Issue 26 - November 2007 (PDF, 1.69Mb) - ESRC

AUTUMN 2007: ISSUE 26
Britain’s children
Active young citizens
Ensuring children are fully engaged
Obesity epidemic
How to defuse the timebomb
Detoxifying childhood
Balancing risk and responsibility
In this issue: Keith Bartley • Fiona Blacke • Tony Breslin • Fraser Doherty • Sophie Goodchild • Helen Haste • Jean Hine •
Beverley Hughes • Martin Ince • Katrina Mather • Judith Oliver • Pamela Readhead • Bob Reitemeier • Sarah Womack

2 EDITORIAL ISSUE 26 |
AUTUMN 2007
What kind of future
for our children?
By David Smith
Have we ever been more confused
and uncertain about Britain’s
children? On the one hand, we
worry about feral youth, gun and knife
crime and anti-social behaviour as
symptoms of deep problems in society. On
the other, we cocoon children, ferrying
them to school in air-conditioned comfort
in cars and restricting their opportunities
for play. Partly because of this, today’s
children have significantly greater
problems of obesity than their
predecessors, raising the possibility, say
scientists, that this generation will have
lower life expectancy than its parents.
This edition of The Edge is devoted to
the children of Britain. There is bad news
and good news in here, and plenty of food
for thought. Let’s start with the bad. As
Sarah Womack reports, the National
Society for Social Research has condemned
the ‘long hours’, the undermining of family
life by the fact that parents work excessive,
anti-social hours. The Institute for Public
Policy Research confirmed many
prejudices by concluding that British youth
are among the most badly behaved in
Europe, addicted not just to drugs and
alcohol but also anti-social behaviour.
UNICEF, meanwhile, generated plenty of
headlines with its conclusion that the UK
scored 21st out of 25 countries assessed for
children’s wellbeing. True, the basis of
UNICEF’s conclusion has been challenged
but, even so, it is not a happy picture. How
about obesity? Ed Balls, Secretary of State
for Children, Schools and Families warns
that on present trends half the children in
Britain will be dangerously overweight by
2050. Health ministers have compared the
problem to climate change in its seriousness.
Parents, it seems, have a more difficult
task than ever. How do they cope with
‘pester power’, demands from their
children for junk food, electronic games
and expensive branded clothing? Not
easily. Research by David Piachaud at the
London School of Economics shows that
the average child is exposed to 10,000
TV commercials annually, often without
adult supervision. Today’s children, he
argues, lead more solitary lives than before
and need more protection from
commercial pressures.
What about the good news? If awareness
of the problem is the first step on the road
to tackling it, then there is certainly
awareness of the various problems facing
Britain’s children. Take the cossetting of
children. Bob Reitemeier, Chief Executive
of the Children’s Society, is encouraged by
an initiative from the Children, Schools and
Families department, Staying Safe, which
seeks to steer a course between
dangerously risky behaviour by children
and the desire by some parents to wrap
them up in cotton wool.
The Government’s Te n - Year Yo u t h
S t r a t e g y, launched soon after Gordon Brown
b e c a m e prime minister, aims to kill several
birds with one stone, by providing young
people with facilities in their own
communities – diverting them away from
anti-social behaviour – and encouraging
‘active participation’. Essential to the
approach is the empowerment of young
people, according to Beverley Hughes,
Children’s Minister. The mistake we
make most often, perhaps, is to attach
negative labels to children and to
underestimate them.
Young people are actively engaged in
volunteering programmes. Professor Helen
Haste of the University of Bath notes that
we are wrong to judge young people’s
participation in society purely by their
willingness to vote. Most, perhaps three-
quarters, engage in some kind of civic
action and participation, from protecting
the environment to signing petitions. As 15
year-old Katrina Mather puts it: “What we
forget so often is how much young people
have to offer to society; we have a fresh
opinion on things, we are willing to learn
new things, and young people know and
condemn injustice when they see it as well.”
It is easy to despair of our young people.
That there are problems is not in doubt.
But the overall picture is more positive
than it is usually portrayed

contents
contributors
Keith Bartley
Chief Executive, the General Teaching Council for
England
Fiona Blacke
Chief Executive, the National Youth Agency
Tony Breslin
Chief Executive, the Citizenship Foundation
Fraser Doherty
Young entrepreneur
Sophie Goodchild
Correspondent, Evening Standard
Professor Helen Haste
Professor of Psychology, University of Bath
Professor Jean Hine
Co-ordinator, Pathways into and out of Crime Network
Beverley Hughes MP
Minister of State for Children, Young People and
Families
Martin Ince
Science journalist
Katrina Mather
UK Youth Parliament
Judith Oliver
Business writer and journalist
Pamela Readhead
Freelance journalist
Bob Reitemeier
Chief Executive, The Children’s Society
Sarah Womack
Social Affairs Correspondent, Daily Telegraph
ESRC Editor in Chief
Jacky Clake jacky.clake@esrc.ac.uk
Editor
David Smith, Economics Editor, The Sunday Ti m e s
ESRC Deputy Editor
Arild Foss arild.foss@esrc.ac.uk
ESRC Editorial Assistant
Debbie Stalker debbie.stalker@esrc.ac.uk
Published three times a year: Spring, Summer and Autumn
with a circulation of 22,000.
To subscribe free, contact the Communications Team, ESRC,
on +44 (0)1793 413122 or comms@esrc.ac.uk
Designed by Creese Communications.
features
E S R C T H E E D G E | C O N T E N T S
1 0 1 4 2 4 2 6
6 Learning about learning by putting principles into
practice
How do we encourage young people to learn effectively at school
and college and to take those learning skills with them into adult
life? The ESRC’s Teaching and Learning Research Programme has
identified the principles for making learning more effective and how
they can be put into practice.
16 Active participation for young people – turning a
slogan into reality
One of Gordon Brown’s first acts as Prime Minister was to support
the launch of the Ten Year Youth Strategy which promised new youth
facilities for every community. The rights, the initiative and engagement
of young people are essential in society, argues our panel of experts.
28 Can we make childhood less ‘toxic’?
A report by UNICEF ranked children’s wellbeing in the UK 21st out of
25 countries. Other reports have compared the behaviour of British
children unfavourably with other countries and blamed the UK’s ‘long
hours’ culture for disadvantaging young people. There is, however,
more light and shade in children’s experience.
opinion
10 No need to panic over children’s risky behaviour
Young people’s risky behaviour, whether it is binge-drinking,
experimenting with drugs or dangerous stunts, tends to dominate
the headlines. One response is to eliminate all such behaviour
among children – but reducing the harmful outcomes rather than
the behaviour itself would be a better way to go.
research specials
14 Advertisers and the commercialisation of childhood
With the increased income and spending power of households
advertisers have targeted children as consumers. Consumer pressure
and increasingly solitary lives have worrying implications for children’s
psychological wellbeing.
24 Childhood obesity: a class and a classroom issue
Rising levels of childhood obesity have become both a serious
health and social issue. The solutions, on the face of it, are straightforward
– more exercise and better diets for children. In devising
prescriptions, however, society needs to be aware of the more complex
class and gender issues involved.
regulars
Editorial 2
Research News 4 5 12 13 23 26 27
The views and statements expressed in this publication are those of the
authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the ESRC.
3

4 R E S E A R C H NEWS ISSUE 26 |
Does the ‘digital divide’
between the e-literate and
non e-literate begin as early as
pre-school children? Existing
evidence suggests that children
need to become discerning users
of a growing range of digital
technologies in order to
AUTUMN 2007
Chemical weapons remain a potent
source of fear
Lessons from the
psychological effects of
chemical warfare in the First
World War could prove useful to
both modern day soldiers and
civilians. A new study of
chemical weapons in the First
World War examined both the
emotions evoked by gas and the
long-term effects of gas
exposure in soldiers who made a
good recovery from its physical
effects. Findings highlight the
widespread fears evoked by gas
both past and present, and the
lack of any sure present day
method to inoculate soldiers
against the fears inspired by gas
or other chemical weapons.
Researchers examined the
case histories of 103 First Wo r l d
War servicemen who had been
given a war pension for the
effects of gas but did not display
any clear evidence of respiratory
damage. Findings show most
veterans tended to present
enduring respiratory disorders,
but a significant group also
suffered with psychological
problems such as persistent
a n x i e t y, repeated fears, sleep
difficulties, dizziness and tremor.
This group of veterans was
further convinced that the
effects of chemical weapons
were irreversible, potent and
debilitating. Yet these
convictions stood in contrast to
their recorded health. The
sample, for example, was a
particularly long-lived group
with a mean age of 82.
“Gas was one of the most
feared weapons of the First
World War and inspired emotion
out of all proportion to its ability
to kill or wound,” researcher
Professor Edgar Jones points
out. “And there is no doubt that
Digital literacy starts at a very early age
maximise the benefits that digital
connectivity offers, avoid
disadvantage or marginalisation,
and become confident,
discriminating and effective
members of society. Building on
previous research into schoolaged
children’s experiences with
digital technologies, this study
explores the early technological
experiences of children aged
three to five years and asks how
these experiences might relate to
their subsequent educational
development.
Findings suggest that most preschool
children have experience
of using a broad range of digital
technologies ranging from
computers to MP3 players. As a
chemical weapons have retained
their capacity to frighten.”
Although training to deal with
chemical weapons may do much
to encourage habituation, for
some such exercises are in
themselves traumatic. Some
anti-gas devices past and present
cause fear in those who are
psychologically vulnerable.
Indeed, during the 1991 Gulf Wa r
a number of servicemen became
so anxious that they
hyperventilated when chemical
alarms sounded and they were
unable to wear the respirator
that would have protected them
from any toxic agent.
result, by the time they start
school most have developed early
digital literacy. Moreover, most
parents believe that digital
technologies play a significant
role in their children’s education
and future careers, and the
majority encourage their
experiences for this reason.
I n t e r e s t i n g l y, case studies,
which included both
‘disadvantaged’ and ‘advantaged’
families, found no link between
socio-economic disadvantage and
early digital literacy. In other
words, any digital divide between
children with well-developed
digital literacy and those with
limited digital literacy cannot be
attributed primarily to socio-
Moreover it appears that the
conviction of having been
gassed, whether accurate or not,
has long-term deleterious effects
on a person’s perceptions of
their own health and wellbeing.
“The analysis we report may
assist in understanding the
otherwise baffling persistence of
ill-health experienced by some
US and UK military personnel
following their deployment to
the 1991 Gulf Wa r,” Professor
Jones states.
More research is now needed
into the effectiveness of training
and ways to habituate soldiers
to fears surrounding chemical,
biological and nuclear weapons.
“There is perhaps no fool-proof
way of preparing service
personnel and civilians for
chemical warfare, but more
could be discovered about the
effects of training during World
Wars One and Two,” he
concludes.
Contact: Professor Edgar Jones
King’s College London
Email: Edgar.jones@iop.kcl.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)207 848 5413
Award number: RES-000-23-1057
economic disadvantage, although
this may be a contributing factor.
More influential on children’s
opportunities to acquire digital
literacy were their parents’
attitudes towards digital
technologies, and children’s own
interests and preferences.
Researchers conclude that
while some children start school
with more developed digital
literacy than others, it is not yet
clear what impact this may have
on their progress through the
early years of primary education.
Contact: Ms J McPake
University of Stirling
Email: j.m.mcpake@stir.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)1786 466295
Award number: RES-341-25-0034
This research is a project within the ESRC’s
E-Society Programme.

