1. PARTICIPATION: WHO’s IN AND
WHO’S OUT ?
by
Dr Darren Sharpe
Talk to SITRA, The Finnish Innovation Fund 16 January 2012

2. Aims of the lecture:
• Who are in and who are out and how does this affect British
society and democracy?
• What kind of factors have the most effect on how British society
works in the context of social exclusion and inclusion?
• How I see the cohesion of the British society and its future?
• My view of the recent riots in London
• What I see has the most important things that should be
improved in the British society from the perspectives of
democracy, equality and participation?

4. Conceptual framework
1. The idea of ‘citizenship’ is based on a Lockean idea of
reciprocity of ‘rights and responsibilities’.
2. Katz (2001) and Skelton (2010) idea of „unhiding‟
young people as citizens and „being political’.
3. Wyness, M. (2006) sociology of childhood and ‘agency‟
4. Thomson, R. (2002) idea of „critical moments’.
5. Henn and Weinstein (2003) work on first time voters
attitudes towards party politics in Britain.

5. Context and background:
• Public cuts
• Youth under or unemployment
• Generational apartheid
• Welfare reform
• Toxic childhoods

6. Party Politics in Britain: First coalition since WWII
Public Cuts
• Youth Services (Informal Ed)
•Connexions (Career Advice)
• Social Housing Cap
•Welfare Reform
• Universal Child Benefit abolished
•Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA)
scrapped
•Raising Retirement age 66 2020
•Raising the school leaving age 18 by 2013

7. The state of the union

8. In terms of economic well- Divisions in Britain
being, health, education Divisions
and employment British
citizens are, on average, • Rural/Urban
better off than they were •Gender inequality
20 years ago. But •Age
inequality has persisted in •Class
some areas. •Disability
•Ethnicity /‘Race’
Britain in facts and figures •Education
• 65 million population •Manufacturing /knowledge
•1 in 5 children live in based economy
poverty
•11 million children and
young people
•40 per cent of the
population 0 – 29 years
•Over 1 million young
people NEET 16-24yrs
•1 in 4 young people
involved in volunteering
work

9. Snapshot on ethnicity and „Race‟
•Almost half of all Bangladeshis and Pakistanis earn less than £7
per hour. Bangladeshis and Pakistanis have both the lowest work
rates and, once in work, the highest likelihood of low pay.
•At both 11 and 16, deprived White British boys are more likely to
fail to reach educational thresholds than either deprived White
British girls or deprived boys or girls from any other ethnic group.
•Black Caribbean pupils are three times as likely to be excluded
from school as White pupils.
•Black young adults are four times as likely as white young adults
to be in prison.
•A quarter of working-age Bangladeshi, Black Caribbean and Black
African households are workless

10. In and out of the Benefit
trap
• 8 semi-structured interviews
with support workers (no=8)
• 2 focus groups with service
managers (no=19)
• 3 focus groups with young
people (no=34 NEET, parents,
& disabled aged 17-24)
• Thematic analysis

11. After the Wagon
• Photo-elicitation
• Qualitative interviews (no=20
Roma and Gypsy adults)
• Thematic analysis

12. “Are they Bovvard?”
• 65 semi-structured
interviews (no=65 young
people)
• 10 semi-structured
interviews (no=10 youth
work practitioners)
• Analytic Induction

13. Understanding the barriers
and drivers to youth
activism?
• 1 focus group (no=16 NUS
workers)
• Systematic literature review

14. Returning to the aims of the talk:
• Who are in and who are out and how does this affect the British
society and democracy?
• What kind of factors have the most effect on how the British society
works in the context of social exclusion and inclusion?
• How I see the cohesion of the British society and its future?
• My view of the recent riots in London
• What I see has the most important things that should be
improved in the British society from the perspectives of
democracy, equality and participation?