Monthly Archives: April 2017

Searching for Pearls: Reflections on Researching the Life and Work of Pearl Jephcott

by Tony Taylor

Notice of the following event focused on the remarkable figure of Pearl  Jephcott, who between 1922 and 1946 was by turns a volunteer girls’ club worker, Organising Secretary for the Birmingham Union of Girls’ Clubs, the occupant of a similar post in County Durham and finally the Publications Officer for the National Association of Girls’ Clubs – thanks for this background to Tony Jeffs, who has a forthcoming article on this period in her life. The Leicester seminar looks more widely at her ensuing career as a pioneering social science researcher.

pearlj

The next MediaCom Seminar hosted by the School of Media, Communication and Sociology at the University of Leicester will take place on Wednesday 10 May with Professor John Goodwin (University of Leicester).

The seminar will take place 4:00-5:30 pm on Wednesday 10 May in Bankfield House Lecture Theatre – all welcome.

School of Media, Communication and Sociology
University of Leicester
Bankfield House
132 New Walk
Leicester
LE1 7JA

Searching for Pearls: Reflections on Researching the Life and Work of Pearl Jephcott

Pearl Jephcott (1900-1980), in a research career spanning some forty years, made an outstanding contribution to British social science research. Her key works, included Girls Growing Up (1942), Rising Twenty (1948), Some Young People (1954), Married Women Working (1962), A Troubled Area: Notes on Notting Hill (1964), Time of One’s Own (1967) and Homes in High Flats (1971), alongside numerous other reports and articles. These publications paved the way for many of the subsequent developments that were to come in the sociology of gender, women’s’ studies, urban sociology, the sociology of youth and are replete with originality, innovation and sociological imagination. Yet despite this Jephcott’s work has become neglected – seemingly relegated to second-hand booksellers and to ‘studies from the past’. As such in this paper I aim to do three things. First, I begin by providing a biographical sketch of Pearl Jephcott as well as reflecting upon key aspects of her early biography that helped inform her subsequent sociological practice. Second, I will provide an overview of her key works and draw out their contemporary relevance. Finally, I want to reflect on the ‘processes’ of researching a ‘past sociologist’ and the impact the research has had on my own sociological practice.

Youth leaders urge election commitments for young people, but fall short of specific demands

by Tony Taylor

election reform

Fifty-one UK youth organisations have signed an open letter to the main UK political parties asking them to make firm commitments to young people. Amongst the signatories are UK Youth chief executive, Anna Smee; British Youth Council chief executive, Jo Hobbs; Volunteering Matters chief executive, Oonagh Aitken; Young Minds chief executive, Sarah Brennan; and Girlguiding’s chief executive, Julie Bentley.

It would be interesting to know the full list of organisations signed up to the welcome plea and how they came to be involved. More importantly, the request seems to miss the opportunity to make concrete demands upon the political parties, all the more so as the letter claims that their collective research has unearthed the key issues faced by young people. My apologies if I’m missing something here and  that these have been identified in a supplement to the letter.

Off the top of my head, a less than an exhaustive list of demands could have included:

  • Lower the voting age to 16
  • Abolish tuition fees in HE and restore maintenance grants
  • Bring under-25 National Living Wage in line with 25-year-olds.
  • End zero-hour contracts.
  • Prioritise a serious and properly funded strategy to end child poverty.
  • Implement immediately a building programme to create affordable, quality housing.
  • Restore funding and render statutory youth work provision.
  • Maintain and expand opportunities to live, work and study abroad.
  • Introduce Proportional Representation.
  • Recognise that public services for the common good are essential to a vibrant and inclusive democracy.

The letter in full as best I know

Dear Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn, Tim Farron, Nicola Sturgeon, Caroline Lucas and Leanne Wood,

As Britain prepares for a snap general election, we call on you to make a firm commitment to young people across the country.

Since the referendum last year, our organisations have worked to engage young people from every part of the UK and from all backgrounds and political persuasions to present a clear plan for what they want from post-Brexit Britain.

Our national research and consultation has given us a strong and consistent picture of the top issues that matter to young people in post-Brexit Britain.

We can show you that younger generations are united on the big issues that will shape their future.

Now more than ever, their overwhelming demand to be part of the political process must be acted upon.