Hospitals are not sufficiently
‘child-friendly’ for a large
proportion of the children they
treat. This is a key finding of a
new Space to Care study, which
explored whether hospitals are
meeting the differing needs of
children of all ages. Researchers
investigated children’s
perceptions and experiences of
both inpatient and outpatient
hospital facilities. The primary
aim of their study was to produce
a strategy that would enable
c h i l d r e n ’s needs to be considered
alongside those of adults in the
planning and utilisation of
hospital space.
“The key finding of this
research, carried out with 255
children aged between four and
16, is that hospitals appear to be
meeting the needs of the
youngest age group only, in both
inpatient and outpatient
facilities,” argue researchers Dr
Penny Curtis and Professor
Allison James. For example,
although children of all ages
appreciated bright, colourful
walls and decorated ceilings,
many children, including some
young children, expressed the
view that the décor was rather
babyish. A 14 year-old girl
summed up these views: “All the
decoration and colours are good
for younger kids”.
“From children’s perspectives,”
the researchers explain, “the
babyish feel of hospital décor is
something that child patients
between seven and 16 tolerated,
rather than appreciated.”
I n t e r e s t i n g l y, all children disliked
the use of clowns in the décor,
with even the oldest children
seeing them as scary. “Given that
children and young people do not
find hospitals frightening per se –
and only express fear about
those spaces associated with
needles and associated
procedures – this finding is
somewhat ironic,” Dr Curtis
points out.
Children also commented that
many of the activities provided
for them were babyish.
M o r e o v e r, even young children
complained about the noise of
babies crying.
ESRC THE EDGE | RESEARCH NEWS
Children’s wards – don’t send in the clowns
Findings suggest that current
policy emphasis on prioritising
the differing needs of adolescents
may be inappropriate since even
quite young children feel that the
hospital environment is geared
mainly to the needs of infants.
For example privacy is clearly
important for quite young people
and not just adolescents. And
even very young children
described having to find ways to
create some privacy, for example,
by drawing curtains around their
bed or going in search of an
unoccupied room.
“Our consultations with
children reveal that the hospital
environment is important to
children in a number of ways that
are not currently addressed in
adult assumptions about what
constitutes a child-friendly
environment,” researchers
c o n c l u d e .
Athletes win few medals in relationship stakes
Receiving help when needed
with their personal
relationships could enable top
sportsmen and women to boost
their performance and general
wellbeing, say researchers from
Loughborough University. Based
on interviews with more than 165
sportspeople (including track and
field athletes, cricketers,
swimmers, footballers and
rowers) and their partners,
researchers set out to explore a
possible ‘spill over’ effect
occurring between sport and
relationship quality.
The study focused specifically
on establishing the degree to
which the relationship quality
affects athletes’ satisfaction with
sport performance, their
dedication to sport, relationship
satisfaction and depression. And
findings show that some athletes
experience difficulties in their
personal relationships that
contribute not only to less
satisfaction with their
relationship and more anxiety
and depression, but also
decreased satisfaction with
their sport performance and
dedication to the sport.
“Athletes who perform at the
highest performance level are
characterised as having an all-
consuming attitude of ‘eat-drinksleep-sport’,”
argues researcher
Dr Sophia Jowett. “Sport becomes
a, if not the most, significant part
of their life. Because sport at the
highest levels is so fiercely
competitive, athletes generate
athletic identities marked by
aggressive, antagonistic, hostile
attitudes that, in turn, help
them cope with the demands of
sport. But we speculate that
when the athlete enters a
relationship holding these
sporting attitudes and identities,
they are not helpful in
establishing a warm and
supportive relationship.”
“Everyone experiences
conflicts in their relationships
but talented sportspeople, like
other ‘highflyers’ such as top
businesspeople, experience
particularly demanding work
Contact: Dr Penny Curtis
University of Sheffield
Email: p.a.curtis@sheffield.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)114 222 8286
Award number: RES-000-23-0765
conditions which leave them
particularly prone to relationship
difficulties,” Dr Jowett judges.
Given the potential to improve
their sporting performance
through better relationships,
many top athletes could clearly
benefit from assistance in
combining sport at the top level
with harmonious and supportive
personal relationships.
“National sporting bodies are
convinced by sports psychologists
but still don’t take the importance
of an athlete’s personal
relationship seriously enough,”
Dr Jowett concludes. “Easier
access to relationship expertise
for sportspeople could prove
highly beneficial.”
Contact: Dr Sophia Jowett
Loughborough University
Email: S.Jowett@lboro.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)1509 226331
Award number: RES-000-22-0855
5

6 F E ATURE ISSUE 26 | AUTUMN 2007
L e a r n i n g
about
learning by
p u t t i n g
principles
into practice
How do we encourage young people to
learn effectively at school and college
and to take those learning skills with
them into adult life? The ESRC’s
Teaching and Learning Research Programme is an
important initiative in this area and it has already
identified the principles for making learning more
effective and how they can be put into practice.
Martin Ince reports.

8 F E ATURE ISSUE 26 | AUTUMN 2007
Which education system do you
think today’s Britain has? The one
beloved of the headline writers, in
which children chat on their mobiles in
class, regard school mainly as a base for
crime or truancy, and learn next to nothing
while growing obese on junk food? Or is it
the one preferred by the government,
where more exams are passed every year
and a painless transition to university is
increasingly the norm?
In practice, there are schools that match
either of these stereotypes, and every
gradation in between. And whatever its
style, school is one of the biggest
influences on young people’s lives.
COLLEGE DAYS
The UK’s further education colleges
are of growing importance. Well away
from the attention of policymakers,
whose own children tend to go into
the school sixth form and then head
straight for an ancient university, they
are called on to sort out teenagers
whose schools failed them, supply the
skilled workforce for the British
economy and be the cutting edge of
lifelong learning, teaching work and
leisure-related courses for people
from adolescence to old age.
Dr Martin Jephcote and Dr Jane
Salisbury are researching FE colleges
in Wales, using focus groups and
diaries of FE students and teachers to
find out how they really work. They
find that teenagers are as keen to join
Unless you become a teacher, you do
not stay at school for ever. But research is
pointing to ways in which schools and
colleges can teach people more during
their school years, and also help them
become effective learners who will be
more productive and fulfilled in later life.
The ESRC’s Teaching and Learning
Research Programme (TLRP) is the
biggest initiative ever in UK education
research. Much of its work has focussed
on schools, and a new publication setting
out its findings on school education,
Principles into Practice, went to every
school in the UK this term.
Professor Mary James, TLRP Deputy
a tribe in college as they are outside
it. Within weeks of arriving, it is
simple to tell the A-level students on
their way to university (good jeans)
from the hair and beauty crowd (white
uniforms, abundant cosmetics) or the
‘large animal’ students (young women
with an enthusiasm for horses).
Children were issued
with cameras to allow
them to photograph
anything maths-related
that they encountered in
everyday life
Director, said: “We have carried out about
20 projects in schools and from them ten
big principles for effective learning have
emerged. They are explained in Principles
into Practice. But even they can be
summarised yet further. If pupils are taken
seriously and involved thoughtfully as
learners they will be better students and
are more likely to emerge from school as
self-empowered learners. The era is long
past when people could leave school with
all the knowledge they needed for the rest
of their lives.”
A striking example is the TLRP Home-
School Knowledge Exchange project, set
up to help reduce the barriers between
home and school. Pupils’ home lives
involve numbers and words, in ways that
have not always been valued when
teachers think how to teach numeracy and
literacy. In the project, children were
issued with cameras to allow them to
photograph anything maths-related that
they encountered in everyday life, and a
‘maths trail’ was set up around the school
for parents and children to follow, solving
number problems as they went. This work
revealed that many cultures have their
own customs about numbers and
counting. Parents and teachers often
discount them, but they have real
educational value.
The same goes for literacy, where
parents kept a log of all the literacy
activities their children took part in.
Professor Martin Hughes, director of the
project, said: “Children learn more about
The era is long past
when people could
leave school with all the
knowledge they needed
for the rest of their lives

Children learn more
about character, plot
and genre from Harry
Potter than they ever
learn at school
character, plot and genre from Harry
Potter than they ever learn at school. This
sort of activity connects school and home
literacy in a way that promotes them
both.” This work was promoted by
displays of literacy materials in a
supermarket to make sure it reached
parents who are reluctant to enter a school.
The project also showed that an
awareness of pupils’ home backgrounds
can help them get over a frequent crisis
point, the transition from school to school.
In the holiday between schools, children
took photographs of their home lives
which they showed to their new teachers,
as part of a network of activity that also
included holding small parents’ evenings
for the families of the new arrivals within
weeks of the start of term. This work was
so successful in helping children in their
new setting that it has continued with new
funding after the TLRP project ended. It is
perhaps the first ESRC project to be turned
into a play, Ready or Not, performed by the
Cardiff company Theatr Iolo.
The message from this research is that
people become more effective in school if
it connects to the rest of their life. In the
same way, the research has shown that
pupils can become happier in school and
achieve more if they are listened to in the
right way. Partly as a result of TLRP’s
work, ‘Pupil Voice’ is now a major
movement in British schools.
In the past, pupil consultation has been
used to fill up spare days at the end of
term, and has often been about issues
which are important but not directly
related to learning, such as school food or
uniforms. But now it is seen as a major
contributor to better pupil involvement,
and even has high-level political support.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child, and other international agreements,
state that children have the right to be
listened to in a way appropriate to their
age and maturity.
People become more
effective in school if it
connects to the rest of
their life
The work on pupil voice has looked at
classroom issues, such as what makes a
‘good piece of work’ as well as broader
issues such as the qualities needed in a
year tutor. It showed that properlystructured
consultation lets students who
are not confident, articulate or wellspoken
have a bigger role. They can
expand their self-worth and their selfimage
as learners, and maybe avoid getting
alienated from school and in later life.
One of the most creative TLRP projects,
led by Professor Carol McGuinness at
Queen’s University Belfast, has looked at
ways of helping children build their own
thinking skills. Lessons in these skills
helped children plan and work more
effectively, and made them more willing to
work harder. Anyone who routinely deals
with teenagers might well wish that this
initiative, which has been very influential
in Northern Ireland, could be replicated
nationally.
Another project at Queen’s shows that
pupils have strong views on the way they
are assessed, normally an experience
imposed on them from the outside without
their having any chance to shape it.
This project, led by Professor Ruth
E S R C T H E E D G E | F E AT U R E
Leitch, showed that assessment interacts
strongly with learning, and not always for
the better. Students learn most when they
are feeling secure, when the class around
them is supportive, and when they can
make mistakes without being made to feel
like failures. Good assessment processes
do this. They tell students how to improve,
they have a proper structure, and they give
detailed information as well as a mark. But
students feel that many assessment
methods are more directed towards giving
scores than genuinely advancing learning,
and that in any case, school involves too
many tests and exams
Martin Ince is a science journalist.
ESRC RESEARCH
The Teaching and Learning Research
Programme
The programme aims to improve
outcomes for learners of all ages in
teaching and learning contexts across
the UK. studies the acquisition of skill,
understanding, knowledge and
qualifications, and the development of
attitudes, values and identities relevant
to a learning society.
Email: tlrp@ioe.ac.uk
Telephone: +44(0)20 7911 5577
Website: h t t p : / / w w w. t l r p . o r g /
Principles into Practice can be
downloaded from:
http://www.tlrp.org/pub/index.html
9

