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Engaging with Young People'sConceptions of the PoliticalTHERESE O'TOOLE aa Political Science and International Studies, University ofBirmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK E-mail:M.T.OToole@bham.ac.uk

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To cite this article: THERESE O'TOOLE (2003): Engaging with Young People's Conceptions of thePolitical, Children's Geographies, 1:1, 71-90

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Children’s Geographies, Vol. 1, No. 1, 71–90, 2003

Engaging with Young People’sConceptions of the Political

THERESE O’TOOLETherese O’Toole, Political Science and International Studies, University ofBirmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK. E-mail: M.T.OToole@bham.ac.uk

ABSTRACT In many states, there are concerns about declining levels of politicalengagement and participation among young people. Our understanding of this decline,however, is limited because much of the research on youth politics is based on a narrowconception of ‘the political’, little attempt is made to explore how people themselvesdefine politics, non-participation is not adequately problematised, and there are in-sufficient youth-specific explanations for declining participation among young people.Drawing on fieldwork carried out in Britain, I argue there is a need to develop anapproach and research methodology that engages with young people’s conceptions ofthe political.

Introduction

There is widespread concern about declining levels of political engagement and partici-pation among young people worldwide. Data from the Institute for Democracy andElectoral Assistance (IDEA) (1999) suggest that in Western Europe, the USA, Russiaand Latin America, there is a consistent pattern of young people being less involved inthe electoral process than older cohorts (with South Africa constituting a notableexception to this trend). A report commissioned by the European Union (EU) (Istitutodi Ricerca, 2001, 17) notes that ‘declining political engagement and traditional societalparticipation among youth is perceived as a threat to the future of the representativedemocracy’ and is a particular source of concern in several EU states, such as the UK,Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Austria and Luxembourg. In the UK, there wasconsternation over the turnout rate among 18- to 24-year-olds for the general election of2001, which was estimated at only 39%, compared to an overall (rather low) turnout of59.4% (Electoral Commission, 2001). These turnouts reflect a continuing downwardtrend in UK youth participation in electoral politics and resulted in some commentatorstalking of the growth of an ‘apathy generation’ (Guardian, 9 May 2001). Indeed, the UKgovernment has been so concerned about declining political and civic engagementamong young people that in 1997 it commissioned the Crick report, Education forCitizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools (Crick, 1998), which recom-mended that citizenship education should be compulsory for secondary school pupils, inorder to tackle problems of declining political and civic participation among young

ISSN 1473-3285 print; ISSN 1473-3277 online/03/010071-20 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd

DOI: 10.1080/1473328022000041670

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Therese O’Toole72

people. Since September 2002, these classes form 5% of the national curriculum inEngland and Wales.

The notion that British young people’s interest and participation in formal politics aredeclining is supported by survey research. Pirie and Worcester (1998), for instance,claim that the ‘Millennial Generation’ of young people who reached the age of 21 justbefore or just after the turn of the millennium are less involved in politics than theequivalent age group were 30 years ago, less likely to vote in national or local electionsthan older people now or young people 30 years ago and have little knowledge ofpolitics at local, national or European levels. They conclude that this generation is an‘apolitical generation’ (1998, pp. 10–11). Similarly, Park’s (1998) survey data of socialattitudes among British youth indicate that teenagers and young adults are less likely tobe involved in conventional politics, be knowledgeable about politics, have an attach-ment to any political party, or view voting as a civic responsibility.

Recent in-depth youth research studies of young Britons, however, have questionedthis view of them as politically apathetic or inactive (Henn et al., 1999; Eden and Roker,2000; White et al., 2000). These studies, drawing on qualitative methodologies, haveattempted to take a broader view of the ways in which young people engage in politicaland civic life. They suggest that young people are indeed turning away from formal,mainstream politics, but this does not mean that they are necessarily politicallyapathetic—rather young people are reasonably interested in politics and political issues,but cynical about politicians and formal mechanisms for political participation.

This gap between falling political participation on the one hand, and reportedreasonably high levels of political interest on the other, requires further explanationnevertheless. For instance, why should young people be more cynical than other agegroups about the political system? Why is it that reasonably high levels of politicalinterest coupled with cynicism about the system do not lead to higher recordedincidences of protest among young people?

In this article, I will examine the concept of youth political apathy, and its relationshipto non-participation, by focusing on the UK-based research into political participationgenerally and on youth participation particularly. Within this body of research, I arguethat there are three problems that tend to inhibit a fuller understanding of the complex-ities of youth non-participation.

The first problem is that research into political engagement tends to operate with arather narrow conception of ‘the political’, which is effectively imposed upon therespondents, due to the dominance of quantitative, survey research methods. Littleattempt is made to explore how people themselves define politics.

The second problem is that in much of the literature, non-participation is routinelyseen as evidence of political apathy, yet non-participation is a much more complexphenomenon: it is not clear why people do not participate—whether this is due to apathy,alienation, contentment or because people choose to participate in ways which researchhas not identified.

Thirdly, there are insufficient youth-specific explanations for declining politicalengagement among young people. Most of the cited reasons for why young peopleappear to be ‘tuning out’—such as cynicism about politicians, lack of choices betweenparties, dissatisfaction with local government procedures—might equally apply to adults.Yet young people not only participate less than adults, but their levels of participationare declining at a faster rate. A problem for much of the survey-based research is a lackof clarity about whether, or how, young people approach politics differently: thus, we donot have satisfactory data to explain why young people are increasingly less likely thanadults to vote, write to politicians, join a political party and so on.

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Young People’s Conceptions of the Political 73

In this article I will argue that in order to understand why young people are notengaging with formal politics at least, there is a need to: investigate young people’s ownconceptions of the political; take a more complex view of non-participation; and explorethe specific circumstances and experiences of young people.

I will address the conceptual and methodological implications of these arguments,before going on to sketch the outline of the research design of an Economic and SocialResearch Council (ESRC) project, Explaining Non-participation: Towards a FullerUnderstanding of the Political, which investigates young people’s conception of politicsand political engagement, drawing on interview-based fieldwork carried out in Birming-ham, UK.1 Drawing on some preliminary findings from this research, I will put forwardsome tentative suggestions in response to the question—what, if anything, is distinctiveabout the ways young people view and experience politics?

If the generalised concern about youth political disengagement across Europe is to befocused on re-engaging young people in politics, then the specific views and experiencesof young people need to be much better understood.2 In other words, there is a need todevelop an approach and research methodology that engage with young people’s ownconceptions of the political.

