The purpose of this study is to better understand the classroom experiences of current secondary school students, in light of the present policy drive towards participation. Using an approach with ethnographic intent (participant observation, interviewing, shadowing and field notes) this research explores six students’ experiences, in one secondary school in Scotland. Emerging themes from the literature, regarding participation and participatory approaches, suggest that these can be understood in different ways, ranging from economic instrumentalism to democratic renewal. This study took a fresh theoretical approach, employing an ecological, temporal-relational understanding of the achievement of agency. This understanding acknowledges a young person’s awareness of, and capacity to engage with, a range of different possible actions, by means of a particular context at a particular time. This approach provided theoretical tools, with which to interpret aspects of these students’ school experiences. The findings are detailed in terms of teacher-student relationships, the cultural realm, and young people’s aspirations. Students’ achievement of agency in the school setting is complex, but one major finding is that the quality and type of teacher-student relationship are significant in enabling these students to achieve agency. Peer relationships and ties beyond the school gates are also significant. The ecological understanding of agency provides a basis for educators to better understand the interdependence of the individual and the environment and to explore how participation might afford a wider range of possibilities for young people. This reflection on participation is important if we want to shape educational ecologies to encourage practices which facilitate the achievement of agency by young people.

The following report examines the contribution my publications have made over the course of a twenty-year career in government departments (in Britain) and academic institutions (in Australia) to advancing scholarly inquiry in the areas of Youth Justice, Young People and Social Welfare, and Criminology. In the section dealing with Youth Justice publications I have given patiicular attention to a dominant and coherent area of study under the heading Families, Crime and Juvenile Justice. The conmmon thematic content of my publications focuses on the ways in which celiain individuals and social groups perceive and experience systems of social control. Additionally, the report highlights a range of allied pUblications that have dealt with the consequences of largely state-sponsored policies and practices in relation to a range of 'subject populations'. It is argued that my contribution to advancing knowledge in the above areas has been achieved in two primary ways: (a) through a range of original pubEcations based on theoretical and empirical studies, and substantial polemical and critical work; (b) through significant engagement in scholarly debate and discussion (including citation of my work in the publications of other academics) and facilitation of reflexive discussion an10ng social welfare practitioners and policy makers. Finally, the report attempts to contextualise my publications through a detailed discussion of the personal and intellectual origins of my work over the past two decades. The latter involves a general review of the sociological, criminological and social welfare literature relating to a prevailing concern with what I have broadly tenned the 'phenomenology of social control'.

Background: The prevalence of mental disorder in children and young people in the UK is estimated at 10-20% (Meltzer et al. 2003). The World Health Organisation advocates urgent preventive measures to reduce the impact of a predicted steep rise in global rates of depression (World Health Organization 2008 ). The mental health of young people is therefore a public health issue, nationally and globally. The UK children's policy agenda proposes that promoting emotional wellbeing is a shared responsibility between children's agencies at the Tier 1 level of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (DCSF 2008), but further research is required to develop low intensity, evidence based interventions to promote emotional and mental health. Schools have a remit to address emotional problems in students and evidence exists to support school based interventions to promote emotional wellbeing. However young people encounter barriers to help-seeking in primary care, which need to be understood in order to deliver appropriate support. There is an emerging evidence base for using guided self-help (GSH) to deliver cognitive behaviour therapy-based interventions to adults in primary mental health care (Gellatly et al. 2007). It is not known whether using GSH in high schools to deliver emotional wellbeing interventions to young people would be feasible or acceptable. Aims: To develop an emotional wellbeing intervention for high schools using GSH, and evaluate it for feasibility and acceptability. Methods: The Medical Research Council (MRC) Framework for complex interventions (MRC 2000) provided the conceptual structure of the research. The methodological approach was also strongly influenced by standards for qualitative research proposed by Popay et al (1998), particularly the need to be responsive to the research context. There were three stages: Consultation, Development and Implementation. In the Consultation stage 54 young people aged 11-15 were consulted in 6 focus groups in 3 inner city high schools in the UK. The outcomes supported the development of a GSH intervention, named the 'Change Project', which was the focus of the Development Stage. Pastoral and Special Educational Needs staff in schools received brief training to deliver the intervention, followed by weekly supervision for the duration of the Project. In the Implementation Stage the Change Project was piloted in the same 3 high schools. The Project was evaluated for acceptability and feasibility using qualitative interview methods and a survey of students. Two instruments were incorporated: the PHQ-2 (Kroenke et al. 2003) was included to identify students who would benefit from a referral to the school nurse and the Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale (Rosenberg 1965) was used to explore its suitability as an outcome measure with the target population. Results: Eight Project workers delivered the Change Project. Twenty one students used it. They were aged 11-17 years and included male, female, white and non-white students. Self reported personal outcomes for students were generally positive. Nine sets of baseline and post-intervention RSES scores were collected. There was a general trend for improvement in scores. Presenting difficulties included potentially clinical disorders which were successfully addressed with support from school nurses. Interviews were conducted with 23 students, and 27 school staff and questionnaire data were collected from 140 students. Project worker reports of the Change Project's acceptability and feasibility were mixed, though also generally positive. The acceptability and feasibility of the RSES is discussed. The ethos of pastoral care, support of senior figures and other contextual factors affected implementation quality in each school. Help-seeking in the young people was driven by peer norms of hiding signs of vulnerability. Conclusions: The Change Project intervention was generally felt to be useful and relevant and overall it was welcomed by staff and students. The intervention has potential for further development. Its acceptability and feasibility were co-dependent and strongly influenced the implementation processes, indicating the value of investing time in understanding social and cultural factors in the research context. Understanding organisational and individual barriers and facilitators of help-seeking in young people may encourage use of emotional support in school.