10
OPINION ISSUE 26 | AUTUMN 2007
No need to panic over
children’s risky behaviour
Young people’s risky behaviour, whether it is binge-drinking,
experimenting with drugs or dangerous stunts, tends to dominate
the headlines. One response is that we should try and eliminate
all such behaviour among children. Not only would that be
difficult but it would also be a mistake, argues Bob Reitemeier.
Teenagers in the UK are so consumed
in high risk behaviours (bingedrinking,
drug abuse, crime,
violence, joy-riding, under-age, unprotected
sex) that it is amazing so many survive to
adulthood – or at least you would be
forgiven for thinking so if you had the
media as your only source of information.
Hyperbole aside, it is certainly true that
the prevalence of ‘risky behaviours’ such as
these, had a significant role to play in the
UK’s lowest ranking in February’s UNICEF
report on child wellbeing in the top 25
OECD developed nations. That must act as
a salutary call for all of us concerned with
child welfare. But a reaction that wishes
for all young people to simply avoid all
significant risks to their health and
wellbeing is at best utopian, at worst
counter-productive.
To what extent have we seriously tried to
examine the many and diverse ways in
which young people take, and are exposed
to, risks as they develop and grow? And
perhaps even more importantly, how
should social and political policymakers
formulate a realistic and effective response
to risk among young people?
The list of risky behaviours in this
introduction is already long, but it is,
nonetheless, selective. If we carried out a
dispassionate assessment of all the
behaviours that young people engage in
that have a propensity for varied but
significant consequences (of which at least
We need to recognise
that negotiating risk and
making choices that
could potentially turn
out badly is an integral
part of life
one is bad, harmful or otherwise
undesirable), many more would appear.
They include yo-yo dieting, excessive
studying, playing contact sports, being
‘different from the crowd’ or falling in love.
This is even before having gone to the
other end of the spectrum, where we also see
some teenagers take extremely high, multiple
risks like running away, self-harming or
selling sex. A true picture of the spectrum of
ways in which young people expose
themselves to the risk of negative outcomes
can be bewildering but, after taking a deep
breath, it is in fact no reason to panic.
First, we need to recognise that
negotiating risk and making choices that
could potentially turn out badly is an
integral part of life, to which children
become naturally and inevitably exposed
as they move from childhood. It is a period
when their autonomy in decision-making is
generally more limited by parental
protection and responsibility, into
adolescence and young adulthood.
Entrepreneurs take risks every day –
risks of bankruptcy, risks of failure – but
they do so with incentives and a strong
sense of the reward if their decisions are
right. Just as we would generally assume
the excessive studier may be motivated by
the prospect of heightened achievement or
the boxer by the prospect of winning, we
ought to pay close attention to
understanding what benefits and rewards
young people hope for when they engage in
any other risky behaviour, too. This would
be the starting point for a much-needed
national dialogue with young people about
their experiences and perceptions of ‘risky
behaviours’, and about what they need to
support them in negotiating decisions and
risks – and most importantly, doing so in a
way that avoids them coming to actual harm.
We also need to acknowledge and
explore the fact that many young people
feel pressurised into risky situations, or see
a strong link between pressures and risks,
rather than choosing them freely. When
young people sent us their responses to
The Children’s Society’s Good Childhood
survey two years ago, they themselves said
that pressure from their friends could be
harmful. Equally, family conflict – and
indeed, change and break-up – could cause
some young people to run away from
home, with all the consequent risks they
face having left. Others blamed the media
for putting pressure on them to behave in a
certain way. Young people drew a link in
the survey between peer pressure and

substance misuse, and also told us that
their mental wellbeing suffered because of
pressures at school and college,
sometimes resulting in substance misuse
and self-harm.
And so to the question of formulating
responses. Do we want to stop any, and all,
risk-taking behaviour – or is it the harmful
outcome that may result that we want to
prevent? This will inform a much more
coherent focus on policies, priorities and
measures that are either concerned with
avoiding risk by abstaining from risky
behaviours, or those that are concerned
with reducing harmful outcomes. These
two quite different types of objectives, and
the different programmes that support
them, have been historically confused and
mixed up. The soon-to-be renewed
national drug strategy, for example, aimed
for reduced use (ie increased abstinence)
of Class A drugs among young people as a
measure of success, and yet the drug
education programmes on which it relied
are designed to promote ‘informed
decision-making’ rather than abstinence.
In the United States, the desire to protect
teens from under-age sex has seen a
significant shift towards ‘abstinence-based’
programmes, but has gone hand-in-hand
with increases in sexually transmitted
diseases among the young.
Shortly after his appointment, the new
Secretary of State for Children, Schools
and Families launched a major consultation
on safeguarding, called Staying Safe, in
which he placed great emphasis on the
need to counter the trend towards overprotectiveness,
in order to ensure that
children still enjoy freedoms to play and to
learn from mistakes that risk bumps,
bruises, hurt feelings and tears. Ideally,
this same willingness to embrace the role
and reality of risk in children’s development
E S R C T H E E D G E | O P I N I O N 11
will be extended to the development of
strategies to support, enable, and yes, to
protect our teenagers, too
Bob Reitemeier is Chief Executive of The
Children’s Society.
ESRC RESEARCH
Debating childhood: understanding
the evidence
The ESRC in collaboration with DCSF
organised two policy public seminars to
hear from leading researchers on
children's and young people's issues and
to discuss the current evidence and
implications for policy. In the semianr
paper Young People and Risk Taking
Behaviour Bob Reitemeier discussed
evidence and experience from The
Children’s Society practice and research.
See
http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ESRC
InfoCentre/about/CI/events/esrcseminar/

12
R E S E A R C H NEWS ISSUE 26 | AUTUMN 2007
Reducing the impact of domestic
violence on children
The impact of domestic violence and interparental
conflict on children is widely
viewed as a problem of significant social
concern. Estimates suggest that annually
between 240,000 and 963,000 UK children are
affected by domestic violence. However,
these figures likely represent a gross
underestimate of the number of children
who are actually affected by domestic
violence and inter-parental conflict as past
definitions have required the threat of
physical violence to be present in order to
consider a child ‘at risk’.
Recent legislative changes are such that
the definition of significant harm emanating
from exposure to domestic violence has
been extended to include ‘impairment
suffered from seeing or hearing the ill
treatment of another’. Witnessing interparental
conflict therefore constitutes an
area of psychological risk for children.
Indeed, from as far back as the 1930s it has
been recognised that discord between
parents has a potentially debilitating effect
on children. What is less understood is why
some children respond negatively to this
experience, while others show little or no
negative effects. This is one of the questions
that researchers from Cardiff University
aimed to address in a new study of interparental
conflict (including non-violent
conflict) and children’s emotional and
behavioural wellbeing.
Past research has highlighted the
particular outcomes experienced by children
who witness or are direct victims of interparental
conflict and domestic violence. In
this latest study, researchers go beyond
simply describing the problems that children
experience when exposed to anger and
hostility between parents, to highlighting the
psychological processes that explain
differences in the way children adapt to this
experience.
A key reason for these differences,
psychologist Dr Gordon Harold suggests, is
due to differences in children’s own, internal
psychological processes and in particular the
attributions children assign to their parents’
arguments. Children who feel at fault for,
blame themselves or who feel directly
threatened by inter-parental conflict, appear
at significant risk from emotional and
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, the
immediate neighbours of the
expanding Euro-Atlantic community, are
now less orientated towards Europe
than in 2000. National surveys of these
three countries reveal a declining sense
of European self-identity in all three
post-Soviet republics. Hence, while less
than 20 per cent of Russian respondents
felt ‘not at all’ European in 2000, by 2005
that figure stood at more than half. The
study finds no support for predictions
that the flow of generations or larger
behavioural problems. Importantly, these
effects remain when the quality of parenting
is also considered.
“These findings have very important
implications for family and school based
intervention programmes aimed at reducing
adverse family effects on children’s
psychological development,” Dr Harold
argues. Most existing intervention
programmes emphasise making changes to
‘external’ aspects of a child’s life – for
example, courses or support to engender
more positive parenting. While such
interventions have a key role to play in some
circumstances, they do not directly address
the child’s needs in the context of interparental
conflict.
“We suggest that treating family effects at
the level of parenting only, substantively
misses out on an important mechanism
through which children’s wellbeing may be
affected; the attributions engendered in
children who live in households marked by
high levels of inter-parental conflict and
hostility,” Dr Harold concludes. Age
appropriate interventions that not only
consider the impact of the inter-parental
relationship on children, but also the child’s
perspective of conflict occurring between
adults are essential if the needs of children
are to be addressed in accord with recent UK
legislative changes.
Contact: Dr Gordon Harold
University of Cardiff
Email: Harold@cf.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 2920 876093
Award number: RES-000-22-1041
EU loses Eastern attraction
‘globalising’ forces would produce a
steadily increasing predisposition
towards EU membership. Rather,
researchers find that the movement of
opinion in all three countries has been
towards more centrist positions, either
moderately supportive or moderately
critical of a ‘European perspective’, a
market economy and liberal democracy.
Contact: Professor Stephen White
University of Glasgow
Email: s.white@socsci.gla.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)141 330 5980
Award number: RES-000-23-0146

