‘Participatory parity’, young people and policy in Scotland

The last three decades have witnessed significant changes in the social and economic context of young people’s lives. There is increasing evidence that for young people growing up in the UK, this is fuelling a disparity between those with resources and those without. What this means in terms of social justice, however, is difficult to discern. In Scotland, promoting greater social justice so that all its citizens are included has been held up as a key vision of successive Scottish administrations since devolution began in 1999. Scotland therefore makes an interesting case for the examination of policy discourses in relation to young people. In order to do this, the paper draws on a theoretical framework of justice developed by Nancy Fraser which is oriented on the norm of participatory parity. Combining this framework with an approach informed by critical discourse analysis, the current policy context in Scotland is examined in order to discern if it contributes to all young people achieving participatory parity and subsequently social justice.     

Play-based interview methods for exploring young children’s perspectives on inclusion

Inclusive education provides learning opportunities for children with disabilities in regular settings with other children. Despite the prevalence of inclusive education, few qualitative studies have adequately explored young children’s perspectives on inclusion. This paper reviews the findings of a preliminary qualitative study where play-based interviews were conducted with 12 typically developing children enrolled in one of two childcare lab schools. Study methods provided an opportunity to assess play-based interview techniques where young children were asked to describe their views on inclusive education. The findings demonstrate that play-based methods allow young children of various ages to identify complex issues related to inclusion. The authors call for additional research that examines research methods in early childhood settings on multi-faceted issues regarding educational policies and practices as a way to attenuate young children’s lack of participation in curriculum development.     

Swedish young people’s after-school extra-curricular activities: attendance,opportunities and consequences

Recent research demonstrates that, along with the family, the peer group and the school environment, extra-curricular activities are important contexts for young people’s educational and social development. This article is the result of a survey conducted with a sample of young people in their last year of compulsory school in Sweden and examines both who has access to the different types of extra-curricular activity and the consequences of their participation in the various programmes. As the results indicate, after controlling for respondents’ class and migrant background, their gender and their health, there are positive and significant associations between participation in certain types of activity (sporting, cultural and religious) on the one hand, and students’ school performance and educational expectations on the other. However, attendance at a less-organised activity (youth recreation centres or fritidsgård) shows a negative association with these outcomes. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that the gender, social class and migrant background of students affect their rate of participation in many of these activities.     

Educational psychologists’ practice: obtaining and representing young people’s views

ABSTRACT

Many studies have focused on the importance of the participation of children and young people (CYP) in their education, although fewer papers discuss the practical aspects of seeking their views and fewer again on representing them. A mixed method approach was used to collect information regarding educational psychologists’ (EPs’) practice in obtaining and representing CYP’s views. A questionnaire (n = 73) was used to gather data from local authority educational psychology services (EPSs) across Wales and eight participants who completed the questionnaire took part in an interview to explore their views in more depth. Using thematic analysis, the major themes constructed included “accessing a true representation of CYP’s views”, “gaining CYP’s views empowers them” and “child-centred practice”. The implications of the present study for the role of educational psychologists are discussed, together with future directions for research and the limitations of the present study.     

‘More than boy,girl, male,female’: exploring young people’s views on gender diversity within and beyond school contexts

Abstract

This paper explores the views of young people aged 12–14 on gender diversity, drawing upon school-based qualitative data from a study conducted in England in 2015–2016. Although earlier feminist and queer research in schools often found evidence of variable local gender cultures and gender non-conformity, we argue that the contemporary context, with its increasing global awareness of gender diversity, offers young people significant new ways of learning about and doing gender. Findings reveal that many young people have expanded vocabularies of gender identity/expression; critical reflexivity about their own positions; and principled commitments to gender equality, gender diversity and the rights of gender and sexual minorities. We also show how young people are negotiating wider cultures of gendered and sexual violence. Schools are providing some spaces and learning opportunities to support gender and sexual diversity. However, overall, it appears that young people’s immediate social cultural worlds are constructed in such a way that gender binary choices are frequently inevitable, from school uniforms and toilets to sports cultures and friendships. Our conclusion touches on the implications of these findings for how educational practitioners, external agencies and young people can address gender rights, equality and justice in schools and beyond.     

Researching the everyday: young people’s experiences and expressions of citizenship

This paper reports on a research study which drew attention to the constitutive nature of the everyday world in young people’s subjectivities and practices of citizenship. Central to the aim of this research was a need for alignment between the focus of the research (‘everyday’ citizenship), with methods which could illuminate the day-to-day experiences of being a citizen. In this paper, I re-examine some of the ‘everyday’ data generated by two research methods which were initially discounted as rambling or divergent. This data characteristically had frequent interjections, incomplete sentences, questions and queries, or a sense of ambiguity and uncertainty. Through a re-analysis of this data, I consider the potential it offers to contribute conceptual and theoretical insights into young people’s citizenship dispositions and practices. The research revealed the diverse, complex and contested understandings of citizenship that young people were forming in the context of day-to-day social and spatial interactions.     