Towards a Fuller Understanding of the Political

Researching Political Engagement and Participation

A key problem of much of the mainstream literature on political engagement is that itimposes a conception of politics upon respondents. The research is typically based onsurvey methods, where researchers draw up a list of areas and activities which are takento represent political interest and participation and individuals are then asked which ofthese they have identified with or engaged in (Parry et al., 1992). Although surveys maycontain some open questions, there is relatively little opportunity for respondents toreport in their own terms. The notion of ‘the political’ is in effect imposed by theresearcher, and it is assumed that the interests and activities listed by researchers are alsoseen as political by respondents (O’Toole et al., 2003).

For instance, Park’s (1998) survey of young people’s social and political attitudescovers a wide range of social issues, including young people’s attitudes towards: theirlocal area, housing and homelessness; environment and pollution; gender roles, womenand work; education and school life; attitudes to work; political knowledge, interest andparty identity; racial prejudice and discrimination; human genetics research; age ofconsent questions; and family. Nevertheless, her investigation into ‘political interest’tends to focus on a narrow range of activities such as voting and party identification, andthe wide range of issues she investigates in the survey are not related to the investigationof levels and scope of respondents’ political interest. In other words, although the surveyseeks responses on a wide range of contentious issues, very few of them are seen aspolitical.

Henn et al.’s (1999) study uses both survey and focus group techniques to exploreyoung people’s political attitudes; although the focus group data are essentially used toaugment their survey rather than as a means of investigating respondents’ own percep-tions of politics. The questions included in both exercises focus on voting, politicians,local government, citizenship education and political literacy and their investigation isthus limited to a restricted range of political arenas. They note that young people aredisengaged from formal, mainstream politics and are more likely to participate ininformal politics. However, the distinction between these types of politics is unclear and

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their view of ‘informal politics’ is later equated with ‘minimal, politically relatedactivities’ (Henn et al., 1999, p. 42).

White et al. (2000) are critical of conventional approaches to young people’s politicalengagement that focus on voting behaviour, party identification and knowledge ofparliamentary politics.3 They are critical also of the tendency to rely on quantitativemethods, which measure young people’s attitudes rather than investigate how youngpeople view politics. They argue that: ‘[w]ithout a clear understanding of how youngpeople conceptualise political interest and engagement, it is difficult to know how theyinterpret such questions or the reasons for their responses’ (2000, p. 1). They note thatmany young people are involved in activities which may be defined as political by theresearcher, which young people themselves do not consider political, thus incurring aproblem of under-reporting of political engagement among young people. Nevertheless,their research rests on an implicit definition of politics that is not acknowledged. Thisdefinition is focused around Parliament and politicians, and their research questions areorientated around discovering levels of interest in parliamentary politics, and the waysin which these might be increased, rather than, for instance, issues connected with race,community or social exclusion. Their techniques, whilst innovative (utilising pictures,drawings and games to create an open-ended structure of inquiry), tend to conflatepolitics with current affairs.

In much of the literature, then, it is not clear how young people themselves conceiveof politics, or how their views of politics shape their views on, and experiences of,participation. In order to address this, there is a need to move away from top-down,survey-based research methodologies and to utilise qualitative methods that allow youngpeople to express their views and experiences in their own terms.

Problematising Non-participation

A second, and related, difficulty within the literature is that non-participation has beeninsufficiently problematised. This has often been a consequence of the top-downapproach found in survey research, where a narrow definition of politics translates intoa limited range of activities being defined as political participation. This is problematicbecause lack of involvement in activities specified by the researcher is not evidence ofpolitical disengagement per se. For example, Eden and Roker (2000) argue that debatesabout young people and politics habitually fail to consider areas where young people areactive. Their research suggests that certain types of youth civic participation are in factincreasing, particularly peer education, youth councils, youth run and managed projectsand peer support groups (Roker et al., 1999; Eden and Roker, 2000).

It is important to recognise conceptually that non-participation cannot be simplyequated with apathy, and also that there are actions that we might designate as ‘politicalnon-participation’, such as deliberate electoral abstention, which in the survey literaturecannot be differentiated from electoral indifference.

Viewing Young People as Distinct

With regard to the third problem regarding the lack of youth-specific explanations fordeclining political engagement, much of the mainstream literature does not take intoaccount the particular circumstances and issues that affect young people, and thereforethe ways they view politics, as they do not differentiate between the arenas in whichyoung people, as distinct from adults, might be engaged (Parry et al., 1992). The failureof the mainstream literature to attempt to differentiate between the arenas in which

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Young People’s Conceptions of the Political 75

young people are politically active means they have tended to overlook generationeffects. Generation effects arise from the fact that successive generations face newchallenges of which previous generations have no experience. Thus, the political issuesand arenas familiar to other, older, generations as foci and sites of political activity maywell have little relevance to young people (Furlong and Cartmel, 1997; Jowell and Park,1998; Buckingham, 2000).

The mainstream literature also tends to neglect life cycle effects—which arise fromthe similar constraints, choices and expectations that young people experience, whichdiffer from other age groups and which are likely to change when they themselves areno longer young. Such differences may arise from differential legal and policy statuswith regard to age of legal responsibility, assumption of voting rights, social benefitentitlements, and so on. Such differences may also arise from processes of transition,such as from education to employment, from dependency to partial dependency toindependence.

It is not clear in the literature what, if anything, is distinctive about young people’sperceptions of politics. Although some studies cite factors that act as disincentives toyoung people’s participation, such as perceived lack of choice, cynicism regarding theintegrity of politicians and so on, such factors might equally apply to adults—were it notfor the fact that more young people appear to be withdrawing from formal, mainstreampolitics than adults. It is far from clear why this is the case, or what, if anything, isdistinctive about young people’s attitudes towards politics.

Researching Young People’s Politics

So far, I have argued that in order to understand why young people are withdrawingfrom conventional forms of political participation, it is essential to investigate howyoung people themselves conceive of and experience the political, using methods whichavoid imposing a definition on the respondents and which are sensitive to the specificexperiences, constraints and opportunities faced by young people. I will sketch the mainfeatures of the research design underpinning the ESRC project on young people andpolitical participation, based at the University of Birmingham, UK, which sets out tomeet these aims.4

Methodological Implications

The aim to explore how respondents themselves conceive of the political precluded theuse of quantitative methodologies, such as structured interviews or survey methods,where the data are necessarily framed by the researchers to allow statistical analysis.Rather, we wished to generate a high level of respondent-led data, and we thereforeopted to employ qualitative interviewing techniques to allow respondents to report intheir own terms and permit ‘thick description’ (Geertz, 1993; Rubin and Rubin, 1995).

