Time of Ones Own In 1959 the Secretary of State for Scotland set up - - PDF document

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(Re)Imagining Pearl Jephcott’s ‘Time of One’s Own’

Methodological challenges and theoretical insights from a comparative study of youth leisure and social change

• Dr. Susan A. Batchelor and Dr. Lisa Whittaker,

University of Glasgow

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(Re)Imagining Youth

Dr Susan Batchelor and Dr Lisa Whi4aker, University of Glasgow Dr Alistair Fraser and Leona Li, University of Hong Kong

• Historical and cross-cultural comparison of youth

leisure in Glasgow and Hong Kong (ESRC-RGC)

• Driven by theoreIcal concerns relaIng to youth,

globalisaIon and social change

• QualitaIve case-study design, revisiIng one fieldsite

in Scotland and one matched fieldsite in Hong Kong

• Drawing on tradiIonal place-based methods and

innovaIve digital social research tools

@imaginingyouth reimaginingyouth@gmail.com hOp://reimaginingyouth.wordpress.com

Time of One’s Own

Background

• DissaIsfacIon with Youth Service,

which was regarded as ‘not geared to the current needs and aspiraIons of the younger generaIon, parIcularly those of adolescent age’ (JephcoO 1967: 2)

• In 1959 the Secretary of State for

Scotland set up a Standing ConsultaIve Council on Youth Service in Scotland

• In 1964 the Council commissioned

a ‘fact finding study’ of how young people spent their leisure, financed by the ScoYsh EducaIon Department

Terms of Reference

‘The object of the enquiry is to describe and evaluate the leisure-2me interests and social a4tudes of young people in Scotland. It will be par9cularly concerned with the middle group of cri9cal and non-conforming young people who remain unaffected by organised youth ac9vi9es and at the same 9me avoid becoming part of the delinquent or ac9vely an9social minority. The enquiry will be conducted in such a way as to provide an assessment both of the poten2ali2es for worthwhile future development in youth service provision and of the limita2ons of exis2ng provision par9cularly in rela9on to the young people who do not at present par9cipate in its work and who might be benefiBed it.’ (JephcoO 1967: 3)

Terms of Reference

‘The object of the enquiry is to describe and evaluate the leisure-9me interests and social aDtudes of young people in Scotland. It will be par2cularly concerned with the middle group of cri2cal and non-conforming young people who remain unaffected by organised youth ac2vi2es and at the same 9me avoid becoming part of the delinquent or ac9vely an9social minority. The enquiry will be conducted in such a way as to provide an assessment both of the poten9ali9es for worthwhile future development in youth service provision and of the limita9ons of exis9ng provision par2cularly in rela2on to the young people who do not at present par2cipate in its work and who might be benefi?ed it.’ (JephcoO 1967: 3)

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The Importance of Context

• Mass leisure
• The affluent teenager

Research Design

• Age limited to 15 to 19-year-olds: ‘the age at which great

majority make transiIon from school to work’ (p. 7)

• Area limited to three sites in industrial belt of Central

Lowlands (Drumchapel, Dennistoun, Armadale): ‘selected less for comparaIve purposes than because they were thought to have numerous counterparts in Central Scotland’ (p. 7)

• Involvement of community stakeholders: ‘voluntary helpers’
• Approximiately 3,000 young people involved in the study
• Variety of methods: individual interviews; group discussions;

‘casual data’ from cafés, pubs, youth groups; diaries and wriOen material; photographs, drawings and arIsIc sketches

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Key Findings: Employment & Education

• Majority of young people in the study

were wage-earners (only 1 in 6 sIll in educaIon)

• Both earnings and spending were

lower than generally assumed to be the case

• Shig work and unusual opening hours

(e.g. for shop employees) were beginning to provide leisure at unfamiliar Imes

• Those in educaIon had pracIcal

advantages in terms of sports faciliIes, school and college clubs etc. and were subjected to more pressure to use their leisure construcIvely

Key Findings: Leisure Spent at Home

• Home and family exerted considerable influence
• Most common home-based pursuits were: ‘pop

and the telly … fed daily by mass media’ (p. 106)

• Absence of books, as disInct from magazines, in

their homes: ‘A couple of book shelves built into the council house of the future might be money well spent’ (p. 106)

• ‘Feminine’ versus ‘mechanical’ skills and interest

in art, esp. amongst ‘shy and someImes lonely individuals’ (p. 107)

Key Findings: Leisure I

• Many of the youngsters didn't engage in unstructured

leisure away from home

• Amongst those who did, the most popular acIviIes

were ‘scratch football’ (boys) and ‘visiIng’ (girls) ‘The places where boys can get this healthy unsupervised play without causing a nuisance to other people are diminishing all the 9me. The large distant sports ground does not fulfil the same need as the small site near at

