaningless working lives. The main purpose of the research was to explore the experiences of this group of marginalised and socially disadvantaged young people through a deeper understanding of their interests and enthusiasms inside and outside work. These young people have been (mis)understood and (mis)represented. A more holistic and nuanced approach that is not uncritically founded upon a set of neo‐liberal stereotypes and assumptions, and instead recognises the complexity of their lives, would offer new opportunities for understanding and representation of their interests. Our findings challenge the conflation of identity with work and the notion that only certain forms of employment create meaning.

`Right' and `Not Right'

This article analyses the results of a study of conceptions of justice among Italian teenagers. The aim was to examine young people's representations of issues of justice, and to determine whether the experience of active participation can influence such representations. The study was designed in accordance with the most recent approaches in sociology of childhood; it involved young people attending higher secondary school, some of them members of a youth organization. Most of the teenagers were interviewed individually, others in focus groups. The interviews were conducted through the presentation of scenarios based on questions of justice, while the focus groups were presented with a variety of moral dilemmas.

Peer devaluation in British secondary schools: young people's comparisons of group-based and individual-based bullying

Background Bullying has usefully been described as demonstrations of the norms of young people's social groups, outlawing and punishing those who do not conform. The way a person appraises bullying strongly influences the coping process, how the person reacts emotionally and bystander behaviour. A social-psychological perspective was used to study young people's representations of group-based and individual-based bullying. Purpose The study explores the usefulness of making a distinction not investigated in the bullying literature: that between abuse based on individual characteristics and abuse in terms of group membership, such as one's race or sex as a whole. Much of the existing bullying literature contains an implicit value judgement that group-based bullying is worse, and therefore more difficult to cope with, because it maligns not only the individual, but also the individual's entire reference group. The aim of this study is to understand young people's evaluations of the severity of the two distinguishable bases for being bullied. Sample A total of 471 students from eight mixed-sex British state secondary schools, divided into 96 groups of five students, aged 11–16 from Years 7, 9 and 11; 54% girls, 46% boys. Four of the schools were in east London, an area of high ethnic mix and low socio-economic status (SES), and four from Cambridgeshire, an area of low ethnic mix and high SES. Design and methods A group-interview methodology was used to elicit young people's appraisals of the two different bases for being bullied. Using a convenience sampling strategy, groups of approximately five students were interviewed between November 2003 and May 2004. Each group generated and ranked pejorative names as more or less severe and were then asked to justify their evaluations. Flyvbjerg's phronetic approach was adopted for data analysis, locating the method between the numerical orientation of quantitative content analysis (involving simple descriptive counts of codes) and the interpretive orientation of grounded theory. Results Responses only partially support the assumption in the literature; students mentioned many other dimensions upon which evaluations of the severity of bullying are conditional, ranging from social conventions, intention, frequency and truth, to the type of target and the nature of the stigma. Being bullied for group membership entails cognitive sense-making that is identical to that entailed in individual-based bullying on some dimensions, and different on others. Results are interpreted in terms of the general heightened awareness of bullying and racism that permeates schools. Conclusions The literature's assertions that group-based bullying is more insidious, more damaging and more capable of evoking anger and feelings of injustice than individual-based bullying are not grounded in substantial evidence. The present study of young people's evaluations of group-based bullying compared directly with individual-based bullying found that such assertions represent only a fraction of young people's thinking about school bullying. This research contributes to knowledge about the complex processes through which adolescents are both susceptible to, and protected from, bullying.

Imagining the Family

Social work theory and research is increasingly exploring conceptions of the family and the child and the possibilities for recognizing and responding to the `voice' of young people. Media images of the family are likely to contribute to society's conception of what a family is or should be, but often fail to represent the diversity of living arrangements that actually exist today. Focusing on the popular cult TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer we argue that this is an example of popular culture that explores both the advantages and the dangers of non-normative family forms, specifically the non-genetic or `chosen' family. We argue that Buffy endorses a non-hierarchical, `democratic' vision of the family (Giddens, 1992), with relationships between friends at its centre and offers a representation of young people that includes personal agency, reflecting the real choices, tensions and conflicts for people living in today's changing family. We argue that popular cultural forms such as Buffy can generate `interactive social worlds' (Plummer, 1995) that are central to the dissemination of new social practices. Implications of this analysis for social work are outlined, in terms of re-conceptualizing the notion of `family' and of innovations in practice and research.

Sex, Drugs and Young People: International Perspectives ‐ Edited by Aggleton, P., Ball, A. and Mane, P.

<i>Sex, Drugs and Young People: International Perspectives</i> ‐ Edited by Aggleton, P., Ball, A. and Mane, P.

