Building on Young People's Experiences of Economic Adversity

197 Pages·2012·1.91 MB·English

by  Jennifer Skattebol

Making a Difference: Building on Young People’s
Experiences of Economic Adversity

FINAL REPORT

Jennifer Skattebol, Peter Saunders, Gerry Redmond, Megan Bedford and
Bettina Cass

Social Policy Research Centre
University of New South Wales
August 2012
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ISSN: 1446-4179
ISBN: 978-0-7334-3172-2
Published: August 2012

The views expressed in this publication do not represent any official position on the part of the Social
Policy Research Centre, but the views of the individual authors.
MAKING A DIFFERENCE: FINAL REPORT
Research Team:
Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales
Professor Peter Saunders, Professor Bettina Cass, Dr Gerry Redmond* (Chief Investigators),
Dr Jen Skattebol, Megan Bedford (nee Griffiths).

Partner Investigators:
The Brotherhood of St Laurence: Janet Taylor
The Smith Family (formerly at Mission Australia): Anne Hampshire
The University of Bath: Dr Tess Ridge
* Gerry Redmond is now at the School of Social and Policy Studies, Flinders University of
South Australia

Contact for follow up:
Jen Skattebol, Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney NSW
2052, Ph: [phone], [email protected]
MAKING A DIFFERENCE: FINAL REPORT
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, we thank all the young people who generously shared their stories
and insights about economic adversity. We have also benefitted enormously from the insights
of the parents we interviewed, who helped us understand the complexities of raising children
on low incomes.
Speaking with these young people would not have been possible without the energy and
support of service providers in our Partner Organisations (see below), and in schools. Our
insights into young people‟s social contexts was further enhanced by the generosity of service
providers in services not directly involved with this project who generously gave their time to
help us understand local service systems. In particular, we thank the youth workers in our
intensive case study site for their on-going generosity towards us and their substantial
insights into the lives of disadvantaged young Australians.
Representatives from our Partner Organisations have supported our methods and analysis and
collaborated intellectually with us to develop an approach to this research that has rigour, an
interdisciplinary base, is rooted in practical experience and is policy relevant. They have
provided comments on the contents of this report, but the authors remain solely responsible
for the views expressed and any errors of fact or interpretation.
We also thank the interns who have worked on the project Bella Partridge, Tarsha Garvin,
and Krishna Dermawan for the time and effort they have contributed. Finally, we thank
Elizabeth Adamson who stepped in with advice and assistance a number of times and Denise
Thompson for assistance with editing and formatting.
The project grew out of a seeding grant provided by ARACY, and received financial
assistance from the Australian Research Council (ARC) under its Linkage Projects Grants
scheme (project LP0882352). Additional cash and in-kind support was provided by the
following Partner Organisations: The Association of Children‟s Welfare Agencies; Australian
Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations; Brotherhood
of St Laurence; Mission Australia; South Australia's Social Inclusion Initiative and
Department for Education and Child Development; The Smith Family; and the Victorian
Government Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. The project also
benefited from the input provided by three expert advisors: Professor Jan Mason, Professor
Margot Prior and Professor Ilan Katz.
MAKING A DIFFERENCE: FINAL REPORT
Contents
1. Introduction and Background ............................................................................ 1
2. Theoretical Foundations ..................................................................................... 7
3. Methods .............................................................................................................. 15
4. Experiencing and Coping with Economic Disadvantage ............................... 33
5. Locational Disadvantage ................................................................................... 49
6. Quality of Home, Neighbourhood and School Environments ....................... 83
7. Social Networks, Belonging and Obligation .................................................... 93
8. Economic Exclusion and Educational Disadvantage ................................... 113
9. School Organisation, Pedagogy and Economic Inequality .......................... 125
10. Pathways In and Out of Participation in Education and Work .................. 145
11. Conclusions and Policy Implications ............................................................. 165
Appendix A: Demographic Survey.......................................................................... 171
Appendix B: Neighbourhood Activity Sheet and Socio-gram .............................. 173
References .................................................................................................................. 175
MAKING A DIFFERENCE: FINAL REPORT
List of Tables
Table 3-1: Total Number of Participants by Data Collection Method..................................... 23
Table 3-2: Number of Participants by State ............................................................................. 23
Table 10-1: Characteristics of early school leavers ............................................................... 145

