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‘Dirty looks’ and ‘trampy places’ in young people's accounts of community and neighbourhood: Implications for health inequalities

This paper draws on preliminary data collected in an ongoing school-based research project for the Health Education Authority (HEA) which is exploring Putnam's (1993) concept of 'social capital' in relation to children and young people's well-being and health. Putnam's conceptualization of social capital consists of the following features: trust, reciprocal support, civic engagement, community identity, and social networks; and the premise is that levels of social capital in a community have an important effect on people's well-being. A range of qualitative methods have been used to elicit 12-15 year olds' views of friendship networks and neighbourhoods: (1) written accounts of out-of-school activities, who is important, definitions of 'friend', future aspirations and social networks (2) visual methods including map drawing and photography by the participants and (3) group discussions exploring use of and perceptions of neighbourhoods, and community and institutional participation. The paper presents data, which suggest that young people face many paradoxes and contradictions in their environments that on the one hand support them and on the other hand exclude them. They often seem to develop their own 'communities' in the face of a strongly felt hostility from the adults around them. The paper concludes firstly that age is an important structuring principle which needs to be taken into account when considering entitlements to use of public space within neighbourhoods, and secondly that how young people use and experience communal areas is likely to have an important effect on their sense of community identity and ultimately their well-being.