The sample of respondents was selected to include a range of young people aged16–24 years, who would provide a range of young people across four categories ofgender, ethnicity, socio-economic status and education. In order to make contact withyoung people from these groups, we worked with seven sites across the city ofBirmingham: one further education (FE) college; two secondary schools (one compre-hensive and one selective); one organisation working with young homeless people; oneorganisation which offers training and support for young offenders and those on thegovernment-sponsored New Deal scheme; undergraduates from departments outside theSchool of Social Sciences (where the researchers are based) in the University of

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Birmingham; and a Birmingham-based company employing blue and white collarworkers.

We set out to explore young people’s political engagement through two interviews:the first, group, interview sought to explore young people’s conceptions of the political;the second investigated young people’s perceptions and experiences of political partici-pation in the light of the data generated by the first interview, through in-depthinterviews with members drawn from the original group interview. This approach helpedus to avoid predicating our views of political engagement on pre-determined definitionsof politics. In this way, we set out to overcome a problem of much research highlightedabove, that is, the tendency to equate non-participation in a set of activities specified bythe researcher with political apathy.

We elected to use images within a semi-structured group interview format to exploreyoung people’s conception of the political. This was because images, more so than textor direct questions, are multi-dimensional and allow respondents to interpret topicsaccording to their own values and beliefs (Gaskell, 2000). It was important to recognise,however, that the images themselves would not be neutral with regard to the concept ofthe political. This meant that some definition of the political was inevitably embeddedwithin the images. We decided to draw on ideas and associations with very broadpolitical content, focused around themes of:

(1) identity; such as Britishness, ethnic diversity, patriotism, racism and protest (whichincluded images of: the Oldham riots; a football fan with the cross of St George (theEnglish flag) painted on his face; cricket fans with the Pakistani flag painted on theirfaces and wearing team shirts; a group of people sitting in Trafalgar Square wearinghats and shawls emblazoned with the union (British) flag; Metropolitan Policewomen wearing the hijab);

(2) socio-economic inequality; such as poverty, single-parent families and homelessness(depicted in images of: a woman and two children standing outside a tenementblock; a young mother holding a baby; a homeless hostel; a man pushing a pram andbaby in front of a terrace of boarded-up houses);

(3) political inclusion/exclusion; such as images of candidates, campaigners andprotestors (depicted in images of: a protestor shouting at a policeman; a maleelection candidate; a female election candidate; a disability rights protestor);

(4) citizenship; such as images of patriotism, social diversity, public space and publicservices (represented by images of: a school classroom with pupils from differentethnic groups; a hospital scene also depicting staff and patient from different ethnicgroups; refugees; British flags in Trafalgar Square; and a public park with the words‘no skating’ marked at its entry).

In the group interview, we asked respondents to free-associate with the images, so thatwe could gain an understanding of how the respondents viewed the images, with as littledirection from us as possible. The group dynamics facilitated the development ofconversation about the images (which was followed up in one-to-one interviews with theparticipants). Following the free-association exercise, we then asked our respondents, asa group, to conduct a simple sort of the images, according to those they considered tobe political, and those they did not (taking care to open the possibility that they mightall be one or the other) and to explain their choices. This was done both to avoid obligingrespondents to agree that the images were indeed political, and to encourage furthergroup discussion on conceptions and definitions of the political.

The data generated in the group interviews on young people’s understandings ofpolitics were analysed and followed up in individual interviews with the group interview

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Young People’s Conceptions of the Political 77

members. This was conducted through the creation of a ‘concourse’ (Dryzeck andBerejikian, 1993) of dominant themes generated in the group interview, which wereflected on in one-to-one discussions. These concourses differed substantially across thegroups, revealing the significant concerns and preoccupations within groups withdiffering demographic and socio-economic profiles. Drawing on the definitions of thepolitical developed through groupwork, we then investigated individual respondents’political engagement.

The individual interviews also comprised autobiographical discussion to gather con-textual information for analysis and to allow some comparison between respondents.This section of the interview was also used to gather information about the lifetransitions experienced by the interviewee in order to investigate how these affected theirnotions of the political. Youth research suggests that the period of transition fromchildhood to adulthood has become longer and more fragmented in the last few decades,due to changes in policies on young people’s entitlement to, and opportunities to access,education, housing and employment (Coles, 1995). Through discussion of respondents’life experiences, we set out to explore whether these social conditions had anyimplications for how young people understood and experienced politics (Jones andWallace, 1992) and whether such conditions produced different experiences of thepolitical for young people as compared with adults (Du-Bois-Reymond, 1998; Thomsonet al., 2000).

The research design has been successful in allowing us to gather data on youngpeople’s political conceptions and engagement across a very diverse sample of respon-dents and to avoid rigidly imposing a conception of the political on the respondents. Therich data generated by the interviews tell us a great deal about the ways in which youngpeople experience politics, and tend to reinforce the notion that young people are farfrom being politically apathetic. The data also reveal the ways in which politics is verymuch a lived experience for our respondents.

Results from the Field

In this section, I will present some preliminary findings from the interviews in order toaddress three, related, questions: What does politics mean to our respondents? How dothey experience politics? Do they have any distinctive political concerns or experiencesas young people?

How do Young People Conceive of Politics?

The concourses of dominant themes generated by the group discussions differedconsiderably across the groups in terms of the conceptions of the political and theconcerns that the discourses contained. They seemed to us to give an interesting insightinto the preoccupations of young people with a variety of demographic and socio-econ-omic profiles. Similarly, the sorting exercise generated lively discussions, with revealing,and often surprising, insights into how young people conceived of politics.

For instance, we conducted a group interview with seven 16-year-old males, who werea mix of white, black and mixed ethnicity,5 and had recently finished, or were comingto the end of, their school studies. These responses produced a concourse characterisedby themes of authority, lack of autonomy and exclusion from public spaces. Theirdefinition of politics in the subsequent sorting exercise included any activity in whichthey were affected by the government. Thus, they suggested that all things connectedwith the government were political and these were also heavily associated with authorityrelationships, such as with police and teachers, or coercive interventions. Their sub-

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sequent suggestions about types of political participation also reflected activities whereone was affected by government or the police, rather than activities in which oneparticipated in order to affect or influence government. So, although the group haddecided that one particular image had a campaigning purpose during the free-associationactivity (they suggested an image of boarded-up houses was intended to put pressure onthe council), they placed this image in the non-political pile during the sort.