List of Figures
Figure 3-1: Cultural Background of Young People by Gender ............................................... 24
Figure 3-2: Number of participants by age .............................................................................. 24
Figure 3-3: Number of participants by family income type .................................................... 25
Figure 4-1: Jessica‟s Diagram of her Living Arrangements .................................................... 38
Figure 5-1: Number of participants by location ....................................................................... 59
Figure 5-2: SEIFA Indexes for Low Cost Mortgage Belt Suburbs and Surrounds ............... 61
Figure 5-3: SEIFA Indexes for Isolated Pocket Suburbs and Surrounds................................. 62
Figure 5-4: SEIFA Scores for Region of Disadvantage Suburbs and Surrounds .................... 63
Figure 5-5: SEIFA Scores for Middle Ring Transit Suburbs and Surrounds ......................... 64
Figure 5-6:Vanessa‟s Opportunity Context ............................................................................. 65
Figure 5-7: Texas‟ Opportunity Context.................................................................................. 67
Figure 5-8: Henri‟s Opportunity Context ................................................................................ 68
Figure 5-9: Casey‟s opportunity context.................................................................................. 71
Figure 5-10: Tessa‟s opportunity context ................................................................................ 72
Figure 5-11: Mitch‟s opportunity context ................................................................................ 74
Figure 5-12: Amanda-May‟s opportunity context ................................................................... 76
Figure 7-1: Tessa‟s sociogram ................................................................................................. 96
Figure 7-2 Diana's Sociogram ................................................................................................ 104
Figure 7-3 Emily's Sociogram ............................................................................................... 108
Figure 8-1: The Compounding Effects of Concentrations of Disadvantage.......................... 117
MAKING A DIFFERENCE: FINAL REPORT
Abbreviations
ABS Australian bureau of Statistics
ARACY Australian Research Alliance on Children and Youth
ARC Australian Research Council
CD (census) collector district
GFC Global financial crisis
HILDA Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey
HREC University of New South Wales Human Research Ethics Committee
IEO Index of Education and Occupation
IRSD Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage
NGO Non-government organisation
NPYAT National Partnership on Youth Attainment and Transitions
NSW New South Wales
OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
SEIFA Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas
SLA Statistical local area
SPRC Social Policy Research Centre
TAFE Technical and further education
UNICEF United Nations Children‟s Fund
UNSW University of New South Wales
VET Vocational education and training
YMCA Young Men‟s Christian Association
MAKING A DIFFERENCE: FINAL REPORT
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Introduction and Background
The Making a Difference Project was designed to explore the perceptions of children and
young people (aged between 11 and 17 years) who experience economic adversity in order to
understand what it means to them, how they experience exclusion in the family, at school,
and in the communities where they live, and identify what services they think can make a
difference.
The project adopted a rights perspective which emphasises the importance not only of
listening to children, but of using their perspectives in making decisions on matters affecting
them.
Over 130 interviews with children and their parents, and with teachers and service providers
were analysed to explore implications for the quality, design and delivery of social,
educational and other services available to young people facing economic adversity. Key
themes identified in recent international research guided the development of the project and
influenced how the interviews with the children and young people were conducted and how
the data they produced were analysed.
Theoretical Foundations
The project is located within two major theoretical traditions. The first relates to research on
poverty and social exclusion. The second relates to the concept of the young person as an
active agent who responds to and constructs her social environment.
As the interviews with young people in Making a Difference show, economic adversity does
not visit people in single variants but in multiple forms. In many cases, young people face not
only economic disadvantage but also complex domestic lives, caring and other
responsibilities, unsafe neighbourhoods, sub-standard schooling, and few options for out-of-
school activities.
The young people in Making a Difference experienced both active (external) and passive
(internal) exclusion but responded to this in often highly creative ways. These responses – the
practice of agency – are to a large extent structured by the environments that they inhabit.
Methods
Researching experiences and viewpoints on economic adversity requires trust, as well as
techniques that will support young people to talk openly about difficult, sensitive and often
complex issues. The methodology adopted enabled us to gather insights into young people‟s
experiences whilst taking into consideration their vulnerability, while acknowledging that
accessing and engaging with them can be challenging.