‘Hattie Jacques’ matrons are
the best weapon against MRSA
Gordon Brown’s recent Labour
Conference commitment to deep clean
hospital wards and double the number of
matrons to 5,000 is exactly what the public
orders, according to new research from
University College London. Moreover, the
Government’s decision to drop the term
‘modern matron’ (a concept introduced by
Labour in 2001) in favour of simple, oldfashioned
‘matron’ appears entirely in tune
with public demand for a return to the
authoritative matron figure epitomised by
Hattie Jacques in the Carry On comedies.
In a one-year study of public engagement
with one particular infectious disease,
MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus
Aureus), researchers asked a carefully
sampled set of 60 adults about their
understanding of MRSA. “While the majority
of the participants told us they felt ignorant
about what MRSA is, this was coupled with
confidence in their judgements regarding
MRSA’s causes and solutions,” explains
researcher Dr Helene Joffe.
Interviewees were almost unanimous in
the view that MRSA is associated, first and
foremost, with dirty hospitals. They saw the
MRSA crisis as a consequence of the neglect
and mismanagement of the modern NHS
which, in part, is seen as a microcosm of the
state of the country as a whole. The key
solutions they proposed were improved
hygiene in hospitals, better public
education and bringing back the role of
the matron. Many participants further
expressed nostalgia for a supposed golden
age of the NHS.
“One particularly striking and commonly
held view was that the role of the hospital
has been transgressed,” Dr Joffe points out.
“In other words, that a patient enters
hospital with an ailment, and instead of
being cured, ends up with something a great
deal worse – MRSA”. However, rather than
this making participants feel anxious, most
saw themselves as unlikely to come into
contact with MRSA since it was largely
confined to ‘risk groups’ such as the elderly.
Researchers further discovered that for
the most part the media MRSA message
strongly resonates with the lay sample’s
views. One pronounced difference is that in
newspapers there is little if any ‘blaming’ of
foreigners for MRSA. In contrast, a sizeable
minority of participants felt foreigners were
responsible for bringing in diseases,
including MRSA, from abroad. They also
suggested that foreigners working as NHS
staff or as subcontracted cleaners were
deficient in knowledge, good practice,
communication skills and motivation.
“In the biomedical sphere the chief cause
of MRSA is regarded as the overuse of
antibiotics, leading to antibiotic resistance,”
Dr Joffe argues. “But our research shows
quite clearly that lay people do not engage
with the idea of antibiotic resistance, rather
they engage with the issues of dirt, hygiene
and structural problems in the NHS.” So
Gordon Brown clearly has his finger on the
public pulse.
Contact: Dr Helene Joffe
University College London
Email: h.joffe@ucl.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7679 5370
Award number: RES-000-22-1694
ESRC THE EDGE | R E S E A R C H N E W S
Looking forward
A selection of new ESRC-funded research
Intoxicants in perspective
Was the expansion of the market for
intoxicants in the 16th and 17th centuries
a defining feature of early modernity?
This theme will be explored in a Research
Fellowship that comprises three strands:
a book, three articles on intoxicants and
intoxication in Early Modern England,
and an inter-disciplinary network
involving a website, seminars, conference
and a volume of essays on intoxication in
historical and cultural perspective.
R E S - 0 6 3 - 2 7 - 0 1 0 6
Judging the European Court of
Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights is
the most powerful international
adjudicatory institution in the field of
human rights with its judgments affecting
some 800 million people. But how are these
judgments perceived by law-makers and
judges? And why do people take their
cases to Strasbourg? This study will aim to
understand the reception of the European
Court of Human Rights as a supranational
human rights court. RES-061-25-0029
Risk and the school run
What is the relationship between mothers’
and children’s mobility? Researchers will
compare experiences and perceptions of
risk concerning the journey to school
using a range of methods. Children will
communicate their experience of the
journey to school through video. Mothers’
experience of risk over their lifetime and
how this influences their current choices
and decisions will be explored through
qualitative interviews. P TA - 0 2 6 - 2 7 - 1 5 5 4
The business of waste
By the 1990s, waste management
constituted big business for the private
sector in many countries, but this was not
always the case. In the 1940s, waste
management was carried out at a local
level and dominated by the public sector.
This study explores two key issues: How
and with what consequences did waste
collection and disposal become ‘waste
management’? And why did this process
differ from country to country?
RES-062-23-0580
For further information please search for the
award number (shown above) on:
h t t p : / / w w w. e s r c s o c i e t y t o d a y. a c . u k
13

14 R E S E A R C H SPECIAL ISSUE 26 | AUTUMN 2007
Advertisers and the
commercialisation
of childhood
With the increased income and spending power of households
advertisers have targeted children as consumers. Consumer
pressure and increasingly solitary lives have worrying implications
for children’s psychological wellbeing. Sophie Goodchild r e p o r t s .
Even model parents admit they give
in to pester power in moments of
weakness. After an exhausting day
at the office or hours stuck at home, it is
easier than not to pander to the demands
of their nagging offspring for the latest
snack or computer game. Advertisers have
children hooked – and they are determined
to exploit this power. Once upon a time,
children were expected to be content with
an orange and a small toy in their stocking.
Now there are tantrums under the
Christmas tree if they do not receive the
latest Xbox game or Nike trainers.
This increasing commercialisation of
childhood is very much a modern
phenomenon. And according to Professor
David Piachaud, at the ESRC Centre for
Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) at the
London School of Economics, it has
massive implications for children’s rights,
the eradication of child poverty and the
whole psychological wellbeing of the
nation’s youth.
He has been taking a look at just how
free children are these days to grow up
away from the influence of the admen. His
findings make for interesting and at times
alarming reading. One major factor in the
commercialisation of childhood is that
family earnings have nearly tripled in
Britain over the past 50 years. The average
disposable income per head of the
population has risen from £3,789 in 1955 to
£12,764 in 2005. Increased affluence means
increased purchasing power for adults as
well as children. Mobile phones, DVDs and
the latest clothing labels all now feature on
the list of items that young people spend
their money on.
The average child in
Britain now sees at least
10,000 commercials a
year and many children
are subjected to media
messages without adult
supervision
Advertisers have been quick to spot this.
In response, they have developed products
specifically targeted at children. One tactic
used by the marketing industry is ‘age
compression’ where products used by
older children are targeted at younger
ones. Even marketing to infants, through
programmes like Postman Pat and
Teletubbies and via commercials, is not
taboo. Professor Piachaud has found that
toddlers are at risk of exploitation because
they cannot distinguish between adverts
and normal programmes. The average
child in Britain now sees at least 10,000
commercials a year and many children are
subjected to media messages without adult
supervision. The CASE study highlights
evidence that these adverts may actually
be increasing family conflict because of
the demands placed on adults to satisfy
children’s materialistic cravings.
Some academics want a new tax to fund
more commercial-free TV. Others want a
ban on advertising in schools. All agree
that those who carry out market research
for advertising firms, research that they
have no obligation to publish, should be
made more accountable. “It is abundantly
clear that children are weak in the face of
strong commercial pressures,” says
Professor Piachaud. “The law can and
should be increasingly used to protect
children’s rights to a childhood free from
commercial pressures.”
So what about the physical and mental
impact of commercial pressures on
children? Advertising could be seen to
have a negative impact on health because
it encourages the purchase of cigarettes
and alcohol. Junk food like crisps and fizzy
drinks, which are a major cause of obesity,
is also promoted by advertising. Those
who are most vulnerable to the
psychological effects of consumer culture

are young girls. The conflicting messages
they receive to appear both sexy and
innocent are detrimental to those with a
poor self image.
For families living in poverty – one fifth
of children live below the poverty line –
these commercial pressures magnify the
problems of managing on a low income.
Those that give in to pandering often find
themselves in debt. A National Consumer
Council survey concluded that ‘advertising
makes poverty bite.’
With more parents both working,
children are also spending more time
alone. Parental anxiety over exposing their
offspring to risk also means young people
spend less time playing outside. Children
are effectively chauffeured to school
instead of walking and spend their
evenings either in front of the television or
a home computer. Professor Piachaud
believes this has worrying implications for
their emotional relationships. “Children in
Britain are living more solitary lives than in
the past,” he explains. “This has surely
affected the extent of children’s
experience and training in co-operation,
compromise and problem-solving in
human relationships.”
The CASE study found that attitudes to
childhood have changed. Parental authority
has diminished and along with it the use of
Protection of children
from commercial
pressures is seriously
inadequate. Each child
should be free to be a
child
physical violence such as smacking or
beating as a punishment. Children engage in
‘adult activities’ earlier such as drug taking,
drinking and sex. It is widely recognised
that children have rights under the UN
convention. They are not the property of
parents but individuals in their own right.
But with growing commercial exploitation,
it is hard to argue that the UN convention is
being upheld, says Professor Piachaud.
The truth about childhood in the 21st
century is not all depressing. The CASE
report concludes that in many ways it is
more fun, free and stimulating than before.
There is also no evidence that all children
are more materialistic. They are generally
more considerate, more environmentally
aware and less tolerant of racism and
sexism. But this does not mean children do
not need protecting.
Everyone including parents and
policymakers all have a responsibility to
ESRC THE EDGE | RESEARCH SPECIAL
ensure that children have a better future
and to protect them from exploitation.
“The evidence indicates that the freedom
of childhood is being eroded and their
rights ignored,” says Professor Piachaud.
“Protection of children from commercial
pressures is seriously inadequate. Each
child should be free to be a child.”
Sophie Goodchild is a correspondent for
the Evening Standard.
ESRC RESEARCH
Centre for the Analysis of Social
Exclusion (CASE)
The research analyses three main areas
of social exclusion: economy and
incomes; families and family change;
and communities and neighbourhoods.
The aim is to understand the dynamic
processes of social exclusion, to
investigate individual characteristics
and social institutions which prevent
exclusion, and to promote recovery and
inclusion.
Contact: Professor David Piachaud
Email: d.piachaud@lse.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7955 7369
Website: http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/case
15

16 F E ATURE ISSUE 26 | AUTUMN 2007
Active participation
for young people – turning
a slogan into reality
One of Gordon Brown's first acts as Prime Minister was to support the launch of
the Department of Children, Schools and Families’ Te n -Year Youth Strategy which
promised new youth facilities for every community. The rights, the initiative and
engagement of young people are essential in society, argues our panel of experts.
Today’s teenagers face a complex
process of growing up, with an
unprecedented range of
Power to young people
By Beverley Hughes
opportunities and choices – but also new
risks and challenges. Academic and
vocational skills alone are no longer
sufficient to equip young people for our
changing labour market.
Young people also need well developed
social and emotional capabilities in order
to acquire the flexibility and resilience to
overcome challenge and change and thrive
in the modern workplace. And while
committed parents and a good school are
crucial, these additional skills are accrued
not through formal learning but by
participating in positive, structured
activities.
Whether it be sport, drama, volunteering
– being in the scouts or a rap group – it is
now clear that taking part in organised
activities, led by a responsible adult, is
how young people develop confidence,
tenacity and tolerance. It is also how they
learn to lead, co-operate and solve problems.
That is why Government has made the
most ambitious commitment to our young
people for decades. And backed it up with
over £670 million from 2008 to 2011.
The strategy focuses on helping all
young people, and particularly those in
deprived areas, to access positive
Taking part in organised
activities, led by a
responsible adult, is how
young people develop
confidence, tenacity and
tolerance
activities, develop skills and raise their
aspirations. It also continues to put power
into the hands of young people, letting
them decide how money should be spent
and where.
Reinforcing this commitment, the
Secretary of State for Children, Schools
and Families Ed Balls also announced over
£1 billion for extended schools services
that provide benefits such as after school
homework clubs, additional sport and
music tuition and easy access to health
and social care.
He has also launched, alongside the
Prime Minister, an extensive national
debate with young people, their families
and those who work with them to gather
their ideas on how Government, parents,
the voluntary sector and schools can work
together to ensure that every child gets the
best start in life.
Time and again we see young people
defy the negative stereotypes and prove
that they are capable of great things. This
strategy will give them the funding,
support and provision they need to do that.
I am determined that society takes a
more positive view of our young people, to
celebrate and nurture their achievements –
not berate them for the actions of a
minority. By giving them the facilities,
activities and spending power to do so we
will see young people from all
backgrounds fulfil their potential
Beverley Hughes MP is Minister of State
for Children, Young People and Families.