In another group composed of South Asian, 17- to 19-year-old male and female FE(further, i.e. post-16, education) students, a much more racialised narrative about theimages emerged. This group tended to analyse all of the images in terms of issues ofracial inclusion or exclusion. The dominant themes that emerged from this group wereracism, tensions between ethnic groups, the nature of patriotism and the importance ofdifferent ethnic groups mixing in. Among the definitions of politics which emerged fromthe sort, there was the suggestion that politics was about the capacity to change things,as well as a vigorous debate about whether or not race was a political issue

We worked also with a group of New Dealers composed of men and women aged 17to 23, who were black, white and Asian, some with children, and all, by virtue of theirparticipation in the New Deal (welfare-to-work) scheme, in receipt of benefits. Theresponses of these participants to the pictures were dominated by themes of neglect andexclusion. The themes which emerged were the sense that government failed in itsduties, politicians were remote and their life chances were very much dependent on theirown resources or the support of family networks (or the lack of such support), whilstsome groups were able to unfairly claim resources (including single mothers andasylum-seekers). Interestingly, the group decided that all the images shown wereconnected with politics, justified by either the fact of coercive interventions from thegovernment or the withholding, or unfair distribution, of resources. For example, animage showing a football fan was cited as political by one respondent for two reasons:firstly, due to the police presence at football matches and their role in controlling thecrowds; and, secondly, due to the extremely high salaries paid to footballers.

We conducted the same exercise with a group of sixth-formers, aged 16 to 18, whowere all male, white and predominantly working-class. The themes that emerged fromthe free-association exercise centred around issues of race, patriotism and identity, inwhich a highly racialised, and racist, interpretation of the images emerged. Thediscussions revealed a strong concern with identity issues (manifested by a preoccu-pation with patriotism) and a sense that they were marginalised from, indeed threatenedby, current debates on race and identity. A second key theme to emerge from thisdiscussion was the strong sense of generational differences—in particular they werehighly conscious of their lack of status as young people and their exclusion from publicspaces and decision-making processes. Like the first group of young men discussedabove, they defined politics as anything to do with government, including the running ofschools, hospitals and the police. In common with the first group, their view of politicswas characterised by a sense that politics was something that affected them, but whichthey did not, or could not, affect themselves.

Interestingly, a group interview held at the same site, this time with white, working-class, 16- to 18-year-old female sixth-formers, who lived in the same mainly white area,did not produce any similar concerns with regard to race, patriotism or national identity.The young women in this group were much more concerned with issues concerning theopportunities for representation for women and viewed politics as a means of effectingchange. An additional divergence between the men and women at this site emerged inthe subsequent individual interviews. During the interviews we asked the respondents forsome autobiographical details, including their views about how they saw themselves in

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Young People’s Conceptions of the Political 79

the future. All the men saw themselves staying very close to their present homes to workand bring up families, whereas all the women stated their intention to move away topursue educational or career objectives.

A group interview with male and female, black and white, young homeless peopleliving in a ‘foyer’ type of hostel6 produced a concourse characterised by neglect andexclusion. For this group, receipt of benefits and living in temporary accommodationcreated a situation where they felt they were self-reliant but without the means ofachieving self-determination. A strong theme of the responses was that the government,or often ‘the system’, conspired against the achievement of self-determination, althoughthe group placed a great deal of importance on the ability to achieve things for oneselfwithout relying on others or the state. They suggested that politics was about being ableto express one’s views and demands, but felt there were significant constraints on theiropportunities to do so.

How do Young People Experience the Political?

In the individual interviews, we followed up the definitions of the political that wereformulated in the group sorting exercise with more personal reflections on what politicsmeant for our respondents. In these discussions, there were a number of issues which hada significant impact on how our respondents experienced the political and consequentlytheir views of politics. Racism was one such experience that shaped many of ourrespondents’ views of the political.

For instance, in one interview with a male, South Asian Muslim, from the FE collegegroup, the theme of racism and politics prompted a very considered and wide-rangingdiscussion of local, national and international politics. The interview took place shortlyafter incidences of rioting in the northern English towns of Bradford and Oldham(characterised by conflict between young Asian Muslim and white men) and duringspeculation that the right-wing British National Party (BNP) would march in Birming-ham that weekend. He reported feeling that politics had become increasingly racialiseddue, among other things, to the rise of the BNP and the riots. This perception thatrelations between ethnic groups had deteriorated was shared by other respondents fromthe same college group, and many felt that things were likely to get much worse beforethey got better:

Politics before for me was either about Conservative or Labour, nothing else. Butover the past few years [that’s changed] … now, it’s like, there is a story, ages ago,I actually found it really funny, that my dad was told that all the immigrants arecoming here now, but soon the government’s gonna fling ’em all back out again.Which I found funny, and he goes … when the Asian and black people start gettingrich and they all become successful, the poor white people are going to feelthreatened and they are going to evict us, as it were. And, everyone was justlaughing, and even my dad was laughing… But, he actually thought that, that we’dget kicked out, which I found funny. But right now, it’s not funny. Now it’s like,it could happen, with all this racism going on, maybe people will stop voting forconservatism, will stop voting for the Labour party and vote for the BNP, vote forthem and National Front will become more up-front, and they’ll get in politics, andthen all hell will break loose. And then it gets all confusing, and you say—ah, mydad was right (Male, FE college student, 19, Asian, individual interview).

The same respondent was, nevertheless, optimistic about the potential for change,arguing that the mixing in of young people was the key to future resolution of racial

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conflict, as such mixing in would equip young people to resist the bigotry of oldergenerations. In this respect, he was against the principle of faith-based, includingMuslim, schools:

…it’s all about how much people mix when they’re kids, how much kids mix withdifferent races and that’s what makes the difference when you’re older. You get toldthat black is white, or white is white, and then it’s all confusing and you just stickwith that, but when you’re younger, you can make your own mind up. As you growolder, you grow in that mixture of people, like when there are black people whoyou’ve grown up with and you think that’s not all that bad. He’s alright. Whitepeople aren’t all that bad, because he’s not bad, and I know him, and I know hisparents, I stayed over at his house one night, and no one said anything to me, andhis brothers and sisters, they’re alright, they can’t be all that bad a person as well…I think there are the ones that say—oh no, it all has to come back to religion. Youmay be Pakistani but you may be also Muslim, just because you live in this country,it doesn’t mean that you stop being a Muslim. It all comes back to the Islamicschools and all that, which drum into people that we should be separate, so that youcan’t get corrupted. And, I don’t know about that (Male, FE college student, 19,Asian, individual interview).

