Dealing with disaffection : young people, mentoring, and social inclusion

238 Pages·2005·4.388 MB·English

by  Young, Tara, Shiner, Michael, Newburn, Tim

Dealing with
Disaffection
Young people, mentoring
social inclusion
and
Tim Newburn
and
WILLAN
Michael Shiner
PUBLISHING
Dealing with Disaffection

Dealing with Disaffection
Young people, mentoring and social inclusion
Tim Newburn and Michael Shiner
with Tara Young
WILLAN
PUBLISHING
Published by
Willan Publishing
Culmcott House
Mill Street, Uffculmc
Cullompton, Devon
EX15 3AT, UK
Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
e-mail: [email protected]
website: www.willanpublishing.co.uk
Published simultaneously in the USA and Canada by
Willan Publishing
c/o ISBS, 920 NE 58th Ave, Suite 300,
Portland, Oregon 97213-3786, USA
Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
e-mail: [email protected]
website: www.isbs.com
© Tim Newburn and Michael Shiner 2005
The rights of Tim Newburn and Michael Shiner to be identified as the authors of this book
have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of
1988.
All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Publishers or a licence
permitting copying in the UK issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90
Tottenham Court Road, London W1P9HE.
ISBN 1-84392-065-4 Paperback
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Project managed by Deer Park Productions, Tavistock, Devon
Typeset by GCS, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, LU7 1AR
Printed and bound by T.J. International Ltd, Trecerus Industrial Estate, Padstow, Cornwall
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
List of figures and tables xiii
1 Introduction 1
2 Youth disaffection 4
Introduction 4
The meaning of disaffection 6
Educational under-achievement 7
Disruptive behaviour in schools 10
Truancy 11
Exclusion from school 14
'Not in education, employment or training' 17
Conclusion 22
3 Youth transitions and the meaning of disaffection 23
Youthful drug use 24
Youth crime 25
Changing transitions and disaffection 28
Experiencing disaffection 36
Conclusion 43
4 Young people and mentoring 45
What is mentoring? 45
Mentoring in practice 47
Mentoring and New Labour 49
Dealing with Disaffection
Evidence of promise? Mentoring and research evidence 51
Evaluating Mentoring Plus 56
Conclusion 65
5 Mentoring Plus 69
Introduction 69
Mentoring Plus 69
The mentors 74
The young people 81
Conclusion 86
6 Mentoring Plus and youthful exclusion 88
Introduction 88
Social exclusion? 89
Family background 90
Engagement in education, training and work 92
Future orientations and attitudes to education and work 94
Offending behaviour 95
Contact with the criminal justice system 101
Drinking, smoking and drug use 102
Psychological characteristics 105
The web of exclusion 107
Conclusion 109
7 Mentoring in practice 117
Programme integrity 117
Engaging with young people 120
The mentoring relationship 123
The Plus element 133
Conclusion 137
8 Impact of the programme 140
Assessing the impact of the programme 141
Perceived helpfulness of the programme 142
Changing circumstances? 145
Conclusion 164
9 Understanding change 170
The social deficit model 172
Role models? 173
Stages of change 177
Conclusion 188
vi
Contents
10 Conclusion: youth disaffection, mentoring and
social inclusion 193
The rise of mentoring 194
Does mentoring work? 194
The need for a more fully theorized approach 195
Identifying impact 198
Conclusion 199
Appendix I 201
Appendix 11 204
References 207
Index 219
vii

List of figures and tables
Figures
3.1 Young people's attainment of GCSEs (or GNVQ equivalents)
by level of truancy from school (2000) 34
4.1 Response to the surveys 62
5.1 Organizational structure of Mentoring Plus 70
5.2 Programme structure 73
5.3 Mentors' motivations for volunteering 80
5.4 Route into Mentoring Plus (per cent of the cohort) 83
5.5 Reasons for joining Mentoring Plus (per cent of the cohort) 85
6.1 Family/household structure (per cent of the cohort) 91
6.2 Future expectations - this time next year (per cent of the
cohort) 94
6.3 Offending in the Mentoring Plus cohort (per cent of the
cohort) 98
6.4 Contact with the criminal justice system (per cent of the
cohort) 102
6.5 Drinking and smoking in the Mentoring Plus cohort (per cent
of the cohort) 104
7.1 Levels of engagement with Mentoring Plus (per cent of the
cohort) 121
7.2 A model of the mentoring relationship 128