• hand. There is the strongest case for providing plenty of

such sites’ (p. 110)

Key Findings: Leisure II

• A higher proporIon of young people

took part in commercial leisure (vs LI)

• The most popular were: cinema (81%),

dancing (69%) and café-going (51%)

• Cinema more readily available than
• ther faciliIes
• Dancing associated with Trouble (esp

amongst those in their early teens)

• Cafés provided a valuable social

funcIon

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Our ReOlections, Prior to Fieldwork

• Remarkable for its prescient sociological analysis of

youth, but also its research design and methodology

• Conducted at criIcal juncture in the development of

youth culture, linked to wider changes in educaIon, the labour market, mass media, leisure etc.

• Richness of mulI-method approach when compared

with the specializaIon and narrowing in focus of more recent sociological research

• UIlizaIon of visual, creaIve and parIcipatory

methods, long before they became popular

• Forerunner to what is now referred to as studies of the

‘missing middle’, ‘ordinary’ or ‘unspectacular’ youth

(Re)Imagining Youth

(Re)Visiting Dennistoun

Stage 1: October 2013-April 2014

• Ethnographic observaIons with local youth
• rganisaIons
• Interviews with key stakeholders (n=9)
• Researcher photography

Stage 2: May 2014-January 2015

• Focus groups with young people (n=12)
• Interviews with young people (n=22)
• ParIcipant photography

Stage 3: February 2015-May 2015

• Online survey re online/social media (n=100)
• Professional illustraIon

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Glasgow in a Changing World

• Decline from global powerhouse of shipbuilding and

manufacturing (‘Second City of Empire’ 1875-1914)

• Shig to service-based economy, revolving around

retail, leisure and tourism

• Unemployment rates well above the naIonal average

and are highest for young people

Changing Youth Transitions

• Prolonged educaIon and mixing of formerly

separate social classes

– Extended transiIons, economic independence deferred – More diverse, fluid and hybrid youth cultures

• Restructuring of labour market and demand for a

more educated, flexible and mobile workforce

– Work biographies increasingly characterised by uncertainty, compeIIon, risk – Demand for greater biographical decision-making

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Globalisation and New Media

• New forms of mobility increasingly consItute

‘a global transiIon regime’ (Woodward & Wyn 2015)

• Expansion of educaIon and new forms of

work associated with global labour markets

• MigraIon of young people to metropolitan

centres, naIonally and internaIonally

• Related to/supported by advances in ICT that

enable new forms of connecIvity

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24/03/16 4 Key Findings: Employment & Education

• Majority of young people in the study were sIll in

educaIon or acIvely seeking work

• Employed in short-term, part-Ime and unstable

jobs with unpredictable earnings and working paOerns

• Lack of money and lack of rouIne idenIfied as

important barriers to leisure

• Emphasis throughout the sample on importance
• f leisure as a means to enhance work prospects,

developing interests and acquiring skills

Key Findings: Leisure Spent at Home

• Young people reported that they

spent most Ime in private space

• The most common home-based

pursuits were: going on the internet, listening to music, watching TV, playing computer games

• Increasing accessibility and portability
• f online and digital social media
• Gendering of ICT-mediated acIviIes

and subsequent constraints on parIcipaIon

Key Findings: Leisure I

• Most parIcipants didn't engage in

unstructured leisure

• Role of regeneraIon and

gentrificaIon

– Few free public spaces available to young people – Less opportunity for street-based leisure

• Fears relaIng to territorial and

sexual violence

Key Findings: Leisure II

• A higher proporIon of young people took part in

commercially leisure (versus Leisure I)

• The most popular were: cinema, pubs/nightclubs

and eaIng out

• IntroducIon of ‘shopping’ as a category of

entertainment

• Interest in physical fitness and beauty treatments

Continuity and Change

• Persistence of many tradiIonal paOerns of

leisure parIcipaIon, structured by tradiIonal class and gender-based inequaliIes

• Impact of globalisaIon and new media on

young people’s leisure appears indirect and modest when compared to their impact on the economy and labour market

• Digital social media offer young people means

by which to navigate context of uncertainty

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What We’ve Learned, Post Fieldwork

• Social change as a process

– Need to be wary of overemphasizing change at the expense of conInuity – GlobalisaIon and new media have not triggered a transformaIon in youth leisure equivalent to 1960s – The leisure pracIces of young people today build on those of 1960s

• The challenge of context

– What life was like at the Ime – What research pracIces were like at the Ime – Sociological thinking at the Ime