Social Participation and Identity: Combining quantitative longitudinal data with a qualitative inves

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Social Participation and Identity Combining
quantitative longitudinal data with a qualitative
investigation of a sub-sample of the 1958 cohort
Sub-brand to go here

• Jane Elliott (CLS), Andrew Miles (CRESC),
• Sam Parsons (CLS) Mike Savage (CRESC)

www.cresc.ac.uk
CLS is an ESRC Resource Centre based at the
Institute of Education
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Aims of the presentation

• Introduction to the project
• The value of our project for studies of
  participation and identity
• The British Birth Cohort Studies
• The NCDS as a resource for the study of
  participation
• Sampling strategy and methodology
• Introduction to the topic guide
• Issues arising from pilot interviews and
  preliminary research

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Introduction to the project

• OBJECTIVES
• 1. Provide a resource of 180 transcribed
  qualitative interviews from a theoretically
  derived sub-sample of NCDS data.
• 2. Conduct longitudinal analysis of changing
  forms of participation and identity, both by
  analysing the interviews, and through linking
  them to previous waves of NCDS data.
• 3. Understand more about cohort members
  experiences of being in the study
• 4. Understand more about individual lives from
  the perspective of the individuals themselves
  what the quantitative interviews may be missing
• TIMETABLE
• 1. November 2007 to April 2010. Interviews
  conducted October 2008 to April 2009

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Benefits of collecting qualitative data from NCDS

• NCDS is a leading panel study with data
  stretching back to 1958, with extensive data on
  work histories, and educational, medical and
  social variables from previous waves.
• NCDS offers excellent sampling frame from which
  to design the study
• Includes information about responders and
  non-responders
• It allows methodological insights improving
  ways of asking questions identifying important
  aspects of individuals lives that we may not be
  covering
• Gaining a better understanding of perceptions of
  cohort members
• Data in a form that might be more accessible for
  dissemination to cohort members (improving long
  term response)

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The Research Team

• Brings together two major ESRC core-funded
  research centres-
• Centre for Longitudinal Studies (IoE, University
  of London), with its established profile in
  longitdudinal analysis and its central role in
  administering NCDS
• Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change
  (CRESC, University of Manchester/ Open
  University) with substantive interests in social
  and cultural participation, and in linking
  qualitative and quantitative analysis
• Team members have disciplinary interests in
  narrative methods and gender (Elliott),
  historical analyses of social mobility (Miles),
  skills and education (Parsons), social
  stratification and inequality (Savage)
• Funded by the ESRC Resources Board

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Value of the project for studies of participation
identity

• Social participation has become a central policy
  concern through interests in social capital,
  where there are several competing interpretations
• Is there evidence for the decline of social
  engagement? (Putnam, Bowling Alone)
• How far does the existence of social capital
  allow people, including those from disadvantaged
  backgrounds, to get ahead? (Coleman)
• How far do patterns of participation and
  socialisation help to reproduce patterns of
  inequality and elite reproduction? (Bourdieu)
• How do people form activist identities and how
  does this relate to their social interaction and
  social ties? (White, Mische)
• These issues have hitherto been explored nearly
  entirely using cross sectional data but we need
  to separate out age, cohort and generational
  effects.

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Probing recent research findings

• There is evidence of a clear, and growing, class
  divide in social and cultural participation (Hall
  1999 Halpern 2005 Li et al 2008, Bennett et al
  2008)
• There is no clear overlap between formal
  participation and neighbourhood participation and
  friendship (Li et al 2003). How can we better
  understand the relationship between these
  domains?
• Evidence for the significance of (s)elective
  belonging in studies of middle class
  neighbourhoods (Savage et al 2005), but we know
  little about the historical precedents.
• Striking age differences in participation
  (Scherger 2008 Bennett et al 2008) but it is not
  clear if these are age, cohort, or generational
  effects
• Evidence of very strong mobility effects on
  participation, where it is those who are
  second-generation service class are most
  predisposed to formal involvements (Goldthorpe et
  al 1980, Li et al 2008)
• Important recent emphasis on the role of
  friendship dynamics for social support (Spencer
  and Pahl 2005), yet we know little about the
  longitudinal aspects of these.