ESRC THE EDGE | F E AT U R E
17

18
F E ATURE ISSUE 26 | AUTUMN 2007
Rights encourage responsibility
By Fiona Blacke
There is an argument that says if you
have limited rights, then perhaps you
have limited responsibilities. Young
people, in that transitional space between
childhood and adult rights and
responsibilities, are in this country generally
afforded most of the rights laid out and
agreed in the UN Convention on the Rights
of the Child. But it would not be an unfair
observation that having their voices heard
and listened to, when adults are making
decisions that affect them, is a right enjoyed
only haphazardly by most young people.
Yet there is a real missed trick here,
because it actually is when young people
are engaged as full and active participants
that their contribution is greatest, and it is
their active participation in their youth that
is most likely to secure their active
participation in later life.
We know the best volunteering
programmes do not only engage young
people’s time and effort, but engage them
in shaping the nature of their intervention
from design through to evaluation. We
know that when young people are given
real control of resources, through
initiatives such as Youth Bank and Youth
Opportunity Funds, that they exercise
responsibility with seriousness and rigour.
We know also that young people engaged
in democratic structures established to
secure their contribution in meaningful
ways – be it good student councils, youth
boards or as local or national youth
parliamentarians – they generally approach
the task with a passion and commitment
that easily matches and often exceeds their
adult counterparts.
So the answer to the question “How do
My recipe for success
By Fraser Doherty
Istarted selling homemade jam, made
using my Grandmother’s recipes, to the
neighbours at the age of 14. Little did I
know that this simple enterprise, which I
had created to provide me with some extra
pocket money, would blossom into my full-
time career and take me on a four- y e a r
journey of self development. For me, setting
up my own business – being an
entrepreneur – has been my contribution to
s o c i e t y.
In fact, I would say that the hundreds of
thousands of people in my age group who
are being ‘enterprising’, whether in business,
the voluntary sector or the arts, make a
huge contribution to society every day. On
top of providing worthwhile services and
stimulating economic activity in their
communities, enterprising young people are
When young people are
engaged as full and
active participants their
contribution is greatest
we ensure young people play an active part
in society?” is not complex, although it is
one that requires a consistent and
systematic change in adult processes and
behaviours. We need to embed young
peoples’ right to be heard and listened to in
all matters that affect them into the fabric
of the way we deliver services and
programmes. The Government has started
to address this, and the new ten-year
strategy for positive activities goes a long
way to making explicit the expectations on
local government youth services. However,
every organisation delivering services to or
for young people needs to critically
examine itself and embed youth voice into
its standard procedures.
Rights and responsibilities are
inextricably linked. Give young people the
right to shape and influence, and they will
play an effective role in society
Fiona Blacke is Chief Executive of the
National Youth Agency (NYA).

developing themselves for the future. This is
the most important contribution that young
people can make to society – to equip
themselves effectively for adulthood. By
starting a business or volunteering their
time to charitable work, young people can
develop skills that will prove invaluable in
the world of work.
By no means am I suggesting that
everyone can become an entrepreneur. I do,
h o w e v e r, feel that everyone can be more
‘enterprising’. Encouraging young people to
try new things, take risks and develop their
skills is the best way to empower them to
make a contribution to society. This means
Children are, of course, ‘citizens’ in
the sense that they have rights and
entitlements within the state. But
many are engaged with civic, social and
moral issues long before they are able to
vote. This civic concern merits attention
from two perspectives. To what extent is
such activity political enculturation? But
also, should we not take seriously the fact
that young people act as responsible citizens
without exercising the supposedly primary
‘civic action’ of voting?
There is much current hand wringing
about young people’s reluctance to vote and
providing advice and support for young
people to help them come up with ideas and
become involved in projects outside the
c l a s s r o o m .
Providing young people with effective
role models and case studies is the simplest
way to demonstrate how they can empower
themselves to contribute to the wider world.
Showing them what other young people
have done, such as setting up a company,
inventing a new product or participating in
charity work, provides evidence that they
are capable of doing something similar. This
will surely instil a sense of self-belief and an
attitude that they are responsible for
Apathy does not rule
Many make their voices
heard through signing
petitions, boycotting
unacceptable products,
or taking part in peaceful
demonstrations
lack of interest in elections, although the
data do show that young people expect to
vote in the longer term, as adult citizens. I
would argue that this narrow definition of
civic action gives a misleading picture of
young people’s citizenship. Many make their
voices heard through signing petitions,
boycotting unacceptable products, or taking
part in peaceful demonstrations. Many more
expect to do so in the future. Many
participate in helping their community.
These activities were not traditionally
thought of as ‘political’, but increasing
appreciation of the importance of informal
political action in social change, and of the
role of community in social capital, has
forefronted both. It is of note also that both
demand more individual effort, time, and
initiative than does voting.
In a recent UK study of 1,136 young
people aged 11-21, three-quarters reported
taking part in at least one civic action in the
ESRC THE EDGE | F E AT U R E 19
developing themselves and creating
opportunities for later life.
U n d o u b t e d l y, many will try to achieve
similar successes themselves by challenging
themselves to come up with an idea. This
begins the process of developing a ‘culture
of enterprise’, in which young people are
enthused by the creative process of
developing something independently. In
fact, youth is the perfect time to try out
ideas – without the worries of mortgage
repayments or families to provide for
Fraser Doherty is a young entrepreneur
and creator of SuperJam products.
By Helen Haste
last two years. Nearly half had taken part in
a sponsored event, more than a third had
signed a petition and nearly a quarter had
boycotted a product. Taking part increased
their confidence, changed their beliefs, and
made them want to do more of the same in
future; action clearly promotes civic
motivation and enculturation. Many expect,
as adults, to vote, protest, lobby and work to
help their community. They see ‘the good
citizen’ as protecting the environment, and
helping the community, as well as voting.
How much do young people care about
social issues? More than three-quarters
would like to influence the Government
about health care, facilities for young
people, crime, racism, and drugs. More than
half felt strongly about pollution,
immigration, the environment, opportunities
for women, the influence of the USA and the
EU on British politics, and how scientific
developments affect our lives.
We should not underestimate the civic
interest of our children, but we should take
note also of the disaffected 25 per cent
Helen Haste is Professor of Psychology
at the University of Bath, specialising in
adolescence, citizenship, morality,
creativity and gender issues.

20
F E ATURE AUTUMN 2007 | ISSUE 26
Spare us the negative media
By Katrina Mather
Y‘oung yobs run riot’, ‘Man attacked by
young hoodie’, ‘Youths terrorise town
centre’. It’s hard to pick up a
newspaper without seeing a headline
bearing some sort of resemblance to that
these days. Let’s face it – it is pretty rare
that you actually read or hear anything
good about young people at all in most of
the mainstream media.
The fact is that we all know young
people are not all little tykes, and most
certainly aren’t louts who hang around
street corners up to no good. As a 15 yearold
myself, who gives up over 20 hours of
my week to volunteering, as well as school
and a part time job, I can definitely vouch
for that!
A recent research project by the national
lottery showed that every young person
dedicates at least one working week a year
to helping others. Over a third do
volunteering work and around 200,000
young people have given over 100 hours to
become millennium volunteers. These are
Young offenders are citizens too
By Jean Hine
just a few examples of ways that young
people can contribute to society.
We aren’t just the future –
we’re here now, and what
we say counts
What we forget so often is how much
young people have to offer to society; we
have a fresh opinion on things, we are
willing to learn new things, and young
people know and condemn injustice when
they see it as well. That’s why so many
young people belong to pressure groups for
causes from environmentalism to anti-war
coalitions and even political parties which
are in tune with their views. On top of this,
countless young people have part-time jobs
which they put boundless energy into,
keeping no end of restaurants, shops, pubs,
clubs and nursing homes ticking over
(though under 16s receive no protection
from the minimum wage).
At the UK Youth Parliament recently we
conducted a survey for making sex and
relationships education compulsory, and
received a staggering 22,000 responses –
the nation’s largest ever consultation. In
this survey, we found that young people
were angered by the poor quality of sex
education they were receiving, and were
demanding something better. Now we’re
doing the same with our campaign to lower
the voting age to 16.
Only by actually involving young people
in all areas of decision making that affects
them can we hope to achieve a better
society for the next generation. It’s often
said ‘young people are the future’. That’s
true of course, but we aren’t just the future –
we’re here now, and what we say counts
Katrina Mather is a Member of the UK
Youth Parliament and East Sussex Youth
Cabinet.
Our society presents a somewhat
ambivalent attitude towards
children and young people: are
they angels or devils, do we love them or
loathe them? Babies and young children
are usually portrayed as in need of the care
and protection of adults and society. As
they get older the balance shifts and
Research which
examines young
offenders’ lives from their
point of view reveals a
picture at odds with
commonly held views

