DECLARACIÓN DE LAS MERCANCÍAS

As the project progressed, both groups increasingly engaged with their freedom to participate in all elements of the project. Throughout the project, both groups participated actively in the main content of the project, and took part in reaching consensus over a variety of issues. However, in addition to this, over time, the young people took increasing responsibility for both the logistics and running of the small details of the project, and for the emotions and dynamics of the groups.

Outside of the large decisions that the groups formally voted on, both groups originally seemed relatively content to let me organise the day-to-day details and logistics of the running of the project. I prompted people when it was their turn to bring cake, provided stationery and other resources for sessions, and reminded group members of the timings of the next sessions. In many ways, the initial slippage into these roles on the part of both the young people and myself may in part have been a reflection of the normal expectations surrounding young people and adults in settings such as schools and youth groups. Both schools and youth groups are environments in which the adult staff of the institutions make many of the mundane decisions surrounding the lives or experiences of the young people in their care (Heath et al. 2007). In an environment where adults generally carry out tasks such as booking rooms, providing resources for tasks and dealing with emotional or behavioural issues, it is possible that both young people and adults can quickly revert to assuming these expected roles. However, as the project progressed, the young people seemed to begin to move away from these expectations as they began to take on a greater role in managing the details of the project.

Monica: Err, Hannah can't make it this morning, but she said, has anyone brought cake or does she need to go and fetch some at lunch?

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Monica: He might not have my number. Eleanor: He might answer it though.

95 Monica: He might be in bed.

[Phone on loudspeaker: “Welcome to the O2 messaging –.”] Monica: [Gasps] Right!

Eleanor: Hasn’t he had a double lesson, though? Facilitator: Do you want me to -?

Eleanor: -Ring him on Facebook.

These two sections of dialogue taken from group meetings each illustrated moments at which the participants of the school project took control over the organisation of some of the logistics of the project. In the first quote, Monica was communicating with Hannah, who was offering to go and source cake for the later meeting of the day. In this moment, not only were Hannah and Monica participating in the logistics of the project, but for Hannah this participation was also taking part outside of the main space of the project.

In the second piece of dialogue, Eleanor and Monica can be heard trying to contact Deano to remind him of an upcoming extra meeting that they suspect he will have forgotten. In this extract of dialogue, Eleanor can be heard cutting over the facilitator in her final suggestion to ring him on Facebook. By this point in the project, the young people were not only willing to participate in the logistics of the project, but they were also aware of when they were better placed to do this than the facilitator. In this moment, Eleanor appeared focused on the task in hand, and aware that she had more to offer in solving this issue than I did as the group facilitator.

A similar pattern can be seen when considering the ways in which the young people participated in managing the group emotions and dynamics. As the project progressed, the young people increasingly engaged in the task of managing the emotions of the others in the room to ensure the smooth running of the sessions.

Elliot: To be honest, they were just doing condoms on demonstrators. I think. We did it this time last year, and that's all they did.

Ernest: All they did was the condom thing? Okay. Great.

In this section of dialogue from the youth group, Ernest had been worried that he would have found the sex education session the rest of the youth group were taking part in informative and useful. The rest of the group were keen for him to stay in the PAR session, as it was their last session together as a group. As Ernest became restless, Elliot tried to reassure him that he wasn't missing anything. As this was a repeat of an earlier session that the group had attended, Elliot went upstairs and checked that nothing different was happening. In this

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moment, Elliot actively worked to soothe Ernest, and ensure the smooth running of the session by encouraging all of the members to stay and participate.

In these moments, across both projects, the participants had moved away from traditional expectations of the role of young people in school and youth groups and broadened their understanding of participation. From the beginning of the project they had been involved in participating in the main content of the project, and involved in reaching group consensus around larger issues. However, as the projects progressed, they also began to take a greater responsibility for the dynamics of their group, and the logistical details of the project.