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British Birth Cohort Studies

• Fully representative samples of the British
  population
• Based on one weeks births - approximately 17,000
  babies
• Followed up from birth into adulthood
• Four British Birth Cohort Studies
• 1946 National Survey of Health and Development
  (MRC funded)
• 1958 National Child Development Study
• 1970 British Cohort Study 1970
• 2000/1 Millennium Cohort Study

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1958 Birth Cohort Study

• Representative sample of over 17,000 infants born
  in March 1958 (Perinatal Mortality Study)
• Sample followed at ages 7, 11, 16, 23, 33, 42, 46
  (prospective study)
• Multipurpose study family life education
  employment skills housing health finances
  citizenship
• Focused bio-medical study at age 44 (MRC funded)
• Approximately 12,000 individuals are still
  participating
• Now core funded by ESRC with data collected every
  four years, including interviews now being
  conducted at age 50.

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Hypothetical life history
Age 16
2000
2004
1991
1981
Age 42
Age 46
Age 23
Age 33
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The NCDS as a resource for the study of
participation

• The NCDS has asked relevant questions in
  previous waves, though they are rarely a major
  focus, have varied significantly between waves,
  and have not been analysed extensively.
• - 1991 extensive battery of questions on
  attitudes.
• - regular questions on voluntary association
  membership.
• - regular questions on political alignments.
• - social support (2000).
• - neighbouring (2000).
• Questions have not been asked on cultural
  participation informal aspects of social
  interaction and leisure class and other kinds of
  identity.

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men and women participating at age 46 by social
mobility
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  men and women participating at age 46 by
social mobility (inc. hobbies and sports)
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Sampling strategy and methodology

• Sampling will be theoretically led rather than a
  simple random sample
• 60 cohort members in three geographic regions,
  SE England, NW England and Scotland (180
  interviews)
• Stratified in terms of social mobility measured
  in terms of social class during childhood and
  highest qualifications, to produce 15 interviews
  with stable working class, 15 with stable service
  class, 15 upwardly mobile and 15 downwardly
  mobile in each region

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Structure of the interview and topic guide

• Interview in six sections
• Neighbourhood and belonging
• Social participation and leisure activities
• Friendships
• Life story and trajectories
• Identities
• Experience of the NCDS
• Aim for an average of ninety minute interview
• Interviews digitally recorded and transcribed
  verbatim
• Interviews will be deposited at the UK data
  archive

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SECTION 1 NEIGHBOURHOOD AND BELONGING

• We know a bit about your housing history from
  your survey responses but we would like to know a
  little bit more about your involvement in your
  current neighbourhood. Can I begin by asking you
  how long you have lived here and about the
  reasons you came to live here?
• If you are asked where you are from, what would
  you reply? Do you feel you belong here?
• What things do you particularly like and dislike
  about living in this area?
• Do you think you will continue living here in the
  future? Under what circumstances might you move
  and where to?

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SECTION 2 PARTICIPATION

• The survey included questions about your spare
  time interests and activities but we are not sure
  that these questions gave you enough scope to
  describe and explain what you do. We therefore
  want to ask some additional questions.
• 5. First, could you talk me through your last
  week and then last weekend in terms of how you
  spent your spare time?
• 6. Is this a typical pattern?
• 7. Do you belong to any organised clubs or formal
  associations - for example do you attend a
  church or evening classes, or are you a member of
  a political party, sports club or musical group?
• 8. (If not raised above) Do you do any voluntary
  or charitable work?
• 9. To what extent does your leisure time and
  social life overlap with family life?
• 10. To what extent do your work and social lives
  overlap?

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SECTION 3 FRIENDSHIPS

• 11. Looking at this page with the five concentric
  rings marked on, can you please think of those
  people who are important to you, and write their
  names in, with those who are most important
  closest to the centre (allow five minutes for
  interviewee to complete this)
• 12. Thank you. For each person youve listed in
  turn could you say
• Why has that person been placed there (in a
  specific locations within the
• 5 circles)?
• How would you describe your relationship to that
  person?
• How often do you keep in touch?
• What do you talk about?
• How has your relationship with this person
  changed in importance or intensity?