How can a child be a mother? Discourse on teenage pregnancy in a Brazilian favela

Contemporary research reveals the body as a privileged place for social memory and resistance, especially among those people who are politically and economically marginalized. But what might the body signify within the context of teenage pregnancy in conditions of chronic poverty? To explore these issues, semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 21 boys and 17 girls living in a favela in São Paulo, Brazil. In their responses, young people drew a clear distinction between sex and parenthood. If sex sometimes holds negative connotations, maternity and the physical appearance of pregnancy increases social status. Young people's representations of teenage pregnancy do not portray it as a social or health problem. Instead, they understand it as a consequence of the desire to be visible and active in social life. Findings highlight the importance of investigating the relationship between young people's sexuality and the social imaginary, particularly in conditions of social inequality and suffering.

Illness representations in young people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Leventhal's commonsense model of self-regulation has attracted a great deal of research in recent years, but its possible implications for understanding young people with chronic illness have received little attention. The purpose of this study is to examine children and young people with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and to explore (a) the characteristics of their illness representations, (b) whether those representations are associated with their physical functioning and perceived quality of life and (c) whether coping strategies may act as mediators between representations and those outcomes. A total of 85 participants, ranging in age from 8 to 25 years, were recruited from the website of a self-help group for young people with CFS. They were asked to complete three questionnaires, measuring illness representations, coping strategies, and physical functioning and quality of life. The results showed that illness representations formed characteristic patterns, that they were associated with both physical functioning and quality of life, and that coping partially mediated the relationship between illness representations and outcome. We conclude that young people's representations of their CFS play an important role in coping and outcome. The implications of the findings are discussed for both theory and clinical practice, and suggestions are made for further research.

Ch'anantskua (juego de la madurez)

La Ch'anantskua (juego de la madurez), propia del pueblo de Carapan, Michoacán, es una representación ancestral de iniciación de los jóvenes al matrimonio. Esta representación consiste en la demostración que hacen los muchachos (actores), de ambos sexos, ante la población adulta (jueces y público a la vez) de que ya son aptos para el matrimonio; para ello realizan públicamente labores propias de su sexo. Sin embargo, a partir de los años sesenta, esta representación fue incorporando elementos religiosos cristianos, así como profanos referentes al carnaval, de tal suerte que hoy se ha transformado en una amalgama de signos, símbolos e iconos de las culturas p'urhépecha prehispánica, negra y española, que se expresan en una rica polisemia cultural, que pretendemos mostrar en este artículo.

Violence in schools and representations of young people: a critique of government policies in France and England

This paper examines media discourses in France and in Britain relating to young people, violence and disaffection in schools, setting these within the framework of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which emphasises young people’s participation rights. It analyses policy initiatives developed since 1997 in each country to address concerns about young people, disaffection and violence, examining these in the light of research evidence. It considers how public policies are variously shaped by research findings and by media representations. In France, attempts to reduce violence in schools have been accompanied by recognition that schools structurally produce disaffection and violence. In England there has been a shift in policy discourses. In 1997 the primary emphasis was social inclusion, but greater weight has since been given to the need to combat crime. (Male) youth disaffection is linked to crime. Policies addressing standards and achievement have been prioritised over policies to combat social exclusion. In both countries researchers and the media give particular attention to urban communities where minority ethnic communities live. Individual schools are labelled as failing and large numbers of young people are excluded or marginalised. In both countries minority ethnic students are over‐represented among those formally excluded from mainstream education and in the least popular, most stigmatised, schools and classes. Violence and disadvantage are effectively institutionalised. Discourses in each country are racialised and disaffection is associated with minorities. Yet both countries offer universalist rather than targeted policy responses. Opportunities for student participation in school decision‐making are limited.

‘Teenage traumas’

Previous research has shown that media representations of young people consistently portray them as in one way or another ‘problematic’, but little such research has focused specifically on the medium of radio. This article contains a detailed case study of a radio documentary series broadcast in Ireland called The Teenage Years. It explores the editorial, rhetorical and narrative devices used to construct and sustain a mainstream clinical-psychological discourse of adolescence, one which effectively ‘pathologizes’ the teenage years. It also ‘homogenizes’ them, privileging age as an explanatory factor in shaping identity and development and thereby systematically ignoring other aspects of social inequality and stratification. It is argued that this is an important ideological dimension of the discourse expressed and enacted by the series.

Young people's representations of others' views of smoking: is there a link with smoking behaviour?

This paper reports a large-scale survey ( n=1985) of 9–12-year-olds' representations of parents' and friend's views about the nature of smoking. Taking the perspective of Social Representations theory, consensual representations of respondents' views of significant others are identified using cluster analysis without reference to smoking behaviour. Resulting clusters of individuals map on to self-reported behavioural groups at above chance level. These relationships indicate young smokers have access to sets of beliefs about others' smoking views that may differ systematically from those available to nonsmokers. This suggests an additional social psychological mechanism that may be implicated in early onset of smoking in adolescence.

Driving Cultures: Cars, Young People and Cultural Research

This article describes the Driving Cultures research, the cultural importance of the car and the psychological approaches central to research in the field of road safety and investigations of the over–representation of young people in crashes. The aim of the article is to outline driving as a cultural practice drawing on the experiences of young people as described in focus groups in order to show how cultural research can contribute to a social concern such as traffic injury and death.