This perception that mixing in was crucial to resolving problems of racism was sharedby many of our respondents from across different groups. Several respondents fromdifferent ethnic backgrounds, including those who had grown up in majority Asianschools, or majority white areas (which they described as racist), expressed theirconcerns about the lack of mixing in that they had experienced themselves, and believedthat mixed schooling was crucial for overcoming prejudice. Those who had experiencedmixed schooling felt that it had contributed to the easing of tensions over racism:

I think they should by putting people into schools they should do it 50–50 soeveryone mixes in, and … by doing that all the racist remarks will stop because ata young age they’re learning how to mix in with different colours (Female, FEcollege student, 19, Asian, individual interview).

I wouldn’t say [colour] was an issue now like it was years ago. You’ll still get somepeople—oh you black this, oh you white that; it’s their ignorance basically, it’s howyou’re brought up. If you’re brought up in that atmosphere you will carry on withit, but if you’re not it isn’t, ’cos schools nowadays, they’re totally mixed. There’sa lot of wide-ranging people. You’ve got people from all over the world even andyou get children interact with different kinds of people so from that age group theygrow up knowing different things (Female, New Dealer, 19, black, individualinterview).

Interestingly, many Asian respondents reported feeling that levels of racial tension inBirmingham, in comparison to other parts of the country, were generally low, that thecity had a reasonable record on racism, and also that the council was generallyrepresentative of different ethnic groups. One Asian respondent even suggested that ‘thecouncil … it’s above all the racism, it has to be because of the area’ (male FE collegestudent, 19, Asian, individual interview).

Those white respondents who also lived in predominantly white areas, however, didnot feel that problems of racism in Birmingham had been resolved; one young white mansuggested that there was a lot of racism in Birmingham, but that it was less exposed,

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compared to northern cities, even though racist political organisations were locally veryprominent (male New Dealer, 23, white, individual interview).

Our white male respondents who attended sixth-form, in a predominantly white area,at a school where the students were also overwhelmingly white, were highly preoccupiedwith issues of race, national identity and patriotism. Their concourse and subsequentinterviews revealed high levels of racist opinions and a sense that their identity wasunder threat. They identified with being English, which they saw as a white identity andrejected, or were indifferent towards, identification with Britishness.

What is Distinctive about Young People’s Attitudes towards the Political?

As suggested above, it is not clear from the research if there are any distinctive featuresof young people’s attitudes towards politics compared with adults’ attitudes. In thissection, I would like to put forward three areas for consideration, suggested by the datawe have gathered so far.

Firstly, many of our respondents believed that they are excluded from, or marginalisedwithin, mainstream politics because they are young, and this is accompanied by arecurring sense of weak political efficacy. Secondly, there were a number of concernsand issues that our respondents discussed as being important to them that related quitespecifically to their age, or the processes of transition from young person to adult thatthey were experiencing, and there was a marked sense that these issues were inade-quately or inappropriately addressed—contributing to a weak sense of political inclusion.Thirdly, there were some suggestive data indicating that there might be a shift in theways that young people approach politics—in terms of their expectations and focus.

Young people’s sense of exclusion: the politics of being young. There was a strongtheme in many of the group and individual interviews that young people generally feltexcluded or marginalised from decision-making processes because of their age. Therewas an acute sense that young people are poorly represented at national and local levelsand with regard to decision- and policy-making, it was frequently observed that youngpeople are rarely consulted or listened to—even with respect to issues which directlyaffect them, such as the introduction of AS levels,7 the types of training courses theycould access on New Deal, decisions about local amenities or community events and soon. More worryingly, perhaps, there was a recurring sense that young people would notbe taken seriously even if they were to participate in the discussions of decision-makingbodies:

I think, say if like there is 20 people my age and they wanted a meeting with[politicians] and 20 adults wanted a meeting with them to discuss the local area, Ithink they would definitely go with the adults, and they always say on TV we listento the kids and stuff and you see the kids [being interviewed] and that, that’s onlybecause the camera is in front of them… Otherwise they wouldn’t want to know …maybe if the whole community got together and kids did gather some ideas thenmaybe but probably not, I wouldn’t have thought so anyway, but … even if theydid call meetings they wouldn’t let people our age know anyway (Male, sixth-former, 18, white, individual interview).

Many respondents felt that stereotyped and negative perceptions of young people werecommon among adults, and these acted as barriers both to young people’s entry intopolitical arenas, and also to their effectiveness within them:

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… they would kind of have the idea that the young are very sort of hot-headed, andyou know, sort of react to things as they happen, and don’t think about it ascarefully as maybe older people would, so they wouldn’t have as much respect frompeople on the council as they need to get what they wanted (Female, sixth-former,18, white, individual interview).

A number felt that they were not encouraged to participate in politics, commenting thatthey were not invited to join groups, they rarely had their opinions solicited, nor werethey provided with the information to participate:

I know I have no one talking to me about politics, I don’t know much about it, Ihave no knowledge of it, I have no one to instigate it or to, you know, say do youwant to come and vote? (Male, homeless, 21, white, individual interview).

I just don’t think young people are encouraged to show their opinions in terms ofassociating themselves with a group. Show your opinion, you know so you can sitaround in a group with someone from the government and tell them your opinion,but you can’t, it’s like you’re not encouraged to join groups (Female, sixth-former,18, white, individual interview).

Despite the sense that young people were routinely excluded from power, or mar-ginalised within political arenas, there was a common perception that young people’sperspectives and concerns needed to be represented and listened to—either becauseyoung people had experience of the issues that affected them, or because they were ableto understand their peer group better than adults, or because they were a source of freshideas and solutions. Thus there was a strong perception that representation by youngpeople for young people was crucial for having their concerns addressed (a perceptionthat applied similarly to representation by and for women and ethnic minorities):

… it’s actually working with the people, not just assuming what can help, butactually finding out, taking the time to spend with the young people, which is whatmatters today is the young people, you know, and find answers and improvements,and that’s the best way to go about it, work with the young not the old, they’remoulding the life for us, and we don’t want that, we want to mould it ourselves andall these old people are out there voting for us and they really have no idea wherethey’re going, they really have no idea what they’re doing for us. You know, theway they’re making the life for us… You need to work with younger people more,that’s what matters (Male, homeless, 21, white, individual interview).