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SECTION 4 LIFE STORIES TRAJECTORIES

• The NCDS has collected a lot of information
  about your life over the years. But wed now like
  to give you more of a chance to say what has been
  important in your life and to give us the main
  points of your life story from your own
  perspective.

13. Starting with your childhood could you say a
bit about - what kind of child you were - how
you got on at school - who had the most
influence on your life Followed by questions (14,
15, 16, 17) as prompts on other periods of the
respondents life, depending on how their
narrative develops
18. Summing up, what would you say have been the
most important events or turning points in your
life?
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19. If you had to depict your life up to now by
means of a diagram, which diagram would you
choose (show line diagrams sheet and ask them to
mark which one with a tick), or if none of these
apply, can you draw a more representative pattern
in the blank box?
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SECTION 5 IDENTITIES

• 20. Generally speaking, could you tell me how you
  define yourself? Could you describe yourself?
• 21. And how do you think others see you?
• 22. Do you think of yourself as belonging to a
  social class?
• 23. Which nationality do you think you belong to?

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Stable social class but evidence of upward
housing mobility (from council estate to detached
house with big garden)  Father partly skilled
manual worker, cohort member self-employed
electrician  .came to the end of primary school
and they put me down for a grammar school place
and I said I didnt want it. I said if I dont
get on with them here, Im not going to get on
with a whole school of them, so I went to the
secondary modern school where me brothers had
gone to.  occasionally youd get invited
round for tea and, you know, our family was sort
of take us as we are really, like, you know.
But other people were, you know, you did sense a
difference.  there was one lad over the
road, he went to grammar school. But, you know,
he lived in a council house like we did, like,
you know, but it didnt do him any better as a
job, really. He ended up like, you know, he
worked in a magistrates court, you know, as a
court clerk, perhaps seen to be a good job but at
the end of the day not very good money, you know.
And to me being self-employed, to be honest with
you, me worlds me oyster.  I dont know what
class Id put meself in, really, but I dont like
it where people do distinguish one from another,
reallysay like lower or middle or anything.
You find that sometimes when you get to the
upper class some of them have had their brains
removed, because theyre just so far from
reality, to be honest with you.
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Stable social class no upward mobility  A
coalmans daughter who works in a beach-side café
serving burgers and chips. Lived in same council
estate all of her life   Working class. Working
class. Coalmans daughter and Im proud of it.
Aye, working classmy mother was a snob, she
was a snob, she was a Tory supporter. Aye, she
was. my mother had delusions of grandeur.
queen, the queen, thats what he called
her ..Ive never had much. Ive always had
enough. You know, work hard for what Ive got
and got what I need. And Ive never had the
yearn to have fancies and go over the top
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Downward mobility  Father held a
professional/managerial job, cohort member is a
maintenance manager (gas company)  it the
house grew up in was in a really good area and
my father had a good job, he had a better job
than Ive got now.  Working class or
middle-class? Sighs Not really. Theres so
much on the radio about how the UK is class
structured and perhaps we are, and theres part
of me thats middle-class, I read a good
newspaper and I listen to Radio Four and the
World Service. Thats my middle-class..
now Elaine that works with me.her husband is a
gas fitter..they blow their money and hell earn
at least twice as much as me. Now I would say
hes probably middle/upper-class but they have
the money to be middle-class, thats if youre
looking at that, and they read The Sun..
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Class and upward social mobility Father was an
aircraft engineer and cohort member is a
teacher  I suppose as a family I considered us
working class, although later when I learned the
term white collar I think actually thats what
we were laughs, because my dad had a good job,
but I think weve always thought of ourselves as
working class and I still do really. but I
suppose if I looked at my life as youre asking
me to do now, then probably it would be more
middle class.  where I liveits quite a
middle class area and I suppose subconsciously
Ive thought of it as a step up really, because
we grew up in a council house originally and then
they bought the council house, but that wasnt a
conscious decision of why I wanted to live here,
I just liked the area  suppose when I first
went to college that was a bit of a shock to me,
meeting people I didnt know from lots of
different walks of life and I did--, I have to
say I did feel like I was working class then and
they were all educated people, or so I thought
were more educated than me, you know, cause I
kind of thought that the Open University degree
wasnt as good as if Id gone to the university
for three years. I dont believe that now but at
the time I did.
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SECTION 6 MEMBERSHIP OF THE NCDS

