A University of Sussex Phd Thesis Available Online Via Sussex
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A University of Sussex PhD thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details Context is All: a qualitative case study of youth mentoring in the inner-city. Tasleem Rana Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Sussex. September 2017 2 I hereby declare that this thesis has not been and will not be, submitted in whole or in part to another University for the award of any other degree. Signature: 3 Abstract This project is an extended case study design investigating the mentoring programme of Kids Company, an innovative and controversial organisation that closed during fieldwork. The study considers the programme both as a case of the larger category of ‘youth mentoring’ as well as a case in itself – of a unique and situated intervention. Methods employed included participant observation and interviews with professional staff, as well as the analysis of a sample of mentoring records documenting the one-year relationship of six mentoring pairs from the perspective of the mentor. Plans to interview mentoring pairs were curtailed by the unexpected demise of the organisation, but the data set includes interviews with five new mentors and mentees. The project has developed from a collaborative studentship aimed at understanding the mentoring programme, to include a post mortem of an organisation in crisis. Thus, documentation by and about Kids Company during this very public downfall also forms part of the data set. The thesis organises its findings into three chapters with insights on the model of mentoring employed by Kids Company and the reliance of popularised ideas from attachment theory and neuroscience; insights into the mentoring relationships themselves, including the value of a middle stage of everyday ‘being there’; and critical insights into how Kids Company’s approach to young people and communities simultaneously takes on representations of race and class, yet elides them. The thesis draws together critical social policy and childhood studies literature on the history of child saving interventions and representations of the child in need within society, and psychology literature on youth mentoring initiatives, in order to make the argument that mentoring must be understood as an intervention situated in time and place. The messiness, complexity, and variety of youth mentoring experiences needs to be recognised. Nevertheless, youth mentoring also has potential to be powerful and productive for all involved and the thesis reflects on both the strengths and weaknesses of the Kids Company approach to make suggestions for good practice. 4 Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................. 7 Chapter 1: Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 8 Chapter 2: Literature Review ................................................................................................................ 13 2.1 Youth Mentoring and Childhood ................................................................................................ 14 2.1.1 Ideas about Childhood in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries ................................................ 14 2.1.2 Philanthropy and Child Welfare ........................................................................................... 15 2.1.3 Youth Justice and Formalising Youth Mentoring through the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America ......................................................................................................................................... 16 2.2 Youth Mentoring and Evidence Based Practice .......................................................................... 17 2.2.1 Evaluation Studies of Youth Mentoring ............................................................................... 18 2.2.2 Importing Mentoring to the UK ........................................................................................... 21 2.2.3 Who are the mentors? ......................................................................................................... 24 2.3 Youth Mentoring and the Imagined Child................................................................................... 26 2.3.1 Childhood Studies and Childhood in Crisis ........................................................................... 27 2.3.2 Social Policies: potential and surveillance ........................................................................... 28 2.3.3 The Figure of the Child and the Imagined Family ................................................................ 29 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................... 31 Research Questions ...................................................................................................................... 31 Chapter 3: Methodology ....................................................................................................................... 33 3.1 Mentoring in the Inner-City: a collaborative studentship .......................................................... 33 3.1.1 The Initial Planned Project ................................................................................................... 34 3.1.2 Social Constructionism and a Childhood and Youth Studies approach ............................... 35 3.1.2 A Case of Mentoring and a Case of Something Else ............................................................ 36 3.2 Research design: a case study approach .................................................................................... 38 3.2.1 The Extended Case Study ..................................................................................................... 38 3.2.2 An Ethnographic Sensibility and Being an Embedded Researcher ...................................... 40 3.3 Research Methods: qualitative and interpretive ........................................................................ 41 3.3.1 Practitioner Interviews ......................................................................................................... 41 3.3.2 Participant Observation ....................................................................................................... 42 3.3.3 Archival Data ........................................................................................................................ 43 3.3.4 Mentor and Mentee Interviews ........................................................................................... 45 3.4 Data Analysis ............................................................................................................................... 46 3.4.1 Thematic Analysis ................................................................................................................ 47 3.4.2 Narrative Analysis ................................................................................................................ 47 5 3.5 Ethical Considerations ................................................................................................................. 48 3.5.1 Recruitment and Informed Consent .................................................................................... 48 3.5.2 Anonymity and Confidentiality ............................................................................................ 49 3.5.3 After the Closure .................................................................................................................. 50 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................... 50 Chapter 4: Kids Company: the organisation and the mentoring programme ...................................... 51 4.1 Overview of Kids Company ......................................................................................................... 52 4.1.1 The Collapse of Kids Company ............................................................................................. 52 4.1.2 Kids Company’s Practice: parenting by proxy ...................................................................... 53 4.1.3 Critical Moments in Kids Company’s Development ............................................................. 55 4.2 The Mentoring Model: attachment relationships ...................................................................... 57 4.2.1 Internal Working Models ..................................................................................................... 58 4.2.2 Held and Contained ............................................................................................................. 59 4.2.3 Characterisation of Mentees