teenagers and youths are frequently
portrayed as a threat to society, whether it
be their eating and exercise habits, or their
problematic behaviour in the classroom
and on the streets.
Though often couched in the language of
concern for young people’s future, the
notion of the danger of what they might
become is ever present. As a result,
concern with and for young people focuses
more on their futures than on the present.
Rarely are they considered as citizens in
their own right, but rather as citizens in
the making with citizenship education in
school being a means of equipping them to
be ‘good’ citizens.
Ambivalence about ‘youth’ has been
around at least since the time of Aristotle,
and probably long before, but never before
have British children and young people
been so surveilled and controlled – in the
home, in the school, in public spaces. Most
worryingly of all, our young seem to be
In pondering how young people can play
a full role in society, we must first
address the presumption that society is
somehow ours, an entity that we invite
them to join. We must collectively instil in
children from the outset that they are part
of society, too – society is theirs as much
as it is ours.
In latter years, we have made positive
shifts towards involving young people,
usually by asking them to comment on the
services provided for them. Now the
public sector is expected to bring users’
experiences more into the planning of our
various services – and rightly so.
We must encourage children and young
people to participate actively in the
development of those services, to help
design and build them, rather than being
passive consumers or recipients. And
where better to begin seeking the
contribution of young people than in
education?
Here, in our diverse settings, we can
empower children to be the co-creators of
their environment, to structure the
education system not for them, but with
feared. One group of young people most
often portrayed as a threat and making no
positive contribution are those involved in
criminal and anti-social behaviour. Anti-
Social Behaviour Orders, introduced
primarily to deal with difficulties between
adults, are now used most often against
young people, and the number of young
people in custody is at an all time high.
Whilst not denying the problematic
nature of some of their behaviour,
research which examines young offenders’
lives from their point of view reveals a
picture at odds with commonly held views.
Often living in areas of high deprivation
and high crime with disrupted families and
low family incomes, they have limited
opportunities and cope well with
frequently difficult lives. Limited space in
their homes, lack of local facilities and no
money to travel or join in activities
elsewhere makes it more likely they will
meet up with friends on the street and be
Giving students a louder voice
We must collectively instil
in children from the
outset that they are part
of society, too – society is
theirs as much as it is
ours
them. When I was Director of Children’s
Services for Oxfordshire, we did some
powerful work with four to five year olds,
gaining an understanding of their
experiences of entering a nursery setting. I
regularly discussed policy development
with groups of young people, who acted as
sounding boards for me and for whom I
acted as an advocate to local service
providers, including my own staff.
Many schools are already giving
students a greater voice in their education.
On a recent visit to Redbridge Community
School in Southampton I was delighted to
find among the usual information in the
induction handbook for new staff three
E S R C T H E E D G E | F E AT U R E 21
seen as a nuisance or a threat.
These young people are rarely given
credit for the strengths they display: the
resilience they show in coping with
difficult circumstances, the support that
they show for friends and the help that
they give to neighbours and family.
Contacts with formal services can be
unsatisfactory where the aims and targets
of organisations compete with the needs of
the most difficult children.
We need to present a more positive
approach to young people, show them that
we appreciate their strengths and believe
that they can and do make a valuable
contribution to society – something which
the vast majority of them (young offenders
included) want to do
Professor Jean Hine is Co-Ordinator for
ESRC’s Pathways into and out of Crime:
Risk Resilience and Diversity Network.
By Keith Bartley
letters from pupils to new teachers, setting
out their views of what makes an effective
teacher. What a powerful message about
the importance of the pupil’s voice!
At the GTC we are embarking on a
project to explore ‘pupil voice’ as one way
of placing young people closer to the
centre-stage in their learning. We need to
respect young people as young people,
rather than framing them as miniature
adults for whom “we know best” and find
ways to value more their perspective,
taking account of their skills and
experiences.
We all need to work towards the day
when children and young people are more
involved in shaping their own lives and
determining their futures. They need to
develop the confidence to feel they have a
secure place as citizens in their own right.
They are our future
Keith Bartley is Chief Executive of the
General Teaching Council for England
(GTC).

22 F E ATURE ISSUE 26 | AUTUMN 2007
It is almost a decade since Sir Bernard
C r i c k ’s seminal report Education for
Citizenship and the Teaching of
Democracy in Schools. It made the case for
placing matters of social and moral
r e s p o n s i b i l i t y, political literacy and
community engagement at the heart of both
the statutory curriculum and the broader
life of the school. Ten years on, and five
years after the launch of Citizenship as a
National Curriculum subject, we are gaining
a grasp of its complexities and can point to
the emergence of a specialist teaching
community for whom Citizenship is their
passion and core expertise.
C r i c k ’s report was about more than just a
new subject though, as the wording in the
title – education for citizenship – indicates.
Thus, Citizenship Education programmes
have to provide young people with both the
knowledge required for effective citizenship
– how our legal, political, social and
economic system works and how
individuals and communities can impact
upon this system – and provide them with
real experience of doing citizenship, within
the parameters of their school and the
expanses of their community.
For Crick, the Citizenship initiative was
primarily about developing political literacy
in a society that was imperilling its
Education for Citizenship
By Tony Breslin
democracy by ignoring it. In schools it has
had a further impact; the ‘citizenship-rich’
school – one that welcomes student and
community involvement and is innovative
and inclusive in the way that it does so – is a
different kind of place in which to teach and
learn, critically because the developing of
citizens, rather than just the qualifying of
learners, is at the core of its mission. In such
a setting, children and young people are seen
as much more than citizens of tomorrow.
They are recognised – and engaged with – as
the learner-citizens of today, subject to, and
enabled by, various laws and agreements,
not least the United Nations Convention on
the Rights of the Child.
And this recognition and engagement,
encouraged by the introduction of
Citizenship to the curriculum, is further
enabled by a range of initiatives that
collectively begin to signal a change in
emphasis across the education spectrum
towards an orientation that recognises the
status of young people and their families as
citizens: the Every Child Matters a g e n d a
(which has impacted on everything from the
emergence of Children’s Services in local
authorities to the redesigned OFSTED
inspection framework), the new focus on
family learning and parent education
(epitomised in the recent reframing of the
‘education’ ministry as the Department for
Children, Schools and Families) and the
growth of emotional literacy programmes
(now championed in secondary as well as
primary school settings).
A decade or so ago much of this would
have been portrayed as peripheral to the
main business of schooling (or, worse still, a
distraction from it) and some commentators
might still have it this way. The signs,
though, are encouraging. Schools that
embrace citizenship-rich principles and
champion student participation rarely turn
back, many pointing to a dividend in terms
of educational attainment, especially among
those often deemed ‘hard to reach’.
And there may be a wider benefit.
Deferential obedience as the defining
characteristic of adult-child relations may be
long gone but, as a society, we have
struggled to define a new consensus about
how young and old interact: framing the
child or young person as learner-citizen (a
full citizen but one that is still developing) –
rather than ‘empty vessel’ or threatening
‘youth’ – might be a starting point. After all,
if education isn’t for effective, informed,
engaged citizenship, what else is it for?
Tony Breslin is Chief Executive of the
Citizenship Foundation.
ESRC RESEARCH
ESRC has a number of research
programmes, centres and networks
examining issues of youth and
childhood, including:
Identities and Social Action Programme:
http://www.identities.org.uk/
Teaching and Learning Research
Programme: http://www.tlrp.org/
Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion:
http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/case/
Centre on Micro-Social Change:
http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/misoc/
Social Contexts of Pathways in Crime:
http://www.scopic.ac.uk/
Pathways into and out of Crime: Risk,
Resilience and Diversity:
http://www.pcrrd.group.shef.ac.uk/

For most lone mothers, making the move
from welfare into work is a vastly more
complex step than often assumed, say
researchers from the University of Bath. To
date, commentators have too frequently
ignored the fact that managing work and
family life is an undertaking that involves
the whole family. “Taking the perspective of
the family as a whole, we find a very
complex picture with each family member
weighing up the pros and cons of the new
situation and children very often playing an
important role in supporting their mothers to
stay in work,” explains researcher Professor
Jane Millar.
At present there are some two million
lone-parent families in the UK. Government
policy is increasingly focused on
encouraging employment among lone
mothers, on the grounds that this will
promote wellbeing and reduce child poverty.
In this study, based on in-depth interviews
over a three-year period with 50 lone
mothers who recently left out-of-work
benefits for paid work and 61 of their eight
to 14 year-old children, researchers aimed to
discover the impact of paid work on the
family as a whole.
“When the lone mother starts work, her
life changes in various ways, but so do the
lives of her children,” Professor Millar
argues. For example, the type and quality of
time that the children spend with both their
mother and other family members and
carers changes. Children may have to spend
more time in pre and after school care. Some
of these changes may be unpopular, for
example, attending before-school care on a
regular basis.
Researchers point to the key role played
particularly by children in supporting their
mothers to stay in work. “One key finding is
that children actively contribute to the
family-work project in many ways,” coauthor
Dr Tess Ridge reports. “This includes
care for self and siblings, and not making too
many demands on their mother’s time.
Children also moderate their own needs and
some are accepting and tolerating adverse
situations, particularly in relation to
inappropriate care. These strategies that
children adopt to support their mothers can
easily go unnoticed and unacknowledged in
policy debate, even though they may have
far reaching implications for children’s lives
and wellbeing.”
This study therefore highlights the
unintended yet important consequences for
child wellbeing of policies aimed at
encouraging employment among lone
mothers. “If policymakers are serious about
child welfare in the round then they need to
pay attention to this research,” Professor
Millar insists. The study further indicates the
important role played by tax credits in
supporting lone mothers in work. “The
delivery of the tax credit system to lone
mothers in a reliable way is fundamental to
ESRC THE EDGE | R E S E A R C H N E W S
Entering work is a fine balance
for lone mothers
enabling them to stay in work,” she
explains. Moreover, most lone mothers
would benefit from long-term, personalised
support in helping them maintain a workable
balance between work and family life.
Promoting welfare in work, and not just
welfare to work, must take account of the
needs and circumstances of all family
members, as they seek to manage the
complexities of life in a low-income lonemother
family, researchers conclude.
Contact: Professor Jane Millar
University of Bath
Email: j.i.millar@bath.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)1225 386141
Award number: RES-000-23-1079
Investing in
patient safety
Exposure to potentially costly litigation
may influence hospitals to invest more
heavily in patient safety. A new study
examined the way in which financial
costs arising from legal liability for
adverse events are funded by the NHS
Litigation Authority (NHSLA), how this
has changed over time, and the effects of
these changes on the incentives facing
hospitals to invest in patient safety. In
particular, the study looked at the
increasing use by the NHSLA of discounts
for hospitals which comply with risk
management standards.
Findings suggest that those hospitals
faced with higher expected costs from
litigation are more likely to make greater
use of diagnostic tests such as CT/MRI
imaging, radio-isotopes and
fluoroscopies. Secondly, hospitals with
high level risk management standards
also appear to undertake more CT/MRI
scans than those without those standards.
Finally, researchers found evidence that
compliance with these high level risk
management standards is also associated
with improvements in infection control,
manifested in lower rates of infections
such as MRSA.
Contact: Contact: Professor Paul Fenn
University of Nottingham
Email: paul.fenn@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 115 9515254
Award number: RES-153-25-0027
This research is a project within the ESRC’s Public
Services Programme.
23