I think younger people, kind of, when it comes to issues that involve young peopleand drugs, you know, that sort of thing, even young people that don’t, that aren’tinvolved in that kind of thing, because they are in, they might be in the environmentwhere they know it happens, they’re the kind of better people to ask over how youwould solve those issues, rather than someone, you know, sat in an officesomewhere in London in a suit, you know, that’s not there, or remembers maybewhat it was like when they were young and how to deal with it from that point ofview. You need kind of a more up-to-date thing (Female, sixth-former, 18, white,individual interview).

Typically, our respondents stated they were unlikely to vote either in local, national orEuropean elections, concurring with survey data on young people’s disinclination to voteand their levels of electoral abstention, as well as with data from polls in the run-up to

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the general election which showed that only 20% of young people stated they were‘certain to vote’. Nevertheless, several felt that the voting age was set too high:

…we can’t vote until we’re 18, so a lot of people say well our opinion doesn’t countthen because, you know, we’re not supposed to vote until we’re 18 (Female,sixth-former, 18, white, individual interview).

…you should be younger as well, should be younger, What’s this 18 thing? … 16’sold enough, if 16’s old enough for you to move out of your yard, and look after ayard and pay rent and work, why are you not old enough to vote? That is pathetic,do you know what I mean? (Male, homeless, 21, white, individual interview).

The ability to vote at 18, however, did not contribute to any sense among ourrespondents that their views had become more meaningful or respected. The lack of avote at 16 and 17 was viewed as confirmation of the lack of regard that adults andpoliticians have for young people, whilst the ability to vote did not confer any sense ofpolitical empowerment or efficacy.

The distinctive political concerns of young people. As stated above, it is unclear whatif anything is distinctive about young people’s political concerns compared with othercohorts. Many issues that are traditionally seen as being of concern to young people,such as the environment or animal rights, do not seem to occupy a particularly prominentposition in the data generated by recent research (Henn et al., 1998), indeed these issueswere not mentioned by our respondents as issues of political interest or concern. Anumber of common concerns were expressed across our groups, however, which wereviewed by our respondents as political, such as concerns about racism, sexism (findingssimilar to those in Park’s analysis), problems with public services, crime and so on.There were also a number of issues that concerned our respondents that seemed to relatespecifically to their experiences as young people in transition to adulthood, such asteenage sex, pregnancy and parenthood, problems in accessing employment, training oreducation, and a lack of resources within local communities for young people, whichthey regarded as political issues as revealed in the discussions during the sortingexercises and follow-up interviews.

For example, many discussions about the political aspects of young people’s experi-ences of and views about teenage sex, pregnancy and parenthood were prompted by animage of a young woman holding a baby. All of our respondents interpreted the imageas that of a teenage single mother, and nearly all decided that this image portrayed apolitical issue, for a variety of reasons. For some, this was about the lack of materialsupport from the state for single mothers, with many commenting on hardship as ageneralised aspect of teenage parenthood due to insufficient benefits, inadequate housingand the lack of support to pursue education or employment. Others felt this was apolitical issue due to the unwillingness of the state or schools to equip young people withthe information and self-confidence to deal with, or avoid getting into, such a situation.Many suggested that the government and the educational system failed to inform peopleof the practical or emotional aspects of sexual relationships, and the responsibilities ofparenthood:

… there definitely needs to be something done about that. Education… you know,not enough education to do with sex. You get taught about your reproduction organsand stuff like… the Fallopian tubes and the ovaries and the eggs and stuff like that:how do you like them—scrambled or fertilised? Yeah, but something definitely

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needs to be done about that, you know what I mean? And it’s not just down to theparents, it’s down to the government as well, the educational system (Male, NewDealer, 23, white, parent, individual interview).

…sex education in school, it’s too basic, what they tell you is, oh the sperm doesthis, the egg does that, it doesn’t actually tell you the whole process of what canhappen, will happen, if you have unprotected sex and all the rest of it, it’s just mad(Female, New Dealer, 19, black, individual interview).

A number of respondents also felt there was a social resistance towards addressing thisissue adequately—with an unwillingness on the part of adults generally to speak toyoung people about sex in a frank or relevant way—a view reflected in research intoyoung people’s experiences of sex and relationship education and information (Dennisonet al., 2002):

…the English prudence, the stiff-upper lip, try to ignore it, but you know it’s aneveryday thing. There’s a baby born every minute … and then they start complain-ing when their kids get pregnant at 13, 14 … They know it’s going on, but theydon’t want to believe it’s going on (Male, New Dealer, 23, white, parent individualinterview).

There was a very clearly gendered aspect to the views expressed about the politics ofteenage parenthood. Women, particularly, tended to blame poor levels of generaleducation for early pregnancies, and considered the blow that this represented toacquiring further educational achievements as especially debilitating for women. Whilstmany were critical of those women who had begun families at a young age, they alsoblamed the government for doing too little for women in this situation and felt that thegovernment preferred to dump single mothers onto benefits, rather than do anything tocultivate their educational aspirations. The disproportionate responsibility borne byyoung women in this situation was a political issue for many, with both men and womencommenting on the state’s culpability for the negative impact that teenage pregnancy hadon the life chances of young women and the children of teenage or single parents.

With regard to problems in accessing employment, training or education, many feltthat the state did not do enough to support young people. Government-supported youthemployment schemes and supported employment opportunities, for instance, wereregarded as very poorly paid and exploitative, with the types of employment options andtraining offered as too narrow, and often acting as disincentives to come off benefit.Furthermore, where the outcomes were not successful, many people felt that the costs offailure were very high:

…get a training course, where you’re gonna earn crap money, but you still work foryour giro [welfare cheque] and you work 40 hours a week and you are only gettingyour giro, or get a job for £3.60, for your national minimum wage and you haveto work a couple of years before you get experience, which is pants. It shouldn’tbe like that. There’s always moaning that you need experience and that, but noone’s willing to take you on to give you the experience, unless you work on aModern Apprenticeship, it’s just no good. And you want a Modern Apprenticeshipand you’re taking home £45 a week and you’re doing 40 hours, you know, that’slike £1.10 an hour, you know, that wouldn’t encourage me to work, to be honest.I wouldn’t wanna work 40 hours for 45, I’d just be thinking, I’d just be dossing tobe honest … they’re doing more apprenticeships and that, instead of just trying toclaim dole and getting crappy jobs working in factories and then later on

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in life realising that they don’t want it, and then having to go to college whenthey’re 20, 30 and that. The government should definitely do something about that(Male, New Dealer, 23, white, individual interview).