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MAKING A DIFFERENCE: FINAL REPORT
We focussed on accessing an economically disadvantaged sample that reflected: cultural
diversity; a range of ages; gender balance; neighbourhood diversity; and different levels of
targeted or universal service use.
A total of 8 sites were selected across Australia, 2 in New South Wales, 3 in Victoria and 3 in
South Australia. We recruited young people through organisations that provide services to
clients who show their eligibility through means testing, or by accessing young people who
lived in areas of concentrated economic disadvantage.
Between October 2008 and March 2010, 96 young people participated in interviews and/or
group work, 13 parents and carers participated in interviews and 24 service providers
participated in group work.
Among these, some participated through an intensive case study at a site in the Sydney region
which we were able to visit regularly over the course of the project. Our contact with the
community at this site has been critical to our understandings of the complexities of the
young people‟s lives, and for thinking about how similar complexities may play out in other
sites.
The focus of the study was on better understanding the experience of economic adversity and
exclusion as perceived by young people and to locate that experience within the various
networks around which their lives are structured – primarily, family, neighbourhood and
school, and in some cases, the labour market.
The findings in this report aim to describe the underlying circumstances, perceptions and
motivations that drive the processes that produce outcomes for young people growing up in
the shadow of economic adversity and (for some) in neighbourhood decline.
Experiencing Economic Disadvantage
Many of the young people who were interviewed lived with only one of their biological
parents, but maintained contact with the other, and also with other members of their extended
families. Many of these families were large and close-knit, with older siblings and distant
relatives moving in and out, making it difficult to identify any definitive structure of the
household at any point in time. For many young people from diverse ethnic backgrounds,
large extended families were the norm.
Many participants who had experienced on-going economic disadvantage expressed a narrow
range of desires and interests. Adapted preferences is a phrase used to refer to the tendency to
deny that one wants things that one cannot have, and that others consider customary. The
evidence suggests that where young people regularly experienced the pain of missing out on
experiences and activities accessible to their peers, they narrowed their interests and desires
as a mechanism of self-protection or to protect their parents from the anguish of having to say
„no‟.
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MAKING A DIFFERENCE: FINAL REPORT
For some young people, pocket money was their only source of income, although most did
not receive any pocket money at all. Most realised that completing domestic chores provided
them with some money of their own that they could use to attend school excursions, and
participate in local sports and peer activities like going to the movies and to the shops. Only
about a tenth of those we talked to were actually in formal employment. Of these, the
majority worked in fast-food outlets.
Some young people appeared to have a good knowledge of the workings of the labour
market, and the steps they needed to take to get a job. Young people living in jobless families
often appeared to have little idea about work requirements.
Locational Disadvantage
The study adopted a concept of neighbourhood that begins with spatial and administrative
delineation but takes into account the subjective views and daily practices of the young
people, as well as local labour and leisure markets and services that cross geographic and
administrative boundaries.
Four suburb types were differentiated among the eight sites where we carried out our
fieldwork. The first three of these are located in the outer suburbs on the fringes of
Australia‟s capital cities, and are likely to be oriented towards their own metropolitan hub
where there are key amenities, including Centrelink offices, major retailers and further
education services. The fourth suburb type was not geographically isolated, and often had
significant transport, social and economic infrastructure.
Young people‟s accounts of their participation in organised activities drew attention to the
value of these activities in broadening young people‟s horizons and developing networks, and
in the development of tacit workforce skills. When compared across neighbourhood types,
these stories highlight the uneven distribution of opportunities, and the processes that exclude
some young people from participation in the structures that are available.
The underlying processes of inclusion or exclusion differ according to the social
demographics within and surrounding the immediate neighbourhood, which implies that
tailored policy responses are needed.
Quality of Home, Neighbourhood and School Contexts
Young people were particularly concerned with the quality of their home, leisure and learning
environments and consistently expressed the desire for these environments to be adequately
maintained, safe and free of vandalism. These environments were interconnected and poor
quality environments in one domain had flow-on effects in other domains.
Generally, young people spoke positively about their home environments and the importance
of their „home‟ to them. Home conveyed a sense of pride, a place filled with stories,
memories, family and friends.
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