Same as it ever was? Intergenerational Relationships: A neighbourhood case study

1. Same as it ever was?Intergenerational Relationships: A neighbourhood case study

2. Outline • Setting the scene – background • The research • The research findings • Discussion

3. Background – thinking about age • Challenges for society • Pressure on intergenerational relations • Public discourses • Ageism • Intergenerational practice • Intergenerational studies • Conflict – solidarity frame • Ambivalence

4. The research- my approach Critical research: ‘…we do whatever we do with passion and a belief that our scholarship can make a difference: that is, move people to action.’ (Holstein and Minkler, 2007, p 26) Connecting historical and political considerations with contemporary personal stories and public concerns What Mills, (1959) calls the ‘Sociological Imagination’

5. What are the social drivers of intergenerational relationships in this neighbourhood?

6. The research – the place Public built housing estate outside Belfast Approx 800 households: 1500 residents • 92% Protestant • 23% under 16 2001 census data • 16% over 60 • NIMDM shows the estate’s deprivation statistics as getting worse from 2005 to 2010 – approaching the bottom10%

7. The research – what I did • Community survey • Interviews – residents and stakeholders • Small group discussions • Church/community/youth groups • Primary 7 Children • Volunteered in community office one morning a week for over a year

8. Research Findings : Three issues • Mind the gap – perceptions about age • A place apart – the isolation of the place • The legacy of the conflict – ‘paramiltary’

9. Issue 1: Mind the gap The denial of ageing • ‘… [old age is] really more to do with lifestyle, and when your priorities change.’ (interview notes, female, 20s). • ‘Well, age doesn’t matter to me.... I mean age, you can see yourself getting older and OK you get a bit slower and you maybe can’t do the running that you used to do but, em, I think just inside your head, age is maybe perceived more by other people than actually you yourself..’ (J, female, 60s).

10. Mind the gap – perceptions of youth • Negative perceptions about young people, from all ages of participants, including young people • But they are ‘not all bad’ • Parenting to blame • Childhood as changed

11. Words associated with the word ‘young’ (2 fourteen –year- old boys)

12. Post-it note used by Primary Seven children to describe ‘young’

13. Mind the gap – perceptions of old • ‘The older people are still fearful of the young ones,… I mean on numerous occasions when we’ve been round the doors and you ask them about coming out maybe for a Christmas party and things like that, the older people are still ascared to answer their doors…’ (male, 40s, resident) • Views of older family members usually more positive than views of older people generally in the neighbourhood.

14. Primary 7 girl’s drawing of an old person

15. Drawing of an old person by a nine-year-old boy

16. Issue 2: A place apart • ‘There was no road, the kerb edge was there but it wasn’t tarmaced … it was like a building site..’ (male, 60s). • ‘It was really the pits. I didn’t even think you got the same television here!.... I hated it!’ (female,60s). • ‘It was very tight. At the back of my mum this woman... if anyone wanted a haircut they didn’t go up the town, they went to her . Her husband was the lemonade man, so know what I mean?’ (female, 40s) • ‘Oh, that’s where they eat their children.’ (male non-resident, 20s) • ‘I think it’s the best estate in the town…’ (female, 60s) • ‘I wouldn’t move out of here for love nor money.’ (female, 60s)

17. Issue 3: The legacy of the conflict • ‘Something happens every few months, maybe 4 or 5 times a year you would hear of somebody being beaten up or having their kneecaps done’ (notes from conversation with a teenage boy) • ‘...kids would have that fear that if they are caught doing something then they gonna be, I mean, like, visited by the paramilitaries or whatever..’ (F, male, 40s). • ‘...we live in a place where there will not be a threat to the pensioners, they will do it once and they will not do it again if you know what I mean? And, em, that’s it, the leaders in this estate won’t let them get away with it, that’s it.’ (L, female,60s).

18. Summary Contradictory views about: • Young and old – nasty/nice • Place – pride/shame • Paramilitary – disapproval/useful

19. Discussion Ranges of dualities: • Internal/external processes of identification (Jenkins 2008) • Ambivalent views of younger and older people • Powerful ingroup and outgroup identities

20. ‘When you grow up with it you just get used to it’ (fourteen-year-old boy)

21. References Holstein, M. and Minkler, M. (2007) ‘Critical gerontology: reflections for the 21st century’, in Bernard, M. and Scharf, T. (eds) Critical Perspectives on Ageing Societies, Bristol: Policy Press, pp. 13-26. Jenkins, R. (2008) Social Identity. Third Edition. Routledge, London Mills, C. W. (1959) The Sociological Imagination, Oxford University Press

22. ‘When you grow up with it you just get used to it’ (fourteen-year-old boy) lynnj@bjf.org.uk