Gillian Callaghan Young People and Social Change in Sunderland

Gillian Callaghan Young People and Social Change in Sunderland: de-industrialisation and cultural change PhD. Thesis University of Durham 1998 ABSTRACT The research is set within the particular context of change and crisis in Sunderland. It employs understandings of wider processes of structural change in articulation with the effects of history and sedimentation within a particular place. To these processes are brought issues of youth in transition as a point of personal crisis. The main axes which structure the account are those of class, gender and place because they so clearly emerged from the research as the significant sources of division in experience. The thesis is an exploration of the relative importance of structure and agency. In achieving this account it uses empirical research into the particular conditions experienced by young people in Sunderland to exemplify processes of structure, collective and individual action. The research is based in semi-structured interviewing and seeks to discover the effects of fundamental processes of restructuring, changing gender composition of the workforce, the quantity and quality of work, upon the ways in which young people frame their adult lives. It compares the expectations and experience of a group of young people, interviewed at the age of eighteen as part of research for a Masters Degree, with their outcome at the age of twenty- four. This study has developed the account over time and place through the selection of a second sample of eighteen-year-olds from another part of the City. Young People and Social Change in Sunderland: de-industrialisation and cultural change Gillian Callaghan PhD. Thesis University of Durham 1998 The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the written consent of the author and information derived from it should bea acknowledged. ,- 2 JUL 1398 Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the many sources of help and support I have had in developing this thesis. I want to thank Dr. David Byrne for his support and encouragement throughout. My thanks go to him, not only for introducing new ideas, but also for his help in developing the insights produced through my reading and my fieldwork. I am grateful to fellow post-graduate students, particularly Tim Strangleman, for the stimulation of hours of discussion of our respective research interests. Thanks are also due to ESRC who funded the research and to Paul Callaghan for help in presentation of the final document. I would like to thank Councillor Bryn Sidaway for taking the time to discuss the issues in this research and all of the people who helped me by giving up their time to be interviewed. I hope they will feel I have given a fair representation of their views and ideas. While writing a PhD. is a relatively solitary project it inevitably impinges on the lives of other people, particularly when the author is a woman with children. I would like to thank my parents, my sister and Margaret Pallas for the numerous ways in which they have supported me to complete this research. Finally I must also mention the contribution of my children, Richard and David, who have shown their interest in my work as well as, at times, their frustration with the competing claims it has made on my time. This research has been supported by ESRC Grant no. R00429324059. Contents Introduction 1 Part' 13 Chapter 1 Restructuring and Class 14 Class and Collective Action 23 Crisis 29 Process 32 Deindustrialisation 33 Disorganised Capitalism 35 Industrial Restructuring 36 Post Modernity 38 Underclass 42 Citizenship 46 Conclusion 48 Chapter 2 Restructuring and Gender 50 The Nature of Patriarchy 53 Patriarchy and Class 55 The Interaction of Patriarchy and Class in Two Sites 57 Empirical Studies of Gender and Class 59 Gender and Lifestage 63 Labour Market Participation 64 Gendered Divisions in the Labour Market 66 Women as a Reserve Army of Labour 69 Deskilling and Feminisation of Work 70 The Family 72 Women in the City 77 Gender and Citizenship 78 Conclusion 81 Chapter 3 Youth 83 Social and Cultural Reproduction 84 Conclusion 99 Chapter 4 Sunderland 101 Tradition and Change 102 Traditional Industries 104 Shipbuilding 105 Modernised Manufacturing 106 The Service Sector 108 State Intervention 110 Global and Local 116 Growth and Development 117 Representation and Reflexivity 118 Global Change - Local Response 121 Culture 122 Community 124 Social Areas 126 The Study Areas 133 Castletown 135 Colliery 135 Southwick 136 St. Peters 138 Fulwell 139 Hendon 140 Polarisation 141 Citizenship 143 Conclusion 146 Part II 149 Chapter 5 The Findings: an Introduction 150 The Samples 151 The Interview 153 The Interviews 156 Social Class 157 Chapter 6 From Education to Work 162 Home Background 165 Hendon 1988 and 1993 165 Social Class 168 Males Social Class