Control and Supervision of Urban 12-Year-Olds Within and Outside Northern Ireland: A Pilot Study

A study was carried out on some aspects of the family settings in which young people grow up in Northern Ireland, and the findings were compared with those for a similar group of young people in Inner London. The main sub-topic considered in the present paper was that of control and supervision exercised by parents over 12-year-old boys and girls (total n = 284), as manifested in three areas of daily living—control of television viewing; independence allowed in decisions about and execution of personal chores; and attendance at religious services on Sundays. It was found that the boys from West Belfast had more control and supervision and less independence that those from East Belfast and Inner London. There were significant differences between the girls only with regard to church attendance. The girls from East Belfast indicated that this was of more salience for them, though the West Belfast group were not far behind. Apart from this finding, the children from East Belfast were generally more independent, and received less control and supervision than either of the other two groups. Implications are drawn in the light of current thinking about how children’s views about society are formed, and possible reasons for the group differences are discussed.