24
R E S E A R C H SPECIAL ISSUE 26 | AUTUMN 2007
Childhood obesity:
a class and a classroom issue
Rising levels of childhood obesity have become both a serious
health and social issue. The solutions, on the face of it, are
straightforward – more exercise and better diets for children. In
devising prescriptions, however, society needs to be aware of
the more complex explanations for the rise in obesity, to do with both
class and gender, as Pamela Readhead explains.
These days we’re bombarded with
judgmental media stories about fat
kids and their parents, so much so
that earlier this year the Sun invited its
readers to contact the paper if they knew
anyone more obese than an 11 year-old boy
who weighed 14 stone.
The facts make grim reading. In
September Ed Balls, the Secretary of State
for Children, Schools and Families, warned
that almost half of all children in Britain
will be dangerously overweight by 2050 if
drastic action is not taken to halt the
growth in childhood obesity.
To make matters worse, a study of over
5,500 children at the University of Bath
found that children are not taking enough
exercise. The research, which was part of
the Children of the 90s study, found that
only five per cent of boys and 0.4 per cent
of girls achieved the recommended
minimum of one hour of physical activity
per day.
The World Health Organisation (WHO)
says this is not just a UK problem.
According to the WHO, 20 per cent of
children across Europe are overweight,
their ranks swelling by 400,000 a year.
More worryingly, the world's largest
chronic health problem is not HIV/Aids
but obesity. More people are overweight
(1 billion) than starving (800 million).
Attempts to encourage adults to adopt
healthy habits have so far had limited
success and the Government now hopes
that targeting children will be more
effective. Since the beginning of the new
term schools in England have banned the
sale of all chocolate bars, flavoured
biscuits, sweets, crisps and cereal bars in
the tuck shop. Salt will no longer be
provided on tables, ketchup and
mayonnaise will be limited and cakes will
be allowed at lunchtime only. New
restrictions on junk food and drink radio
ads aimed at pre-school and primary
Almost half of all
children in Britain will be
dangerously overweight
by 2050 if drastic action
is not taken
school children have also come into force.
Children are also being encouraged to
exercise more. About 80 per cent of
secondary school children now do two
hours of sport a week – 30 per cent more
than in 2003-04. By 2008, the Government
wants to see 85 per cent of secondary
school pupils doing that much, and by 2020
all those at secondary school should be
offered four hours of sport every week.
Social science is also trying to tackle the
obesity problem, from several different
perspectives. Is obesity related to social
class? Why do girls give up on sport? How
have children’s eating patterns changed
since 1975? These are some of the
questions that have been addressed by
ESRC researchers.
Dr Wendy Wills at the University of
Hertfordshire, who is looking at the
relationship between attitudes to food and
social class, has found a sharp contrast in
attitudes and behaviour relating to food
amongst two groups of Scottish teenagers
and their families. Her joint study with
Professor Kathryn Backett-Milburn, Dr
Julia Lawton and Dr Donna MacKinnon at
the University of Edinburgh suggests that
the way of life of the middle class families
bears few similarities with the working
class families interviewed for an earlier
study. “It sounds obvious,” she says, “but
when you see the differences in black and
white it’s no wonder there are health
inequalities. Advice on healthy eating will
never work for certain groups unless we
can understand these differences.”
The results of the study are still being
analysed, but the early findings suggest
that the middle class families make a point
of buying fruit and vegetables and worry if
their teenagers don’t eat a wide variety of
different foods. “The teenagers mentioned

foods like Thai curries,” Dr Wills explains.
“This is so different from the first group
where the staple diet is far more limited,
with an emphasis on ready meals, pot
noodles and deep fried takeaways. Policy
needs to take account of class habits – or
social context – which is so ingrained we
all take it for granted, rarely going beyond
the boundaries of our own experience.
Food culture is part of who we are.”
Other findings, which are based on
interviews with a group of 36 boys and
girls aged 13-15 years defined by their BMI
as obese/overweight or nonobese/overweight,
suggest that middle
class teenagers and their parents are
aware of health messages, although they
seldom discussed medical problems like
diabetes. “The working class parents
talked about health much more often, but
seemed not to be aware that there was a
connection between heart problems and
diet,” she says. “They were more
concerned about the health consequences
of smoking and drug taking and the
possibility of anorexia than the dangers
of obesity.”
Paola De Agostini at the ESRC Centre on
Micro-social Change at the University of
Essex has found evidence that young
people are consuming much more fat than
their parents did at the same age. Paola
studied data from the National Food
Survey to find out how eating habits
changed over a 25-year period. She found
that although total calorie intake did not
change much across generations between
1975 and 2000, the tendency was for
people of all ages to consume more fat
Policy needs to take
account of class habits
– or social context.
Food culture is part of
who we are
and fewer carbohydrates. This was
particularly marked for adolescents,
probably because they tend to eat out
more often, the report says.
In her study of tomboys, Professor
Carrie Paechter at the University of
London’s Goldsmiths College, followed
two groups of nine to 11 year old girls in
contrasting schools as they moved from
year five into year six. “In year five, most
of the girls are still running around. But by
the time they get into year six they have
stopped moving and stand around and
chat,” the research says.
So what stops girls from being active?
The researchers found that popularity
plays a big part. Another reason is clothes.
The study concludes that simple policy
E S R C T H E E D G E | R E S E A R C H S P E C I A L 25
changes could encourage girls to stay
active longer. “Every school should allow
girls to wear trousers and all children to
wear trainers and space could be reserved
for girls’ games to stop the boys from
taking over the playground,” the report
says
Pamela Readhead is a freelance
journalist.
ESRC RESEARCH
CONTACT
Dr Wendy Wills, University of
Hertfordshire
Email: w.j.wills@herts.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)1707 286165
Professor Carrie Paechter, Goldsmiths
College, University of London
Email: c.paechter@gold.ac.uk
Paola der Agostini, ESRC Centre on
Micro-Social Change
Email: misoc@essex.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)1206 872957
The Avon Longitudinal Study of
Parents and Children (Children of the
90s)
Email: alspac-project@bris.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)117 331 6731

26 R E S E A R C H NEWS ISSUE 26 | AUTUMN 2007
Looking forward
A selection of new ESRC-funded research
Storytelling in management
Storytelling is widely viewed as an
effective means of communication. This
study investigates the use of storytelling
in managerial practice as well as its
effectiveness and appropriateness.
Researchers will focus on the use of
stories in two UK service organisations,
one of which uses storytelling explicitly
and one of which does not, in order to
establish whether and how practice
differs. RES-061-25-0144
Pursuing active citizenship
What are the most effective ways to
encourage active citizenship? Citizen
activities matter because engagement
assists public policy outcomes, such as
safer communities and more efficient
public services. However, little is known
about the link between interventions
designed to stimulate participation, the
level and depth of civic engagement, and
policy outcomes. The study aims to
increase understanding of this civicoutcome
link. RES-177-25-0002
Questioning the value of choice
Advances in DNA technology will make
antenatal screening for many genetic
disorders a reality in the next decade.
This raises ethical concerns about
facilitating informed choice. This project
will explore whether people value choice
within the context of antenatal genetic
screening, and whether and how people
of different ethnic origins (African-
Caribbean, British white, Chinese and
Pakistani) share ‘informed choices’ as a
value. RES-061-25-0036
Keeping tabs on personal data
Today, we all constantly leave data
traces, be it by using a cell phone,
obtaining cash from an ATM, or surfing
the Internet. Who can access these data?
What can they be used for? Should there
be a mandatory period after which they
must be deleted? This study will examine
the factors influencing different
countries’ regulatory responses to the
emergence of new personal informationrelated
technologies. RES-062-23-0536
For further information please search for the
award number (shown above) on:
http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk
How assisted reproduction
affects parental bonds
Infertility is an issue of increasing
prominence in society, with an estimated
one in six couples visiting a doctor due to
difficulties conceiving. More and more
frequently these couples are using Assisted
Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) in their
bids to have children. But does creating
families in this way have consequences in
terms of the quality of parenting and child
development? In other words, are there any
negative psychological effects on parents and
children from creating families through ARTs ?
In a new study researchers explored a
form of fertility treatment known as embryo
donation. In this process, an embryo created
using the sperm and egg from one couple is
donated to another couple who then raise the
resulting child. Hence, conceiving a child
using donated embryos results in a family
structure where parents are not genetically
related to their children, similar to adoption.
“One question is whether this lack of
genetic links negatively affects parenting and
child development,” says researcher Dr Fiona
MacCallum. “However, embryo donation
differs from adoption in that parents undergo
the pregnancy and birth. Thus, a further
question is whether this leads to more
positive family relationships in embryo
donation than in adoption.”
Researchers initially compared a group of
embryo donation families with adoptive
families and genetically related IVF (In Vitro
Fertilisation) families when the children
were aged two to five years. And their
findings are very reassuring for those
considering fertility treatments. “We found
no differences between the families in the
quality of parenting or the children’s
development, suggesting no negative
consequences of non-genetic parenting,” Dr
MacCallum reports.
In a follow-up study with the same children
aged five to nine years, the embryo donation
families were still generally doing well.
“There were no differences in parental
warmth between the adoptive and embryo
donation parents, which implies that the
experience of pregnancy is not vital for
parent-child bonding,” she points out.
Interestingly, embryo donation mothers were
rated as more overprotective and
overanxious with their child.
“A further finding is that embryo donation
parents are far more private about their
child’s origins than the other two family
types,” Dr MacCallum states. “Only some 40
per cent of embryo donation parents had
either disclosed or intended to disclose the
method of family creation to their child –
compared to 90 per cent of IVF parents and
100 per cent of adoptive parents.”
The Government is currently considering
the recent recommendation of a
Parliamentary committee that children born
from donated sperm, eggs or embryos should
have this fact noted on their birth
certificates. “If new legislation is to enforce
disclosure, the parents may need education
and support to convince them of the benefits
of this approach,” she concludes.
Contact: Dr Fiona MacCallum
University of Warwick
Email: Fiona.Maccallum@warwick.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 2476 523182
Award number: RES-000-22-1740

