‘life should
be until you die’
Stated Felicity (Parfitt 2013a line. 87).
[Photo by Null Value at Flickr.com]
From an initial analysis of my focus groups young people seem to be
aware of conformist and nonconformist elements in the stories—such as the compulsion to accept
social “norms” and values—along with other potentially influential narratives
such as media, film, television, video games, books, the internet, and
education. I found it interesting that in the all-girls school Group One related
the content of the stories to crime and how to treat other people. In week one whilst
talking about the story MacCodram (MacIntyre 2012) the group’s conversation
revolved around crime before they even reached my focus group question about conformist
and nonconformist elements that they recognised in the story (lines. 82-91),
Mary I know this is getting off the subject a bit
but if you murder someone you get ten years
RES If you murder someone you get a life
sentence
Felicity A life sentence is about twenty-five
years
Paris It’s not good enough
Felicity A life should be until you die
Paris You can get bailed out before then because if
you’re good you’re allowed
Felicity If your family have enough money
Paris Yeah but and you’re let out if you’re good
Mary You shouldn’t do it though, just do your time
Two of
girls in this group, Mary and Felicity, shared in their final interviews that
they want to join the police force (Parfitt 2013c). Mary’s mum is a teacher and
her step-dad works in the army perhaps explaining her strong stance on crime.
Felicity’s mum works in school administration. What her father does is unknown
but she does say that ‘I love CSI,’ and is knowledgeable about things happening
the news (Parfitt 2013a line. 132). So TV and media may be influential on her
desire to join the police force (though Felicity’s first choice is to be a vet).
A little while later the group’s conversation returned to crime as Felicity mentioned
up the case of a homeless man that was on the news, Felicity, Heidi and Mary
explain what happened to Paris (Parfitt 2013a lines. 158-176),
Paris When? Where?
Mary A homeless man got
beat up by three teenagers
Heidi They got dared
Mary A twelve year old,
a thirteen year old and a seventeen year old
Paris They got dared?
Heidi They got dared to
kill a homeless man
Mary They were dared to
kill this man. They beat him up and then
Felicity Dared, saying I dare you to go kill that man
Mary No,
they beat him up first, then they walked away, and their friend makes like, I
bet you couldn’t finish him off and they were like, yeah, and then they
battered him to death. The twelve year old didn’t do anything. He stood and
watched. But he still got something like five years, three years for it
Felicity He got six years. Yeah, my
teacher told me this, the homeless man, eye socket was missing, that’s how much
damage they gave to him
Paris You what?
Mary His eye socket was
missing, that’s how badly they
Felicity The
seventeen year old who did most of the work, he only got ten years
Mary He should have got
like twenty-five, he should have got murder
Felicity He
should have got life
Note how Mary and Felicity relate all the facts of the case; it makes
sense that they would take an interest when considering police work. Read the news story here: BBC News. Mary in
particular as the police force is her first choice narrates what happened in
order. Justice is very important to the group in a conservative way, they share
a ‘do your time’ attitude that Mary expressed earlier (line. 91).
[Photo by Brim216974 on flickr.com]
The way people treat other people is also very important to this group,
as Mary summaries in week two conformative to her means things that are
‘Illegal’ or ‘common decency rules’ (Parfitt 2013b line. 128). An example would
be the way the husband treated the wife in Moon Bear. They see this as nonconformative
to the way a woman expects to be treated by her husband (lines. 130-141),
Mary
I reckon the nonconformative was probably
the way the husband treated the wife, it wasn’t very nice. I wouldn’t have put
up with that
Felicity I’d be like, get out my house now
Mary Well he wasn’t in it in the first place
Felicity Get out my forest
Paris Get out my life
Heidi What about conformative though?
Mary I guess you could say that the wife was
conformative because she
Heidi Cared for him
Mary Cared for, yeah
Heidi She tried everything that she could
Felicity To get him back into the house
In relation to conformity the group
also discusses appearances.
‘You’re not
the same person than you are with nothing on’
Says Heidi (Parfitt
2013a line. 254). The way they describe makeup in relation to themselves, the
way they describe others, a lot of it is visual. Make-up is seen as a surface
act, a mask ‘When you’ve got your makeup off you tend to look at yourself in
the mirror and you don’t usually see the same person that you do with makeup, when
you’ve always got a disguise on’ (Heidi 250-253).
Heidi wears
a bit of make-up but doesn’t ‘plaster my face in it’ (257), Felicity wears it
‘sometimes’ (260), while Mary says ‘I only put mascara on but I’m not wearing
any today’ (266). The most obvious makeup wearer is Paris who has thick mascaraed
lashes and smoky eyes. She regards this make-up as being essential to who she
is and feels that her eyes look ‘horrible’ when ‘I’ve got no makeup on’
(267-268).
While some
of the group, like Paris, view make-up as part of their self-expression and part
of their day-to-day physical identity, at the same time the students also
criticise other women’s sense of identity in today’s society in terms of
make-up. Mary says, ‘I turned on the telly and Single Date was on and there was
this girl and she had the biggest eyebrows you’d ever seen in your entire life
and I took a picture, I’m going to show you now [gets out her mobile]. Like
slugs on her face.’ Felicity responds, ‘You know the Liverpool, Essex or
whatever, they have proper weird eyebrows’ (220-223).
When
Felicity commented ‘they think it looks good but it’s not it looks really
ugly,’ I asked the group, ‘Why would they think it looks good?’ Heidi said, ‘Usually
you’d tend to get people, I mean I’m not trying to sound harsh or anything but,
people who end up being like that do get attention from the lads and think
they’re beautiful and then they keep on doing it all the time’ (238-240).
Showing that in terms of social identity appearances do matter even if on a
deeper level ‘whatever’s on the outside you don’t usually see on the inside’
(Heidi, 256). This group don’t seem to feel pressure to conform to the limited
media images of female beauty at this stage though understand in terms of
attractiveness that they will be judged by external appearances, by young men
for example. And when referring to such things they are citing TV programmes
like The Only Way is Essex and Single Date with a critical eye. In this way
storytelling appears to be triggering conversations about what it is currently
like to be a young person for these individuals.
Important
themes in terms of social identity for Group one in the all-girls school were crime
and appearances. Young people were aware of conformist and
nonconformist elements, discussing them in the group before the focus group
question was raised.
This month I am also writing a paper for The Warwick Research Exchange
Journal about how the storytelling
space in combination with social interaction triggers sharing conversations. I
also have a meeting to discuss some of these ideas with Jack Zipes in
Cambridge.
References
MACINTYRE, M. 2012. MacCodram and His Seal Wife. Video Bank. Education Scotland. http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/video/m/video_tcm4572221.asp
PARFITT, E.
2013a. All-girls School Transcript 1, 19 April 2013
PARFITT, E.
2013b. All-girls School Transcript 2, 26 April 2013
PARFITT, E. 2013c.
Final Interviews, 22 May 2013
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