• Finally, wed like to find out more about what
  it has been like for you to be a member of the
  NCDS - whether its been a good and interesting
  experience, how it might have been improved,
  whether weve been asking the right types of
  questions, and so on.
• 24. Do you have any memories of being in the
  study as a child?
• 25. What have been the advantages and
  disadvantages of being in the NCDS as far as you
  are concerned?
• 26. Lastly, has being part of the NCDS changed
  your life at all?

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Being part of NCDS   Theres one thing Im
guaranteed, all of my entire life, is one
birthday card. Ive always liked being part of
it, Ive always enjoyed being part of it because
its different and Im quite proud of it
really. I think I could almost put this in as a
landmark in my life. I havent kidded on about
anything in my life, warts and all, Ive been
honest and Ive said it all. .. I think, you
know, it does make you feel special in certain
ways, like really.. I havent ever seen anything
negative in it actually, not anything negative at
all..Ive always felt comfortable and I always
know that if I dont want to answer a question I
dont have to I think its just been
fascinating.
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Recognising the importance of NCDS I can remember
becoming part of the NCDS, I didnt understand
it.... I think Ive just grown to understand it
more as Ive got older and the importance of it
and how its helping everybody really, thats
what I think. Well, I think to a certain extent
youve got to say its mainly for helping others,
you know. Like you say its no benefit to me to
do it, but then again its no skin off my nose
not to do it, so. Its one of those things like,
you know.I dont see a reason not to People
should take the time and know things about people
really, and if it did that, you know, we wouldnt
have half the problems that we do have really,
today really, so. I think its interesting that
theyre actually following all these people,
right through their life and they find out
comparisons. Aye, I think its really. thats
why I take the bother to, aye, come. I want to
be part of it because Ive been in it all my
life. ..oh Ill tell them all, Im quite proud
of the fact that Im in the study, that they
can find out on how peoples lived and
compare.      
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NCDS over the lifecourse I rememberwhen I was
about 11 doing something and doing questions, and
the thing I remember is that your favourite TV
programmes and I had Sports Reel which in England
they wouldnt have known about, you had Match of
the Day, we had Sports Reel, and I also put
something like Panorama, I thought, Ill show
you  I can rememberwould I be six..and they
had me hopping and you had to hop on each
leg..and I can remember they had a paper carton
for you to look through, close one eye and I
could only do it with one eye, and I remember
getting embarrassed that I couldnt close this
other eye and look.. I tell folk about it now
and I tell them about the eyes and its my
party piece kind of thing. Try this, Ive
actually got toilet roll things out and made folk
do it..laughs.So Ive had a bit of fun with
it along..  No cons, no cons inaudible
12630, and I would probably think that in
doing it, it gives you a chance to think about
yourself. I dont know if its deliberately
done at certain stages in your life, but 50 I
thinks quite a big milestone and a bit of
thinking going on
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Issues arising from the pilots

• The NCDS is itself an important agent for its
  members identities. How do we best generalise
  from our sample?
• Evidence for the value in recognising informal
  aspects of social participation. Do our
  friendship questions mesh with the rest of our
  schedule?
• How important is it to generate systematic
  information on weekly leisure schedules and have
  a complete account of informal social life?
• Do we need to ask more systematically about
  experiences of work and employment?
• How do we best elicit narrative on trajectory and
  changing forms of identity (should we ask about
  key turning points? About each decade/ period of
  respondents lives systematically? How do we best
  deal with recall bias?

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