As the generation that will live longest with the outcome of Britain’s withdrawal from the EU, we ask you to recognise that young people can have a positive impact on the Brexit negotiations and give real legitimacy to the process.

This election offers a huge opportunity to reshape the nation’s priorities and restore young people’s confidence in our democracy.

As you put together your platform for the general election, we are calling on all party leaders to make an explicit commitment to represent young people’s demands in their upcoming manifestos.

As you all prepare for this election we will all be galvanising our networks to ensure young citizens are engaged and registered to vote. We are calling on you to give them something to vote for.

 

Vote, but voting is never enough……what about some social action?

by Tony Taylor

Predictably Theresa May’s General Election call has led to an upsurge of interest in voting, democracy and politics. Our Facebook page is hosting an interesting thread, kicked off by a question about how to engage young people with the spectre of the looming election. My own long-standing concerns about youth work’s widespread fear of being political and the stunted nature of parliamentary democracy itself are best left to a separate post. Indeed it might be an appropriate moment to dig out a rant I inflicted on a Federation of Detached Youth Workers conference back in 2007. I don’t think it’s past its sell-by date.

However, whatever my reservations about equating voting every so often with being political, the coming election is a highly significant moment in a volatile global atmosphere. Thus here are a number of recommended resources to inform our conversations and activities with young people in the coming weeks.

The League of Young Voters

Bite the Ballot

cropped-BTB-logo-turquoise

Democracy Cookbook – The Recipes

Register to vote

 

And whilst we are exploring with young people the significance or otherwise of the vote, it might be an appropriate time to rescue the idea of social action from the suffocating ‘volunteering’ definition advanced by Step up to Serve. In the run up to the election what about exploring with young people taking direct, public action around issues that perhaps matter to them – a right to benefits, the issue of low pay and zero-hour contracts, the lack of appropriate housing, the precarious future they face and indeed the demand to vote at 16 – not to mention what’s happening to youth provision in their neck of the woods? If we are talking about politics, about power, there is a question haunting youth work. To what extent, with honourable exceptions, has it supported the growth of young people’s authentic social movements from below, giving the lie to Tim Laughton’s fatuous claim that NCS is the fastest growing social movement in Europe. Grassroots social movements don’t have marketing budgets. In this context the recent and ongoing young people’s campaign to save youth services in Brighton offers lessons and poses dilemmas. At this very moment these young people’s energies are turning to wider social and political issues than just youth work. I wonder out loud what is their take on the forthcoming General Election?

This has been said many times, in different ways, but the great advances in terms of freedom and justice have not been the outcome of ruly and bureaucratic procedures from on high, but the result of unruly and improvised action from below. Yes, vote, but don’t stop there.

A critical view of NCS and citizenship from the world of political geography

by Tony Taylor

sign up toncs

The National Citizen Service programme has been having a rough ride recently, but its supporters would claim that much of the criticism emanates from the ranks of jealous and prejudiced youth workers. Hence it’s illuminating to ponder the following piece of research undertaken by Sarah Mills and Catherine Waite, published in the journal, ‘Political Geography’.

Highlights

Explores youth citizenship and the politics of scale to propose concept of ‘brands of youth citizenship’.

Examines the imaginative and institutional geographies of learning to be a citizen.

An analysis of National Citizen Service and its scaling of youth citizenship.

Original fieldwork with NCS architects, delivery providers and young people.

Examines ‘Britishness’, devolution and youthful politics in the United Kingdom.

Brands of youth citizenship and the politics of scale: National Citizen Service in the United Kingdom

Abstract
This paper explores the politics of scale in the context of youth citizenship. We propose the concept of ‘brands of youth citizenship’ to understand recent shifts in the state promotion of citizenship formations for young people, and demonstrate how scale is crucial to that agenda. As such, we push forward debates on the scaling of citizenship more broadly through an examination of the imaginative and institutional geographies of learning to be a citizen. The paper’s empirical focus is a state-funded youth programme in the UK – National Citizen Service – launched in 2011 and now reaching tens of thousands of 15–17 year olds. We demonstrate the ‘branding’ of youth citizenship, cast here in terms of social action and designed to create a particular type of citizen-subject. Original research with key architects, delivery providers and young people demonstrates two key points of interest. First, that the scales of youth citizenship embedded in NCS promote engagement at the local scale, as part of a national collective, whilst the global scale is curiously absent. Second, that discourses of youth citizenship are increasingly mobilised alongside ideas of Britishness yet fractured by the geographies of devolution. Overall, the paper explores the scalar politics and performance of youth citizenship, the tensions therein, and the wider implications of this study for both political geographers and society more broadly at a time of heated debate about youthful politics in the United Kingdom and beyond.