Band One 168 Male Social Class Band Two 169 Male Social Class Band Three 169 Female Social Class Band One 171 Female Social Class Band Two 171 Female Social Class Band Three 172 Summary of Change 172 Home Background - Sunderland North 173 Spatial Orientation 174 Hendon 174 Sunderland North 176 Male Social Class Band One 177 Male Social Class Band Two 178 Male Social Class Band Three 178 Female Social Class Band One 178 Female Social Class Band Two 178 Female Social Class Band Three 179 Gender 180 Locality, Spatial Orientation and Social Class 181 Sunderland North 184 Female Social Class Band One 184 Male Social Class Band One 186 Female Social Class Band Two 186 Male Social Class Band Two 188 Female Social Class Band Three 189 Male Social Class Band Three 189 Hendon Education - Reflections on the Past 191 Class, Locality and Gender in Sunderland North 194 Education and Place 196 Education, Employm ent and Unemployment 201 Chapter 7 Labour Market Experience 206 Hendon - Labour Market Experience 208 Male Social Class Band One 208 Male Social Class Band Two 208 Male Social Class Band Three 209 Female Social Class Band One 215 Female Social Class Band Two 215 Female Social Class Band Three 215 Sunderland North - Labour Market Experience 218 Government Training Schemes 219 Wage Expectations 223 Service Work 227 Job Security 228 Unemployment 232 Trades Unions 237 Women's Expectations 241 Conclusion 243 Chapter 8 Family 246 Marriage and Cohabitation 247 Hendon 249 Female Social Class Band One 249 Female Social Class Band Two 251 Children 252 Female Social Class Band Three 254 Hendon 256 Male Social Class Band One 256 Male Social Class Band Two 257 Male Social Class Band Three 258 Motherhood and Domestic Roles 259 Sunderland North 262 Children and Career 266 Partnership Roles 272 Domestic Division of Labour 274 Conclusion 278 Chapter 9 Civil Society 281 Sunderland North 283 Upper locality 283 Intermediate locality 286 Community 293 Poor locality 297 Community 301 Crime 302 Politics 303 Upper Locality 306 Intermediate Locality 307 Poor locality 309 Hendon 311 Politics 313 Conclusion 316 Chapter 10 Conclusion 318 Education and the Labour market 321 Family 327 Civil Society 330 Underclass 334 Bibliography 347 Abbreviations BTEC Business and Technical Education Council ET Employment Training GNVQ General National Vocational Qualification HAT Housing Action Trust IAND Higher National Diploma MBA Masters in Business Administration NNEB Nursery Nurse Examination Board SRB Single Regeneration Budget TEC Training and Enterprise Council TWDC Tyne and Wear Development Corporation UDC Urban Development Corporation UDP Unitary Development Plan YT Youth Training YTS Youth Training Scheme Introduction This thesis is an attempt to understand the life choices and decisions young people make in the context of a changing world. To achieve that understanding we need an explanation which comprehends both the action people take and the structural constraints upon that action. The aim of the theoretical and empirical work of this thesis is to consider the effects of both action and structure and to develop an account of their interaction. In terms of method the research is based in asking people, but its purpose, through employing concepts relating also to pre-conscious orientations, is to develop an explanation which can make both dimensions visible. The main theme which runs throughout the work is the theme of change and the critical potential of change. The research is formed within the context of industrial restructuring in a city heavily dependent on two traditional industries and it seeks to learn the effects of such change on people's decisions and choices. It is also formed at a particular point of personal change and transition when the lack of established habits and practices makes room for a range of possible choices. The choices which are made however are precisely made within a range and this work will attempt to identify the dynamics of those limits, to recognise with Marx that: "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found, given, and transmitted from the past." The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, 1852 Introduction 2 The study is based in research conducted in 1987 for a Masters Degree. It has extended the previous research in method, in magnitude and in the substantive issues with which it concerns itself. In explaining the current research therefore I need first to return to my earlier project to outline its scope and its main concerns. The earlier research involved interviewing 40 eighteen year olds to learn how their lives had been shaped by change and how they had acted in the face of that change. The current research has sought to follow up those eighteen-year-olds at the age of twenty-three and to meet a new sample of eighteen-year-olds.

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