‘Voice’, young people and action research

This article moves from an overview of what is meant by the term ‘voice’ to discussing the significance of its links with action research. It does this through using a simple typology of three types of voice: Authoritative, Critical and Therapeutic. Each type of voice represents a different process of articulation and intended outcome. It then moves on to consider ‘voice’ and the collaboration of young people in educational action research by unpicking a series of four assumptions which delineate major theoretical and practical possibilities and limitations. These assumptions provide a critique of the underpinning ideologies held by professionals when supporting and listening to young people     

Father involvement in young children’s care and education: exploring boundaries and starting conversations

This paper analyses the impact of a UK local authority initiative – Fathers’ Friday – aiming to involve fathers in their children’s education, which took place in 20 early years’ and primary school settings. Whilst the study involved a range of methods, in this paper interview data associated with practitioners’ perspectives of the initiative are used. Theoretically, Bernstein’s concept of boundary and related notions of classification and framing provide a framework for exploring fathers’ positioning, and Bernstein’s concept of ‘voice’ helps to explain how relations are repositioned, as fathers engage with settings through their participation in the initiative. The authors’ contention is that whilst an existing structure of social relations positions how settings and individuals can relate to one another, experiencing the Fathers’ Friday initiative under changed conditions produces a weakened boundary space for fathers, from which ‘conversations can start’. Children themselves form part of this process of redrawing weakened boundaries.     

'She just got me’: supporting care experienced young people negotiating relationships and identities at school

In this article we examine the complex relationship between care experience, mental health and exclusion from school and how young people (YP) negotiate these different experiences and identities. The study is a secondary analysis, informed by symbolic interactionist theory, of interviews conducted with 19 care experienced YP in Scotland. Not all of the YP were excluded and not all had a formal mental health diagnosis, as such our study design allows interrogation of the contexts and relationships which not only facilitate but also disrupt pathways to exclusion. It also allows reconsideration of assumptions of vulnerability which are often applied to care experienced YP. Our findings suggest that these YP are moving beyond ‘role playing’ the identities ascribed to them and actively seek out relationships which enable them to construct alternative identities.     

Young people’s voices: disciplining young people’s participation in decision-making in special educational needs

In recent years, education and family policy in the UK has sought to incorporate the views of children and young people through an active participation agenda, in the fulfilment of children’s rights under the obligations of the UN Convention for the Rights of the Child. Drawing on empirical evidence, this paper suggests that this aspiration is flawed. The inclusion of young people’s voices in decision-making is context dependent, and influenced by individual relationships, both positive and negative. It is framed by policies that subjugate children within disciplinary technologies that determine a regime of ‘truth’ about effective and appropriate participation. Drawing on data gathered as part of a wider study on the relationships between services users and services providers in special educational needs, this paper demonstrates that active inclusion of the voice of the child can be illustrated to be at least variable, and at worst prejudiced. It is suggested that the notion of participation produces tacit forms of ‘government’ that further classify and divide young people, magnifying their marginalization.     

Measuring children and young people’s wellbeing in the school context

Although being rooted in the work of ancient Greek philosophers, contemporary research on wellbeing is a relatively new phenomenon. As a term in the literature, wellbeing is often used interchangeably with others, such as happiness, flourishing, enjoying a good life and life satisfaction. Furthermore, the wellbeing of school-aged children is only beginning to be explored with increasing recognition that research conducted on adults cannot be uncritically applied to children and young people. This paper aims to address some of the complexities in conceptualising, and hence assessing, children and young people’s wellbeing by drawing on a recently completed study examining the role of creative initiatives in fostering wellbeing. The new instrument that was developed to capture children and young people’s perceptions of their wellbeing in school is outlined. Data are presented from a survey of 5170 students from 20 primary and 20 secondary schools across England that identify four dimensions of wellbeing. Differences in self-reported wellbeing relating to age, gender and type of school attended (Creative Partnerships versus other schools) are explored. The implications of these findings, particularly differences related to type of school attended, given the focus of this special issue, are considered.     

Embodying and resisting racialised desires in young people’s sexual imagery

Desires may be viewed as emotions that are structuring and structured by social inequalities. This paper examines how sexual desires may surface in everyday classroom interactions. It argues in particular that anti-racist sex education requires not only an awareness of a racialisation of sexuality but also of the sexualisation of race. Focusing on students’ images of desire and a selection of music video stills, the paper investigates in which ways racialised and gendered desires are relevant to students’ imagination – and how they negotiate them in the classroom. Young people’s ethnosexual imaginary reveals an affective investment on the part of adolescents in racialised sexualities in visual culture. In the context of participatory arts-based workshops, the paper analyses how images of racialised desires are transformed into material objects of boundary work. The paper concludes by proposing the re-enactment of young people’s imagery as a means to open up an affective space for negotiating desires and disdain.     