… then I lost my job and that’s how it goes… And it’s hard to pick yourself backup after that, because it was like I give it my all, you know, I got my flat, everythingwas nice… and your job’s working out, your train is getting there, and then you fallill, and then you’ve got no money because you get the sack and you’re in arrearswith housing benefit, I was in all that, normally had no food, everything justcrashed down, it was like harder, I’d give it my all, I did my best and this is howit has ended up. It’s the instability that I’m left with (Male, homeless, 21, white,individual interview).

Whilst the young people participating in the New Deal scheme that we spoke to werepositive about the centre that they attended, and generally of the New Deal advisors, theytended to be quite critical of the framework of the scheme, as well as other government-supported training:

…this New Deal thing that Tony Blair has come up with, it’s not for everybody,it does not suit everybody’s needs. It basically puts everybody in a little box andexpects them to go either this way or that way. It doesn’t work for everybody…You have to treat people as individuals, not just a little group so that everybodydoes have the opportunity to do something (Female, New Dealer, 19 black,individual interview).

Many felt that the options available on the New Deal scheme, particularly with regardto the type and range of training on offer, were insufficient. Some felt that the schemeacted as a barrier to the career aspirations, and pigeon-holed them.

The lack of resources for young people within their local communities was also asource of concern for many: especially, but not exclusively, for young men. Manycommented on the lack of youth centres or their inability to access local communitycentres. For some this was an issue that affected young people in terms of theirlikelihood to become involved in crime. For others, there was a sense that the lack oflocal resources and community facilities for young people discouraged their inclusionwithin local affairs; commonly this was associated with their exclusion from local spacesand having a say about how resources could be used to benefit their age groups:

I think [the reason why there aren’t enough facilities for young people is] mainlybecause of the politicians, there’s no real young ones, in our area anyway. I thinkthe women… in our area who was trying to go for it last year, and she was forLabour, I think she won it, and she’s 45–50 herself, she’s got the experience, butshe’s too old, she doesn’t realise what youth is like today. She just puts herself backto where she was young, you know, but times have changed. Like crimes comingup and everything. They need a centre somewhere, 20 hours a day I’d say 6 daysa week, cut the crime down (Male, sixth-former, 18, white, individual interview).

A shift in young people’s political culture? Some recent studies (Wilkinson and Mulgan,1997; Pirie and Worcester, 2000) have claimed that a generational shift in youngpeople’s political culture is taking place, which makes their views and expectationsdifferent to those of previous cohorts. The question of whether generational shifts are atwork, however, is a contentious one. Frazer (1999) argues that in the UK, ‘the subjectof young people and politics is a focus for recurring anxiety’ and has been characterisedby a history of waves of moral panics. She suggests that: ‘the suspicion that cohort

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effects are at work has often generated renewed research and campaigning effort in thearea of political education but has seldom been strongly supported by evidence’ (Frazer,1999, p. 7). In the absence of longitudinal data, it is difficult to establish whether anyshifts are occurring within young people’s political culture, but I wish to suggest threeareas for consideration, which might be relevant for further comparative temporal orcohort studies.

The first suggestion for consideration is the possibility that young people, perhapsmore than previous cohorts, feel that they are not consulted about decisions or policies,but ought to be. Among our respondents, there was a recurring view that they should beapproached and that their views and levels of satisfaction with political decisions shouldbe solicited:

As far as the government overall, I think they haven’t listened to young people interms of the AS levels, because from day one everyone was saying this is nevergoing to work, and they haven’t listened to us… And I think that the governmentdidn’t think it through at all, I don’t think that enough young people were consulted,I don’t know if young people were consulted about it at all. I know I wasn’t askedmy opinion, it was just sprung upon us … I think that we have made our voicesheard, but I don’t think they’ve taken it on board. I don’t think they’ve listened(Female, sixth-former, 18, white, individual interview).

A second area for consideration is the importance that our respondents seemed to attachto local issues and opportunities for participation at a local level. Thus, those who hadactual experience of political participation tended, overwhelmingly, to have participatedin local community actions such as protesting for the introduction of speed-bumps aftera young child had been killed on a dangerous stretch of road, or lobbying the councilto clean up a children’s playground, or a community action to demolish a building usedby injecting heroin-users located on a children’s playground. Our respondents’ views ofsuch actions were highly positive, and such views were in sharp distinction to thenegative views from many of our respondents towards national or mainstream politics.Participation in local issues or campaigns tended to create a positive perception of thelocal council—even, in one case, when the action involved a protest against the council:

I’d put my name on a petition, I’d go to a rally in the city centre or something. Butthat would be it. When it came down to mainstream politics, no. Because, in thecommunity, when you campaign for something like a park, you would get parentswho are black, white, Asian, everything. Then there is no racism, it’s all about thekids. And, it doesn’t matter how racist you are, your kids came first, or they should,and it doesn’t matter. We are all doing good for the greater good of the communityand it doesn’t matter at all. But anything that goes into large-scale, I don’t want tobe a part of. I wouldn’t like to be a part of it… when you get into mainstreampolitics, you’re fighting against people… There was no, we were all against oneperson, we were against the council, we were forcing the council to do the park up,and that would be it, and the council there’s no, we don’t see the council as beingracist at all, because it’s the council… and the council doesn’t get racist—not likepolitics at all (Male, FE college student, 19, Asian, individual interview).

During the course of an interview with a group of seven female sixth-formers, nearly allfrom the group stated they would not vote in general elections even if they were oldenough, yet all of them stated that they would have voted in a recent local referendumon a proposal to transfer housing stock from Birmingham City Council to housingassociation ownership, and they all would have voted against the proposal. This group,

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at least, were highly politicised by the campaign to block the transfer, even though theywere ineligible to vote. As one suggested: ‘at least you know you’ve got ’em, withBirmingham City Council, if you need a repair done you go to them, you complain tothem, but when you’ve just got one landlord, then you’re just stuck with that one person’(female sixth-former, 17, white, group interview participant). Similarly, respondents whohad little interest in voting were considerably more interested in participating ininitiatives to enhance activities and resources for young people at a local level.

