Seminar: Centre for Child and Youth Research

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Seminar Programme

Chair Professor Nicola Madge, Centre for Child and Youth Research, Brunel University

10.30–10.50am Refreshments

10.50–10am Welcome to the seminar

11–11.45am
How are young people faring in the Big Society?
Kathy Evans, Deputy Chief Executive of Children England

The ‘Big Society’ was introduced, with some flurry, as a central plank of the coalition government ethos and represents David Cameron’s aspiration to shift power, responsibility and decision making from the state to individuals, neighbourhoods or ‘the lowest possible tier of government’.  This presentation offers a view from the voluntary sector on what the ’Big Society’ means to its youngest members. Currently there are very few areas in which children or young people feature specifically in the government’s plans, opportunities for involving them appear to have been missed, and many pre-existing youth involvement mechanisms have recently been cut. How can this paradoxical situation be reversed?

11.45am–12.30pm
One step forward, one step back? Coalition policy on young people in conflict with the law
Dr Jonathan Ilan, Lecturer in Criminology, University of Kent

Youth justice policy in England and Wales is in a state of uncertainty and transition. As the Coalition Government formulates new legislation, the prospect of a move away from an emphasis on risk assessment, constraining performance indicators and high rates of incarceration has been greeted with cautious optimism by some. It is not clear, however, how much of this planned reform will materialise given the 2011 riots, service-threatening austerity, conflicting political imperatives between senior Ministers as well as a press and public that are frequently seen as calling for tougher punishments. This paper reflects on the current condition of youth justice and speculates on potential future developments.

12.30–1.15pm Lunch

1.15–2pm
Children poverty and the media: lessons for the coalition government?
Malcolm Dean, former Social Policy Editor of The Guardian

Child poverty is very much still on the political agenda. The coalition government has pledged to maintain the previous government’s goal of ending child poverty by 2020 and published its national strategy in April 2011. However George Osborne's Autumn Statement cancelled a previously pledged increase in child tax credit which Treasury papers suggest will increase child poverty in 2012. In an earlier report, the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies also forecast a growth in child poverty. Can a media campaign help to correct these reverses? This presentation looks at how the media reports poverty and the pressures that it can apply on governments.

2-2.45pm
The social construction of young people within coalition education policy
Professor Rachel Brooks, School of Sport and Education, Brunel University

The Coalition government has committed itself to tackling what it sees as ‘the sexualisation of childhood’. This has included the development of the ‘Parentport’ website and the introduction of new parental controls on internet pornography - both launched with much publicised personal support from the Prime Minister. This presentation contrasts the academic critique of the meaning of childhood in general, and girlhood in particular, implicit in initiatives such as these with the lack of any comparable analysis in other areas of coalition policy such as education policy. What do coalition policies reveal about the government’s understandings and constructions of youth?

2.45–3pm Refreshments

3-3.45pm
What do young people themselves think? What are the most important issues facing young people now, and how do they think the coalition government is responding to them? Young Members of Parliament have been invited to contribute to a session that puts young people’s voices centre stage.

3.45-4.30pm
Other contributions, further discussion and final comments: this will include short presentations from Kate Byford, postgraduate student at Brunel University, and Mark Kerr, postgraduate student at the University of Kent.

4.30pm End of seminar