A study of young lesbian and gay people’s school experiences

This retrospective study used Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to explore young lesbian and gay (LG) people’s experiences of school in relation to their sexuality and their perceptions of how schools could be inclusive for young LG people. Participants were in the age range of 16 to 21 and provided insights into coping strategies, responses to being gay and advice they would give to other young LG people. Many participants felt schools might face problems as they support young LG people. Participants suggested numerous practical ways that schools could be inclusive of young LG people. This article includes implications for educational psychologists (EPs) and local authorities (LAs).     

Framing young people’s educational transitions: the role of local and contemporary economic contexts

Despite rates of participation in post-compulsory full-time education reaching approximately 84% in Wales, social class inequalities continue to shape young people’s transitions from compulsory to post-compulsory education. This article draws upon data from a project which explored how young people’s educational decisions and transitions in Wales, UK are influenced by national economic landscapes, the popular narratives framing them and the structure of local employment opportunities. The analyses revealed that young people from similar social class backgrounds, but living in different localities, make very different sorts of transition from compulsory to post-compulsory education; in essence, they are either ‘pushed’ or they ‘jump’ into post-16 education. The article aims overall to contribute both empirically and theoretically to understandings of the complexity of educational decision-making, revealing how class and location intersect to frame decision-making processes, in so doing producing and reproducing educational inequalities.     

‘The city snuffs out nature’: young people’s conceptions of and relationship with nature

This paper reports a study of 384 13–14-year olds’ written responses to open-ended questions about their understanding of and relationship with ‘nature’. Using constant comparative method the responses were coded, categorised and themed. Most students held scientific conceptions of nature (excluding humans) and a utilitarian relationship with nature, a predominantly anthroprocentric worldview. A small number held aesthetic conceptualisations and an intrinsic value relationship: an ecocentric worldview. A substantial number of students however were neither anthroprocentric or ecocentric but rather expressed a conception of and relationship with nature which reflected aspects of Bonnett’s ‘human-related’ relationship (Bonnett, M. 2004. Retrieving Nature: Education for a Post-humanist Age. Oxford: Blackwell). The findings from this study challenge a simple binary approach in which students’ environmental worldviews would be analysed as either predominantly anthroprocentric or ecocentric. Bonnett’s ‘human-related’ relationship to nature reflects a more complex view of the world. Analysis revealed interesting differences, however, between students according to their urban/rural location, gender and school type.     

Transgender young people’s narratives of intimacy and sexual health: implications for sexuality education

Abstract

Sexuality education as pedagogy is often fraught by the perceived requirement to balance the informational needs of young people with an investment in notions of childhood ‘innocence’. Nowhere is this perhaps more evident than in sexuality education that seeks to be inclusive of transgender young people, often resulting in the failure of such education to address the needs of such students. In an attempt at addressing the relative dearth of information about what transgender young people would like to see covered in sexuality education, in this paper we explore transgender young people’s accounts of intimacy and sexual health and consider what this means for school-based sexuality education. To do this, we analyse discussions of intimacy from the perspectives of transgender young people as narrated in a sample of YouTube videos. We conclude by advocating for an approach to sexuality education that largely eschews the gendering of body parts and gametes, and which instead focuses on function, so as to not only address the needs of transgender young people (who may find normative discussions of genitals distressing), but to also provide cisgender young people with a more inclusive understanding of their own and other people’s bodies and desires.     

Examining the conflict and interconnectedness of young people’s ideas about environmental issues,responsibility and action

Objective: Young people’s environmental views are typically conflicted, with little recognition of the links between environmental issues or between environmental responsibility and action. The purpose of this study was to clarify whether young people’s understanding of the environment is in conflict or whether they are forming interconnections between issues, responsibility and action that have not yet been identified. Methods: Data relating to environmental attitudes, responsibility, issues and action was collected from 305 high school students in south east Queensland. Regression analyses were used to identify variables that influenced the importance young people placed on environmental issues and actions. Results: Young people’s ideas about environmental responsibility influenced the level of importance they placed on global warming and resource consumption. Young people’s sense of hope and hopelessness were the main drivers of their endorsement of individualistic and political actions for the environment. Conclusions: The unifying factor that influenced young people’s ideas about the environment was a sense of hope. Thus, while young people may already be intuiting their own sense of environmental interconnectedness, it is essential that this is expanded so that young people recognise the links between environmental issues, and the logical pathways that lead from environmental responsibility to action.