If possible don’t be put off by the denseness of the abstract or the profusion of bracketed references demanded by academia, the article explores insightfully the continuing tension about what we mean by citizenship and the particular interpretation advocated via NCS. As ever responses would be most welcome.

Thanks to Lyam Galpin for drawing the article to our attention.

Spring is in the air with a new edition of CONCEPT

by Tony Taylor

Our friends at CONCEPT inform us that the Spring edition is now online at http://concept.lib.ed.ac.uk/Concept/. Always worth exploring.

Vol 8, No 1 (2017): Spring
Table of Contents
Articles
Feminism: A Fourth to be Reckoned With? Reviving Community Education Feminist Pedagogies in a Digital Age by Mel Aitken

Vulnerable Practice: Why We Need Honest Conversations To Make Change  by Nicky Bolland

The Challenges of Community Planning for the Community and Voluntary Sector in the Current Climate: A Road Well Travelled? by Mae Shaw

Youth And Community Based Approaches to Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls: Reflections from India by Marjorie Mayo, Deboshree Mohanta

On The Block: The Fairer Scotland Action Plan and Democracy  by Jim Crowther

Poetry

Poem: United Colours of Cumnock by Jim Monaghan

Reviews

Review: Peter McLaren, (2015) Pedagogy of Insurrection by Juha Suoranta

Review: William Davies, (2016) The Happiness Industry by Christina McMellon

Call for Contributions: Youth Work with Young Refugees

by Tony Taylor

Apologies I’ve only just caught up with this call so it’s pretty short notice. You’ll need to read the following in full to get a sense of what is being looked for. I’ve copied below the background from the full document.

YOUTH WORK WITH YOUNG REFUGEES

 

refugees

Ta to tbo.com

 

COUNCIL OF EUROPE AND EUROPEAN UNION: YOUTH PARTNERSHIP

We invite you to write a contribution and send it to Tanya.basarab@partnership-eu.coe.int and to maria.pisani@um.edu.mt. We strongly encourage in your papers to focus on youth work with young refugees primarily – which is the main theme of the Youth Knowledge Book.

 

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO YOUTH KNOWLEDGE BOOK ON
YOUTH WORK WITH YOUNG REFUGEES

In 2015 more than a million migrants requested asylum in Europe. Efforts to block the
Mediterranean route, through controversial agreements such as the EU/Turkey deal, has
witnessed a drop in numbers. However, in the absence of safer alternatives, the Central
Mediterranean route has continued to increase, as month on month thousands of refugee and other forced migrants continue to risk their lives in an effort to cross borders, and find safety, dignity and a better life in Europe. The vast majority making this journey are young people, aged between 14 to 34 (Eurostat, 2016).

For many young refugees then, the border represents both death, and hope. The border
serves as a state instrument of control, and also as the ideological marker for the
construction of national and political identity – delineating who belongs, and who does not; who has rights, and the right to rights (Pisani, 2015). But borders are not just definite lines, they are also a messy collage of creative spaces, of relationships and stories (Sassen, 2006). The ‘young refugee’ embodies the borderlands, a liminal space between nation states and cultures, between childhood and adulthood – where different identities, cultures, ethnicities, languages and ways of knowing, imagining, and being can interact, and intersect, opening up possibilities for transformative, political spaces.

Likewise, positioned at the ‘cusp’ (Williamson, 2014), youth work can also be seen as
positioned within these borderlands – fluid, contested and diverse, the ‘borders’ of youth
work often refutes definition, offering a diverse range of motivations, purpose and
activities, ranging from civic engagement towards transformation and social justice, to
being an instrument of the state, focused on leisure activities, integration and control.

The borderlands is a space that presents competing pressures and interests, and produces conflicting responses. The youth work response will depend on the varied ways in which we imagine these spaces and how we enact them. Youth work is never complete: evolving contexts and lived realities bring new imperatives, and new questions about the role, purpose and value of youth work.

Apologies too that the formatting is not sorted properly.