Social policy and psychology seminar

Ah, there you are, gentle reader 

This page is intended to accompany the seminar in social policy and psychology and is connected with the question of young people and the problems that the adult world has with them. Throughout history youth has been a problem for adults and fears have regularly been expressed that youngsters are becoming increasingly feckless, lawless, disrespectful and promiscuous.

You might want to start by looking at what the papers have had to say on the issue recently - click here for a compilation of newspaper articles. 

In terms of what adults can do to deal with the issue, there has often been talk  about the role of corporal punishment of children and a widespread popular belief (at least in the UK) that it somehow encourages good behaviour both at the time and later in life. See an article by Murray Straus and Vera Mouradian about the likely consequences of kids being hit. Think about it and consider this in relation to the question of whether hitting children will solve our contemporary social problems.

Straus, M.A. & Mouradian, V.E. (1988) Impulsive Corporal Punishment by Mothers and Antisocial Behaviour and Impulsiveness of Children, Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 16: 353-374.

In terms of the situation in the UK., there's a paper that you might find useful by Taylor and Redman (2004). It's written for nurses, but nevertheless contains some useful information for us! 

Taylor, J . & Redman, S. (2004) The smacking controversy: what advice should we be giving parents?, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 46 (3): 311–318.

Here's a paper by the grand old man of intelligence testing, Lewis Terman. I haven't got it in its exact original form but here's a  reprint of it  Check out what he has to say about 'feeble minded' women. 

Terman L. (1916) The Uses of Intelligence Tests In The measurement of intelligence (Chapter 1) Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Here's a paper with some data and a useful review of the 'antisocial behaviour' situation in the UK:

Arthur, R. (2005) Punishing Parents for the Crimes of their Children, The Howard Journal, 44 (3): 233–253.

Another idea that has been proposed recently is that of making parents more responsible for the activities of their offspring  Arthur’s paper reviews the state of things in the UK and some useful research into the factors associated with delinquency and explains why, in the author’s opinion., current legislation is unlikely to work.

More stuff about youth

Here are a few more items about young people and their problems. They're not necessarily directly related to the seminar but they're useful for the insight they give about the kinds of research that social scientists are doing on youth in the late 20th and early 21st centuries

Aldridge, J., Parker, H. & Measham, F. (1998) Rethinking young people's drug use, Health Education, 5, 164-172.

Griffin, C. (1997) Troubled teens: Managing disorders of production and consumption, Feminist Review,  55: 4-21.

Kehily M.J. (1999) More sugar? Teenage magazines, gender displays and sexual learning, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 2, (1): 65-89.

Parker, H. Williams, J. & Aldridge, J. (2002) The normalisation of sensible recreational drug use, Sociology, 35, (4), 141-164.