Syftet med denna kvalitativa intervjustudie var att få förståelse för hur socialsekreterarnas handlingsutrymme och kunskap används vid placeringsöverväganden av barn och unga i samhällsvård. Med hjälp av våra frågeställningar ville vi få svar på, dels hur socialsekreterarna beskriver sitt handlingsutrymme vid placeringsöverväganden, dels hur socialsekreterarna förhåller sig till kunskap vid dessa bedömningar. Studiens intervjupersoner var socialsekreterare som har arbetat eller arbetar med att placera barn och unga. Utifrån det våra intervjupersoner har berättat är vår slutsats att socialsekreterarnas bedömningar påverkas av flera faktorer. Dessa faktorer var bland annat resursbrist, lagstiftning samt vägledning av arbetsledning. Kunskapskällor som socialsekreterarna använde sig av var klienternas och kollegornas erfarenheter samt egna erfarenheter. Socialsekreterarna nämnde inte handlingsutrymme i arbetet utan poängterade enbart de begränsningar de hade vid utförandet av arbetet. Vår tolkning är att socialsekreterare beskriver begränsningar och diskussionerna i arbetet kan vara en anledning till att den inte vill ensamt ansvara i de svåra bedömningarna. / This is a qualitative interview study, of how social workers´ used their discretion and knowledge when they consider placements of children and youths in out-of-home-care. In our study we wanted to answer these questions. The first question we wanted to answer was how social workers´ describe their discretion in placement considerations. The second question was how social workers´ use knowledge in these judgments. The study's respondents were social workers´ who have worked or still working with children in out-of-home-care. Based on what our interviewees told, we came to the conclusion that social workers´ judgments’ are subject to several factors. These factors included lack of resources, legislation and supervision of management. However, the study revealed that social workers´ did not use research. Instead they used their own experiences, the clients´ actual situation and colleagues´ experiences as sources of knowledge. Social workers´ did not mention their discretion, but pointed out the limitations they had in performing the work. Their answers indicated that they did not want to be responsible in these difficult judgments and therefore they used their colleagues´ and the management.

Aim: A wealth of quantitative literature exists exploring the adjustment of children and young people with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus. However, results are often confusing and contradictory, at least partly due to studies using different definitions and measures. Studies have been criticised for over relying on parental reports and failing to consider young people’s own perceptions. Furthermore, they have often conceptualised adjustment as an outcome, rather than exploring the process involved. Additionally, although peers are considered to play an important role in young people’s lives, their role in young people’s adjustment to living with diabetes has rarely been examined. To address this gap, this study attempted to gain a rich understanding of young people’s experiences of adjusting to life with diabetes and explore how they feel their peers have contributed to this process, with the hope of informing clinical practice and improving support to young people and their families. Method: A qualitative approach was chosen and six young females aged 12 – 15 with a diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes were interviewed using semi-structured interviews. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used to analyse the transcripts. Results: Five main themes emerged from participants’ accounts: Developing a balanced relationship with diabetes; the uncomfortable position of difference; grappling with the fall out of diabetes; making diabetes more bearable; and the role of parents and friends. The findings are discussed in relation to the relevant literature. Clinical implications, methodological limitations and directions for future research are presented. Conclusions: This study provided an insight into the complex and dynamic process of young people’s adjustment to life with Type 1 diabetes. It highlighted the challenges and struggles they faced as a result of their diagnosis and the different strategies they employed to manage these. It also emphasised the valuable role both parents and friends provide in supporting young people with their illness.