Thirdly, the responses across all groups tended to reflect a belief that politiciansshould be broadly representative of social and demographic diversity. Whilst there wasa dominant perception that politicians were generally remote and disconnected from thelives of ordinary, and especially young, people, this was exacerbated for most byinadequate numbers of black, Asian, female or young politicians. For example, onerespondent suggested that problems of racism were exacerbated by the poor visibility ofethnic minorities at a national level and because politicians did not mix across ethnicgroups. He suggested this was necessary for change to occur. Several young womencomplained that there were too few women in politics, and perceived politics asdominated by men and a male culture that was not welcoming or accessible to women.Many felt that politicians were not closely identified with the areas they sought torepresent. The sense that politicians are not socially representative tended to have anegative impact on our respondents’ views about their own abilities to participatemeaningfully in politics or to have their opinions taken seriously.

If the politicians started mixing with different races, they might understand aboutwhat people actually need, and maybe they could make a difference (Male, FEcollege student, 19, Asian, group interview).

…then you hear them speak and they don’t even have the accent of the area theylive in that they are supposed to be representing. That’s stupid, how can yourepresent somewhere if you probably do a fly-by visit in your car and then toddleoff back to your nice little mansion? (Female, New Dealer, 19, black, groupinterview).

…you get a youthful politician say in their early 20s, late 20s, yeah, she could help.But someone who’s 40, 50 seeing themselves as having their own views, I mean,they don’t like the kids nowadays, they just see them as just scallies [i.e. idle anddishonest] or something. But, I think that a young politician would benefit the kids(Male, sixth-former, 18, white, individual interview).

Conclusion: Reflections on Young People’s Politics

In this article, I have argued that the relationship between non-participation and politicalapathy is not as clear-cut as much of the research assumes, and that there is a need toexplore how young people themselves conceive of politics through the use of qualitativemethods, which seek to avoid imposing a narrow conception of politics on respondents.

By moving from surveying young people’s attitudes towards a limited range ofpolitical issues and arenas to conducting in-depth exploration of young people’s viewsand experiences, we can begin to develop a much more nuanced understanding of therelationship between young people’s conceptions of the political and their engagementand interest in politics. For instance, the data from the group interviews with young menreveal their very low levels of political efficacy, connected with their view of politics asa series of authority relationships, in which they saw themselves as having only a passive

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role. We can also see the ways in which young people, particularly the Asian and femalerespondents, view politics as a site or mechanism for achieving change, whilst perceivingfew opportunities for participation at a national level, due to the lack of visible womenand ethnic minorities in national politics.

With regard to the relationship between declining participation in politics and politicalengagement, the data tend to suggest that young people are very far from beingpolitically apathetic and are, in fact, highly articulate about the political issues that affecttheir lives, as well as about the disconnection between these and mainstream politics.Listening to the young women who would not consider voting in general elections, yetwho argued passionately about local housing issues, it seems clear that political apathydoes not adequately account for their resistance to voting. The very strong sense amongmany of the respondents that they are marginalised or excluded from political decision-making or debates suggests that their non-participation can only perversely be attributedto apathy.

With regard to the question, posed in the introduction, of whether there is anythingdistinctive about young people’s politics, models of youth transitions assist us inunderstanding the specific concerns that may affect young people as they experiencevarying levels of partial independence, for example when young people become parents,students or trainees. There was a clear sense among our respondents that their concernswere not being addressed by politicians, and few perceived any mechanisms forinvolvement to bring about change.

Some clear themes emerged from the interviews with regard to young people’s viewsof politics. The first was the importance that our respondents attached to consultation,with many feeling that consultation ought to be an integral part of the political process.Secondly, many felt that the social diversity they experienced in their local communitieswas not reflected by politicians and this was construed as indicative of an exclusivepolitical culture. Finally, many respondents expressed an interest in, and attachedimportance to, local involvement. This latter theme suggests opportunities for furtherresearch, particularly given the antipathy many felt towards mainstream politics; itcannot be assumed that experience of politics at a local level inducts young people intoinvolvement in politics more generally.

Acknowledgements

ESRC award L215252015: Explaining Non-participation: Towards a Fuller Understand-ing of the ‘Political’. I am grateful to the ESRC for their support for this research. I wishalso to express my thanks to the two anonymous reviewers of this article for theirconstructive comments and insights.

Notes

1. ‘Young people’ here are defined, in line with the definition used by the British Youth Council, as all thoseaged between 16 and 24 years of age.

2. See European Council Resolution 1999/C 42/01. The European Commission is funding a major comparativeresearch project examining youth participation across 10 EU states: ‘Political Participation of Young Peoplein Europe—Development of Indicators for Comparative Research in the EU’ (EUYOUPART, 2003–2006).

3. For further work on political participation among young people below the voting age, see Riepl andWintersberger (1999).

4. For a more detailed discussion of the methodology employed in this research, particularly with regard toissues of recruitment, choice of group and individual interviews, use of images and interview analysis, seeO’Toole et al. (2003).

5. I have here employed a broad categorisation of respondents’ ethnicity: thus ‘black’ in this context refers to

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participants of black African or Caribbean origin; ‘white’ refers to participants of white Irish, Scottish,Welsh or English origin; and ‘Asian’ refers to participants of Pakistani, Afghanistani, Bangladeshi or Indianorigin. The distinctive aspects of participants’ identities were explored in the individual interviews, such ashow they chose to describe themselves, how they negotiated their identities, and the aspects of their identitywhere they felt strong affiliations, conflicts or confusion.

6. This type of accommodation is made available to young homeless people on condition that they undertakeeducation or training.

7. In 2001 the Department for Education phased out the standard post-16 qualification, the A (Advanced) level(based on a two-year full-time course) and replaced it with a two-tier qualification, comprising the AS andA2 levels (where the one-year AS course results in a stand-alone qualification, which may lead to entry toa further one-year A2 course to achieve a full A level). This reform was not piloted and the first generationof completers received their results in 2002 amid controversy over the marking criteria and allegations thatthousands of students had been unfairly marked down. Following remarking of over 90 000 entries, 1945students were awarded higher grades; see Department for Education and Skills news release:www.dfes.gov.uk/qualifications/news.cfm?page � 0&id � 89 (accessed 15 October 2002).

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