Young people and risk

This paper reports the findings of a small-scale qualitative inquiry into risk in the lives of children and young people. Conducted over a 12-month period in Birmingham and the Black Country in the United Kingdom, the study sought to elicit perceptions of risk from the perspective of children and young people in primary and secondary school settings. The research design employed focus groups to explore the perceptions of children and young people as they approached the end of primary-phase and secondary-phase schooling. A reference group was also established in a community-based centre to explore the views of young people who had recently left statutory-phase education. Involving seven primary schools, six secondary schools and the community-based centre, a total of 97 participants were involved in 14 separate focus groups. The findings from the study affirm risk as a multi-dimensional and at times complex field of encounter. Moreover, the research exposes a disjunction between the kinds of risks that children and young people see as significant in their lives and adult concerns that are typically expressed in the form of ‘moral panics’.