Research into bullying has been mainly quantitative, and of the few existing qualitative studies, fewer still have explored the perspectives of identified bullies. This study employs a mixed method design within a personal construct psychology perspective. The main research questions were: how do young people who bully others construe themselves and those whom they bully and what problems does bullying behaviour solve for those who bully. This was achieved by carrying out in-depth repertory grid analysis, content analysis of grid constructs and construct poles from self-characterisations. Participants were recruited from educational support centres, and were identified as individuals who display bullying behaviours. This study revealed that the participants tended to construe themselves in quite concrete terms, and as actively socially interactive. Participants construed themselves when bullying in terms of low tenderness, high forcefulness and emotional arousal. They construed typical victims in terms of high tenderness, low forcefulness and low status. The element „self when bullying‟ was found to be more elaborated and meaningful to the group than the element „self when not bullying‟. This might suggest that the participants have a more elaborated construct system in this area because it is causing them particular difficulties. Implicative dilemmas were identified for all the participants as potential barriers to change. For two participants this seemed directly relevant to understanding why their bullying behaviours may be difficult to change. Potential interventions drawing on personal construct psychology methods are discussed. One of this study‟s limitations was its small sample size, however the study shows support for using repertory grid methods to investigate bullying among young people and further research is recommended.

Background and aims: Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is the most common genetic, life threatening disorder in the UK (Cystic Fibrosis Trust, 2010). Given the trajectory of the illness, adolescence may be a particularly challenging period, during which young people become more aware of differences from peers, and are faced with the task of balancing increasing illness demands with the drive to aspire to developmental goals. Nevertheless, little research specifically explores how young people with CF reconcile their illness experiences with the emerging sense of self. In an attempt to address this gap in the literature, this study sought to hear the narratives of young people with CF with reference to the local and broader contextual factors influencing their construction, with the aim to further understanding, inform clinical practice and improve support for young people with CF. Methodology: A qualitative approach was employed. A purposive sample of six participants diagnosed with CF and aged between 12 and 16 years was recruited. Participants were asked to take photographs of their experiences of life as a young person with CF which were used alongside a semi-structured topic guide in individual interviews to explore the young person’s narratives. The interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analysed using a narrative approach to explore both what was said and how it was told.Analysis and Findings: The researcher’s global impressions of each person’s narratives, along with details of the local context of the interview were presented. Following this, similarities and differences across the narratives were considered with particular attention to how the main storylines were interwoven with participants’ emotional experiences, the identity work taking place through the narrative, and the broader narratives available to them. It emerged that (i) CF was perceived as part of participants’ normality which they had grown accustomed to over time, (ii) participants drew on cultural narratives to position themselves as normal teenagers, to maintain a positive sense of self, though also leading them to minimise difficulties and distress, and (iii) participants continued to position themselves within the norm as they talked of their futures, describing similar hopes to their peers, and again played down concerns about how CF might impact on their futures. These findings are discussed with reference to the clinical implications, strengths, and limitations of the methodology, and directions for future research.

The past decade has been witness to a growing concern with the political, moral and social capacity of young people to demonstrate ‘active citizenship’. Alongside the introduction of citizenship education in schools there has been evidence of increased political and public anxiety about how young people integrate within their local communities. All of this has taken place in the context of broader social policy debates about how individuals demonstrate social responsibility in late modern, advanced liberal democracies. This study investigated how young people define and experience active citizenship in their everyday, real world settings. It comprised workshops and focus groups with 93 young people aged 14-16 living in the East Midlands. Using an adaptive theory design, the investigation utilised definitions generated by young people to build an applied theory of active citizenship. Young people in this study defined active citizenship in terms of membership and status, social responsibility and to a lesser extent, political literacy. Through a process of deliberation, they determined six concepts to be most important in thinking about active citizenship. These were ‘rights’; ‘responsibilities’; ‘care for others’; ‘control’; ‘making decisions’, and ‘respect’. These concepts were explored in relation to the everyday experiences of young people. Young people experience active citizenship differently within and between each context of their lives (proximate, community and institutional levels) showing high degrees of related skills and awareness. Whilst communities and institutions offer some opportunities for young people to test and develop citizenship identities, they also present significant barriers.

