YOUTH &POLICY No. 111 OCTOBER 2013 Youth, Recreation and Play: History, Sociology, Evolutionary Biology Guest editors: Mary Clare Martin and John A. Smith Introduction: Youth, Recreation and Play: Interdisciplinary perspectives Roman Catholic Girl Guiding in Sussex, 1912-1919: Origins, Ideology, Practice Direct, Indirect and Relational: Social Class Manifestations in Teenage Students’ Accounts The construction of childhood, learning and play: an evolutionary and ecological revision Identity, youth and post-modern social landscapes THINKING SPACE: The Future of Targeted Youth Support as Second Class Social Work OBITUARY: Michael Butterfield – 1926-2013 Reviews Editorial Group Paula Connaughton, Aylssa Cowell, Ruth Gilchrist, Tracey Hodgson, Tony Jeffs, Mark Smith, Jean Spence, Naomi Stanton, Tania de St Croix, Tom Wylie. Associate Editors Priscilla Alderson, Institute of Education, London Sally Baker, The Open University Simon Bradford, Brunel University Judith Bessant, RMIT University, Australia Lesley Buckland, YMCA George Williams College Bob Coles, University of York John Holmes, Newman College, Birmingham Sue Mansfield, University of Dundee Gill Millar, South West Regional Youth Work Adviser Susan Morgan, University of Ulster Jon Ord, University College of St Mark and St John Jenny Pearce, University of Bedfordshire John Pitts, University of Bedfordshire Keith Popple, London South Bank University John Rose, Consultant Kalbir Shukra, Goldsmiths University Tony Taylor, IDYW Joyce Walker, University of Minnesota, USA Aniela Wenham, University of York Anna Whalen, Freelance Consultant Published by Youth & Policy, ‘Burnbrae’, Black Lane, Blaydon Burn, Blaydon on Tyne NE21 6DX. www.youthandpolicy.org Copyright: Youth & Policy The views expressed in the journal remain those of the authors and not necessarily those of the editorial group. Whilst every effort is made to check factual information, the Editorial Group is not responsible for errors in the material published in the journal. ii Youth & Policy No. 111 October 2013 About Youth & Policy Youth & Policy Journal was founded in 1982 to offer a critical space for the discussion of youth policy and youth work theory and practice. The editorial group have subsequently expanded activities to include the organisation of related conferences, research and book publication. Regular activities include the bi- annual ‘History of Community and Youth Work’ and the ‘Thinking Seriously’ conferences. The Youth & Policy editorial group works in partnership with a range of local and national voluntary and statutory organisations who have complementary purposes. These have included UK Youth, YMCA, Muslim Youth Council and Durham University. All members of the Youth & Policy editorial group are involved in education, professional practice and research in the field of informal education, community work and youth work. The journal is run on a not-for-profit basis. Editors and Associate Editors all work in a voluntary and unpaid capacity. iii Youth & Policy No. 111 October 2013 Contents Introduction: Youth, Recreation and Play: Interdisciplinary perspectives Mary Clare Martin and John A. Smith 1 ➤ Roman Catholic Girl Guiding in Sussex, 1912-1919: Origins, Ideology, Practice Mary Clare Martin 5 ➤ Direct, Indirect and Relational: Social Class Manifestations in Teenage Students’ Accounts Maria Papapolydorou 25 ➤ The construction of childhood, learning and play: an evolutionary and ecological revision John A. Smith 44 ➤ Identity, youth and post-modern social landscapes Ewa Sidorenko 58 ➤ THINKING SPACE: The Future of Targeted Youth Support as Second Class Social Work Kirsten Hall 77 ➤ OBITUARY: Michael Butterfield – 1926-2013 Tony Jeffs 82 ➤ Reviews 85 ➤ iv Youth & Policy No. 111 October 2013 Contributors Kirsten Hall is a Senior Practitioner at a National Children’s Charity performing a dual role of practice and management in a small Targeted Youth Project working with missing and sexually exploited young people. Tony Jeffs is a member of the Editorial Board of Youth & Policy. Mary Clare Martin is Head of the Centre for the Study of Play and Recreation, Department of Education and Community Studies University of Greenwich. She researches international perspectives on the history of children and religion, children’s illness, and youth movements, from 1700-2000. Maria Papapolydorou is Senior Lecturer in Education and Childhood Studies, University of Greenwich. Her research interests include the identities and network formation of students. Ewa Sidorenko is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Education and Community Studies at the University of Greenwich. Her interests include sociology of childhood, participatory research with children, ethnography, identity, education, post-modernity, evolutionary