Asbestos challenge
New research into people’s experience of
Asbestos Related Diseases (ARD)
spoke extensively about unexplained chest
pains and breathing difficulties, despite
reveals striking similarities between the doctors’ reassurance that pleural plaques are
experiences of South African and UK ARD not physically debilitating.
sufferers, and a deep distrust of medical and Researchers conclude that ‘experts’ need
legal ARD experts.
to recognise the accompanying social
Findings show that both sets of workers withdrawal and deterioration that many
have a deep suspicion of the medical and ARD sufferers experience or they risk
legal establishment and consider that the
experience of the disease has eroded their
undermining people’s experience of ARD.
health, dignity and livelihoods. ARD sufferers Contact: Dr Linda Waldman
in both South Africa and the UK challenge the
scientific and legal assessments of pleural
plaques (scarring on the lung lining) as
benign and inert. Moreover, all participants
University of Sussex
Email: L.Waldman@ids.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)1273 678516
Baby boomers likely to
grow old gracefully
P ost-war
baby boomers (born 1945-1954)
may have been the ‘first teenagers’ – a
liberal, radical generation – but they have
now grown up. A new study investigates the
extent to which ‘baby boomers’ exist as a
‘generation’ and whether they share
distinctive ‘boomer’ consumption patterns
and attitudes towards retirement. Findings
suggest that the ‘first teenagers’ have
certainly matured. Their consumer interests
are now linked around interests such as
homes, garden and travel.
The study further shows that baby
boomers are a diverse group. While having
some experiences of social change in
common they vary greatly depending on
wealth, class and education. Boomers
perceive themselves to be much more like
their children and younger generations than
like their parents or older generations. And,
Award number: RES-160-25-0037
This research is a project within the ESRC’s
Science in Society Programme.
although attitudes to inheritance are mixed,
boomers – more than other generations –
believe more in spending their wealth than in
saving and passing it on to future generations.
Some 70 per cent of those surveyed were
making ‘no’ or only ‘limited’ plans for their
retirement. On one hand, some boomers
were planning substantial projects,
particularly in relation to travel and using
second homes. On the other hand, ideas
about retirement were generally modest –
far removed from a stereotype of boomers
breaking new ground in their approach to
growing old.
Contact: Dr Rebecca Leach
University of Keele
Email: r.leach@appsoc.keele.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)1782 583359
Award number: RES-154-25-0003
This research is a project within the ESRC’s
Cultures of Consumption Programme.
ESRC THE EDGE | R E S E A R C H N E W S
Looking forward
A selection of new ESRC-funded research
Public service reform in
Scotland
The nature and provision of public
services is undergoing rapid changes. Yet
little is known about the full impact of
reforms. By examining the existing
literature and speaking to researchers,
policymakers and practitioners in the
public sector, this study will explore
how Scottish public management is
changing, how it is being evaluated, and
how these changes impact on the actual
delivery of public services. RES-153-27-0015
Including the autistic in school
This study aims to examine the
effectiveness of (and subsequently inform
practice in) inclusive education for pupils
with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASDs)
in mainstream secondary schools. The
f o u r-phase project is based on profiles of
inclusion for 30 pupils with ASDs, 20
pupils with dyslexia and 30 pupils with
special educational needs. Findings will be
widely disseminated to parents, schools
and policymakers. RES-061-25-0054
Islamic radicalisation in Africa
Africa has been at the forefront of
discussions on Islamic radicalisation, as
the weak socio-economic structures in
the continent have been irresistible to
global radical movements looking for
targets to attack Western interests. Using
four key countries (Nigeria, Liberia,
Sierra Leone and Ghana) as case studies,
this project looks at radicalisation of
Muslims in West Africa, including the
causes of Muslim ‘radicalisation’ and the
likelihood of global ramifications.
RES-181-25-0024
The impact of Right to Buy
One stated aim of the Right to Buy
legislation of the early 1980s was to free
up the housing market by removing the
debilitating effect of public housing. This
policy was expected to help reduce
constraints on inter-regional mobility.
Using complex longitudinal data,
researchers will be the first to examine
whether the Right to Buy legislation did
indeed ‘free-up’ people to move interregionally.
RES-000-22-2460
For further information please search for the
award number (shown above) on:
h t t p : / / w w w. e s r c s o c i e t y t o d a y. a c . u k
27

28 F E ATURE AUTUMN 2007 | ISSUE 26
Can we
make
childhood
less
‘toxic’?
A report by UNICEF ranked children’s
wellbeing in the UK 21st out of 25
countries it examined. Other reports
have compared the behaviour of British
children unfavourably with other countries and
blamed the UK’s ‘long hours’ culture for
disadvantaging young people. There is, however,
more light and shade in children’s experience, as
Sarah Womack discovers.

30 F E ATURE ISSUE 26 | AUTUMN 2007
Inever envisaged that a word associated
with poisonous waste could be attached
to the experience of growing up. But
‘toxic childhood’ has become the soundbite
of religious leaders, academics, and
politicians alike to describe youngsters’
lives in Britain.
The National Society for Social Research
warns that family life is being stunted by
parents who work excessive, anti-social
hours. The Institute for Public Policy
Research says British youth are among the
most badly behaved in Europe, “on the
verge of mental breakdown, at risk from
anti-social behaviour, self-harm, drug and
alcohol abuse”.
Worst of all, out of 25 countries in the
Western world, the UK scored 21st in a
UNICEF survey of children’s wellbeing.
The four countries that scored lower were
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia – all
ex-Soviet states. As one British journalist
put it at the time: “In the only parents’ race
that really matters, we limp in last, egg
fallen from the spoon, potato sack tangled
around the ankles.”
So where did it all go wrong? Cynics say
the question should be posed in the ironic
‘George Best’ sense – the footballer was
asked the same question by his chauffeur
while lying on a bed in a hotel next to a
Miss World contestant with champagne and
wads of money. Surely, they say, it cannot
be so bad. Finland, after all, may have
come fourth in the child wellbeing table but
it has one of the highest adult suicide rates
in the world.
Nevertheless there is a pervading fear
among parents in the UK that while we live
in a fast-moving, consumer society where
mothers are forced to work, children face
exhaustive school tests, and people are
more likely to visit a farmer’s market than a
church, we have lost sight of what matters.
The UK has the highest rates of teenage
pregnancy in Western Europe and leads
Europe for the proportion of young people
living in single parent families. There are
Out of 25 countries in the
Western world, the UK
scored 21st in a UNICEF
survey of children’s
w e l l b e i n g
Evidence suggests that
on the whole, young
people in the UK have
more concerns than their
western European
c o u n t e r p a r t s
also high rates of obesity, binge-drinking,
and drug-taking.
Bob Reitemeier, Chief Executive of the
Children’s Society, says: “Evidence
suggests that on the whole, young people in
the UK have more concerns than their
western European counterparts. (But)
rather than childhood being generally
miserable, there are clusters of young
people, namely those growing up on the
poorer end of the social scale, who live
desperate lives while others do not.
“It is clear that we are not doing well in a
relative sense (to the rest of Europe) in
certain indicators of wellbeing,” he told
The Guardian. “In terms of social
mobility, the fact is that the gaps are
getting wider.”
The Department of Education and Skills
countered the UNICEF report by saying
that the UN children’s organisation had
used data that was several years old and
did not reflect improvements, including
falling child poverty and teenage pregnancy
rates. “There are now 700,000 fewer
children living in relative poverty than in
1998-99, and we have halved the number of
children living in absolute poverty,” it said,
adding that teenage pregnancy rates had
fallen by 11 per cent since 1998 and were at
their lowest levels for 20 years.
So what do we make of it all? Research
by the ESRC Centre for Analysis of Social
Exclusion says the problem for the
Government is that it is actually very
difficult to evaluate the effect of welfare
reforms – such as changes in benefits and
tax credits – on child health and
development in the UK. “Teasing out the
impact of any one element on child health
or developmental outcomes is very
challenging,” say the authors of Welfare
Reforms and Child Wellbeing in the US
and UK.
In the UK, explicit targets were set on
reducing child poverty and although these
have not been met, the child poverty
reductions are nevertheless “very
impressive”, they say.
“When it comes to more direct evidence
on the wellbeing of children and
specifically reforms which have affected
child health and development, the common
finding is a lack of large-scale, long-run
studies of child health and development
that could shed light on how reforms have
affected these important domains of child
wellbeing. The truthful answer is that we

know little about how children have been
affected by this sweeping set of changes.”
The research says the accuracy and
weighting of some of the rankings of
countries in the UNICEF report is clearly
debatable because the data was, as the
Government said, old, and failed to take
into account recent investments. The data
was also based on older children, aged
11-15. There then comes the important
question of how we actually measure
wellbeing?
In the ESRC seminar paper Wellbeing
for children and young people, experts
suggest various methods. The Government
measures it in five ways, including being
healthy and having economic ‘wellbeing’,
whereas UNICEF looks at 40 separate
indicators which include peer and family
relationships, and young people’s sense of
their own wellbeing.
Professor Jonathan Bradshaw of York
University, an adviser on the UNICEF
report, acknowledges himself that
improving and deteriorating ‘indicators’ of
wellbeing in the UK are actually more or
less equal in length. The UK is good on
reducing absolute and relative child
poverty, increasing breastfeeding rates,
tackling domestic violence and raising
educational qualifications; bad on tackling
stillbirths, girls’ offending and raising
uptake of the MMR vaccine.
Poverty is defined as where income is
There is clearly a mood
in the UK that as a
society we have got
some important things
w r o n g
below 60 per cent of median income – the
midpoint on the scale of wealth – before
housing costs, although many take issue
with measurements of relative poverty,
pointing out that in Britain children live
like kings compared to children in less
economically stable countries.
For her part, Professor Marjorie Smith,
Director of the Thomas Coram Research
Unit at the Institute of Education,
University of London, warned against
putting too much emphasis on family
break-up as a surefire barometer of
disaster, as UNICEF appears to do.
The UK has the highest percentage of
children living in either lone parent families
or stepfamilies. One in four children sees
parents split up, while one in four lives in
lone parent households. One in ten lives in
stepfamilies. But in terms of child
wellbeing, “no one is entirely certain which
factors exert the most influence nor in
what ways,” Professor Smith says.
Many people do see family change in the
UK as playing a major and negative role.
ESRC RESEARCH
ESRC THE EDGE | F E AT U R E
Centre for the Analysis of Social
Exclusion (CASE)
The research analyses three main areas
of social exclusion: economy and
incomes; families and family change;
and communities and neighbourhoods.
The aim is to understand the dynamic
processes of social exclusion, to
investigate individual characteristics
and social institutions which prevent
exclusion, and to promote recovery and
inclusion.
Telephone: + 44 (0)20 7955 6679
Website: http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/case
ESRC Public Policy Seminar Series
For a copy of the seminar paper
Wellbeing for children and young
people see:
http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ES
RCInfoCentre/about/CI/events/esrcse
minar
But – and it is a big but - these figures
mask a different story, she says, because it
is the quality of parenting that matters –
good communication and ‘getting on’ well.
“Lone parent or stepfamily status is not
necessarily associated with more negative
behaviour in children. It is the quality of
the relationship between parent and child,
and child outcomes, that matter. It is not
the family per se which equates to stability
or its lack in the child’s life but the quality
of relationships within a family.”
Last word then to Bob Reitemeier:
“There is no question in our mind that
children’s experience of childhood is
different today from what was experienced
in previous generations. We need to build a
better understanding of what accounts for
these differences. There is clearly a mood
in the UK that as a society we have got
some important things wrong. The Good
Childhood Inquiry, which reports next
year, is a chance for everyone to share in
creating a new vision for childhood for the
21st century.”
Sarah Womack is the social affairs
correspondent for the Daily Telegraph.
31

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