PRINCIPIOS INHERENTES A LA DESHIDRATACION DE LOS ALIMENTOS

well.”

Interviewer: Yes, I’m sure.

I: “‘Cause you won’t be like ‘ooh I’ve got bills’ and like ‘cause I already pay for everything myself and then I pay my dad.”

For others, the prospect of becoming an adult evoked ambivalent feelings about being expected to make choices and take responsibility for their lives. Some young people felt that they were being asked to make important life decisions at too young an age, for example C:

Interviewer: Did you have any ideas when you were you know in that time...

C: “No, I didn’t actually. Still like thinking now like I wanna do something but what do I wanna do. It’s hard to understand what you wanna do at this age.”

Interviewer: Yeah, yeah it is isn’t it yeah? How old are you now? C: “Seventeen.”

Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah and it seems like erm, you know people have been asked to think about it and then…

134 C: “Yeah. I got asked to think about it when I was like fourteen and I was like…I haven’t got a clue.”

Respondent E found it difficult to adjust to being given more freedom by her mother once she left school, for example in matters such as getting up in the mornings:

E: “And I think that’s a really big thing to take on because all through school all up until year eleven my mum was really strict with me and I know my friends’ mums were as well. So then their parents are all being really strict and like they’re in control and as soon as we all left school we, they give us just loads of freedom. And then there’s like…”

Interviewer: Do you think that was too much then?

E: “I think, I think it was too much to have all the freedom from my mum and then not having to go to school and going to college is like, it’s not the same ‘cause as soon as I started going college my mum stopped waking me up in the mornings like, it was down to me to get myself up.” Interviewer: Right, yeah.

E: “And just little things like that and it’s like, it’s just become like, it’s just become your life if you, I don’t know how to explain it...”

Conversely, F had been pushed into taking on adult responsibilities very young and felt he had missed out on ‘normal’ life as a teenager, due to having to move into supported housing at the age of sixteen:

F: “Erm and then I went into supported housing which obviously then it wasn’t the greatest to get a job and it wasn’t the greatest situation in life erm…”

Interviewer: No.

F: “…to actually, I don’t know just feel like I don’t know how to describe it, like a normal person. Like when you go to college you see all these people and they go and they’ve, they’ve got their washing done for you, they’ve well they’ve got their washing done for them and, and it’s all about I know that’s obviously when you grow up you, you have to do that

135 sort of thing but I mean that was sixteen. I was there. I was just living on my own.”

Some of the apprentices spoke about difficulties with friends who had taken a different path and who didn’t understand the demands of their job. Most of E’s friends had gone to college and she frequently mentioned the contrast between their experiences and hers (in particular, the constraints arising from the

responsibilities of her job):

E: “...most my friends go college so at the minute, well they’ll all be breaking up soon so then they’ve got two weeks off and then to them my job becomes annoying ‘cause ‘you’re in work and we’re all off and we wanna do this…’”

4.2.4(ii) Optimism

This theme was defined as ‘the extent of the young people’s hopefulness and confidence about their future’. As one might expect, having secured

employment with training for two years, the apprentices expressed the most positive and hopeful views about their future. Despite the difficult climate for jobs, the apprentices in particular seemed to regard themselves as having choices in what they did in the future. E wanted to leave her options open:

E: “I think I’ve changed my future plans now. I don’t…” Interviewer: Oh yeah.

E: “…yeah I don’t think I’d say, I don’t know exactly what I want to do in the future. I think for the minute I’m enjoying what I’m doing…”

136 E: “…and I can, I wanna see where that takes me. And if I find out after this apprenticeship that maybe I don’t wanna work in an office and just, I can try something new.”

F had been pessimistic about his chances of finding work without qualifications, but obtaining the apprenticeship had shown him that his lack of qualifications need not define his career pathway:

F: “Yeah, yeah I think I know that I’m not err a lost cause. I’m not erm, I’m not the qualification on the bit of paper I’m the person and that the qualification doesn’t make me and doesn’t choose what I do, I choose what I do sort of thing.”

Interviewer: Yes. Yeah does that erm some, sort of cause for hope for you?

F: “Yeah ‘cause I always thought that your qualifications, everyone looks at your qualifications and that, that can be the decider right there.”

Interviewer: Hmmm. It’s interesting isn’t it?

F: “And obviously ‘cause I’m so young I haven’t got that much experience.”

Interviewer: Hmmm.

F: “So that is literally all they have to go on.”

E spoke about the opportunities for progression offered by her employer:

Interviewer: I mean what, what erm what else will, would help you? E: “Definitely the help the help that I get from my supervisors, my colleagues and definitely my line manager ‘cause they’re all really

supportive and erm, willing to help us progress and like I think that’s what they want for us just as much as we do ourselves as well. Like they’re all constantly reminding us that if we do wanna progress and we do wanna learn more then we’re more than welcome just to say like ‘is there any chance that we could be like trained on that as well’.”

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4.2.4(iii) Insecurity

The definition for this theme was ‘young people express fear, worry, or unease about the future’. There was a general view that suitable jobs were in short supply and that being young and inexperienced were barriers to finding work. C said that she would like to do an apprenticeship, possibly working with children, but she had a lot of worries about getting a job:

C: “Yeah. Definitely worried about the future. Definitely.” Interviewer: OK. Erm can you explain a bit more?

C: “‘Cause I just don’t know what’s gonna happen in the future. Like, it’s just hard to know what’s gonna happen…like anything could happen in the future now.”

Interviewer: Do you mean in terms of jobs or…?

C: “Jobs and money. There’s not a lot of jobs going anymore. Especially with like the age, age range round here like.”

Interviewer: Yeah.

C: “Young people have the hardest to get a job because they’ve no experience.”

D described times when she experienced self-doubt and uncertainty about her future:

D: “...and then sometimes I worry that I’m not gonna get where I want to get to…”

Interviewer: Right yeah.

D: “…and what I want to be doing. Like I feel like sometimes it’s not possible kind of thing but obviously I’m hopeful this course has kind of motivated me to be doing something every week ‘cause it’s given me a bit more routine so it’s made me optimistic that it can be done but then I’m, I do kind of doubt myself and go back. So it’s kind of a circle if that makes sense?”

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4.3 Being ‘not in education, employment or training’ (NEET)

The definition developed for the global theme ‘being NEET’ is ‘young people’s views about the impact of being ‘not in education, employment or training’ on their lives’. I did not specifically use the acronym ‘NEET’ with the young people, and none of them seemed to be aware of it. However it was evident from the strength of the feelings expressed and the sense of immediacy in the young peoples’ accounts, that being NEET had impacted significantly on them, and was continuing to influence their perceptions in the present. It is of course difficult to ascertain how closely the respondents’ views corresponded to their actual feelings and thoughts at the time, because they were being asked to reflect ‘in hindsight’, and people continue to actively process and try to ‘make sense’ of their life experiences in order to construct their stories.

Three main themes were identified in the global theme ‘being NEET’:

 _{Impact on personal identity}  Significant relationships

 _{School experience}

Figure 4.2 on page 140 shows the thematic map for ‘being NEET’, and Table 4.2 overleaf shows the subordinate themes associated with each main theme.

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Table 4.2: Relationship between the main themes and subordinate themes for being ‘not in education, employment or training’