theory, post-communist Poland, nationalism, Nazi concentration and labour camps. John A. Smith is Programme Leader for Education Studies University of Greenwich. His interests include the relationships between biology, psychology and sociology and their ecological interactions. He has published extensively in this field. v Youth & Policy No. 111 October 2013 © YOUTH & POLICY, 2013 Introduction Youth, Recreation and Play: Interdisciplinary perspectives Mary Clare Martin and John A. Smith WHILE IT IS frequently admitted that twenty-first century young people are demonised or unfairly targeted by the mass media, it is also acknowledged that contemporary Britain provides little support for the transition to adulthood, in comparison with many previous societies. This special issue aims to enhance the understanding of issues regarding young people’s opportunities for, and experience of, recreation and play, and their intersection with the transition to adulthood. Historical perspectives illustrate ways in which young people’s needs have been addressed in the past. New theoretical insights into the interpretation of childhood and youth challenge existing models. Contemporary research with young people illuminates issues of class and belonging within school and friendship groups These articles thus engage with theory, the views of contemporary young people, and the history of youth, recreation and play. Such perspectives not only provide fresh insights into this emergent field, but also show the potential for further inter – and multi-disciplinary work. The volume addresses key disciplinary issues: the split between sociology and psychology which is increasingly perceived as unhelpful in the study of youth; the neglect of social class within sociology in recent decades and of research with young people on this topic; the limits of social constructionism and the outright hostility between sociology and evolutionary biology. The research explored here indicates that class, religion, and gender might be markers of identity rather than age. Martin’s essay shows how religion (in this instance, Roman Catholicism) promoted a cross-class, all-age, form of identity within an international youth organisation (the Girl Guides Association) which still claims to meet the needs of young females within a single- sex social space. Papapolydorou’s exploration of young people’s attitudes towards social class raises uncomfortable issues about social cohesion within an age group which might be thought to share common attitudes towards fashion and leisure activities. Indeed, the argument that class might supersede the bonds of age challenges the conventional wisdom that generation is a primary marker of identity. The theoretical perspectives developed by Smith and Sidorenko further call into question many of the current binaries in youth research. Sidorenko draws on Robert Kegan’s claim that post-modern 1 Youth & Policy No. 111 October 2013 YouTH, ReCReatioN ANd Play: INTeRdISCIPlinary PeRSPeCTIveS cultural demands on individual development of flexibility and complexity in the organisation of experience need to be incorporated into sociological work on patterns of inequality. Thus, differential experiences of community support for developmental identity work that young people receive, could offer further insight into the process of reproduction of social inequalities. That would mean not only incorporating constructivist developmental psychology into sociology but also moving beyond the purely constructivist paradigm in social analysis. Consequently, youth, as well as childhood, would have to be recognised as not just social constructions but as ontologically embodied, developmentally real and generating its own type of need. Smith’s experimental piece critiques social constructionism as a paradigm and suggests a way forward in understanding play and recreation in the context of evolutionary-or eco psychology and biology. He argues that, despite recognition of the importance of play in cognitive and social development, there is still a persistent, if not dominant view of play as something humans do – and which appears very costly, irrational or wasteful in evolutionary terms. However evolutionary biology shows that play is widespread in the animal kingdom and is only reduced by severe deprivation of resources. If play is an evolutionary stable strategy then it is mistaken to think it is superfluous and confined to humans. our view, not play itself, is the questionable phenomenon. This structural concept of play challenges the widespread view that childhood(s) are socially constructed, or at least proposes limits to plasticity. This echoes e.o. Wilson’s work on sociobiology and the need to work toward consilience between the