sociological literature suggests that adult sports participation is occurring in a 'culture of risk' which glorifies pain, rationalises risk and promotes the practice of playing hurt (Messner, 1990; Nixon, 1992; Curry 1993; Pike, 2000; Roderick et aI, 2000, Safai, 2003; Howe, 2004; Young, 2004a; Liston et aI. 2006). Using this corpus of knowledge as a point of departure, this study directs attention towards young people's sporting risk encounters within the specific context of school sport. Guided by a process-sociological framework (Elias, 1978, 1991,2000 [1939]), it offers an insight into the ways in which young people interpret, experience and manage sporting risk and episodes of sporting pain and injury whilst at school. The research draws on data generated by 1,651 young people aged between ten and sixteen years old using a three-phase data collection programme. The programme incorporated self-report questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and group-based creative tasks and was conducted in six secondary schools located in "Churchill", a major English conurbation. The findings suggest that school sport worlds (re )produce two entwined, yet competing sets of beliefs, attitudes and practices related to sporting pain and injury and are best described as webs of risks and precaution and protectionism. Rather than adopting a more cautious approach to pain and injury the data indicates that this cluster of young people frequently play hurt, normalise injury and engage in forms of 'injury talk' that discredit episodes of sporting pain. In so doing, they may be placing their short and long-term physical, psychological, social and moral health in jeopardy. However, it is argued that this collection of sporting practices are highly valued by young people and are integral to the ways in which they assign and perform a range of dissecting and fluid embodied identities. Notwithstanding the potential for sporting risk encounters to engender damaging, disrupting and debilitating outcomes, the data also emphasises the potential for these experiences to act as important spaces in which young people are able to probe their bodily limits, develop corporeal knowledge and experience pleasurable emotions (Maguire, 199Ia). This thesis draws attention to the duality of sport and calls for a more reality-congruent approach to the sport-health-risk-youth nexus in the development of future (school) sport worlds.

Young people’s challenging behaviour in the school classroom and elsewhere has long been subject to research and policy attention. Despite inherent definitional difficulties, challenging behaviour is often constructed as a product of an individual young person’s pathology (whether biologically, psychologically or socially determined). Adopting an alternative starting point, this study focuses on a youth work setting and conceptualises challenging behaviour as something created in and through social interaction. The aim of this study is to contribute to a contextualised understanding of challenging behaviour as a social phenomenon that ordinarily arises when working with young people. As an exploratory study of everyday youth work practices, a year-long ethnographic study was conducted of an open-access youth club, located in a Scottish secondary school. Data were generated through participant observation, interviews, question sheets and written evaluation records. The data were analysed to identify significant themes facilitating the construction of a meaningful and accurate account of challenging interactions in this youth club. The thesis suggests that ‘doing’ and drawing attention to challenging behaviour functions to delineate the boundaries around acceptable and unacceptable behaviour in the youth club. Challenging behaviour plays a substantial role in the social interactions of this setting, linked to personal and professional identities. The youth club is described as a chaotic (dynamic, bodily and playful) space, where challenging behaviour is expected and normalised yet it is still identified and disciplined. The study suggests it is difficult to reach a subjective contextual definition of challenging behaviour because although certain types of behaviour are repeatedly acknowledged as problematic, in practice there are inconsistencies in whether and how these behaviours are challenged. Challenging interactions are argued to emerge in the negotiation of control over the behaviour of self and others. The research indentified ‘humour’ and ‘playfulness’ as significant in the construction, diffusion and emotional management of recurring challenging interactions. The study concludes that it is fruitful to conceptualise challenging behaviour as a social phenomenon - something created in the moment - in advancing an understanding of the complexity of working with young people perceived to be challenging. The findings, and limitations, of this study suggest that it would be useful to conduct further research into: the emotional aspects of challenging interactions; potential age and gender differences in negotiating challenging interactions; and the relationship between challenging behaviour, creativity and transformative actions.