PROCEDIMIENTO DE LA SECUENCIA DIDÁCTICA

This section introduces the main site of the ethnographic research and outlines some of the informal social control activities that took place there. As a central aspect of the voluntary provision in the Gurnos and a key site in which young people could socialise, access training and skills and be subject to informal social control mechanisms, the youth centre was a pivotal place in the life of the estate. The ethnography and interviews which took place here unearthed a wealth of data relating to the operation of informal social control. This longer description is reconstructed from field-notes, and gives an insight into the atmosphere at the centre:

Upon first glance, the youth centre seemed to be a hive of chaos. The noise from the stereo was deafening, and young people milled about the pool room, the corridors, the back yard, the front door and the chill-out room seemingly at random, texting on battered Blackberry mobile phones, shouting conversations to friends in the next room over the din, or cadging cigarettes off each other in between endless games of pool. Lanky teenage boys lined up shots, and ‘Alex’ a diminutive thirteen-year-old boy, darted about like a humming-bird, calling out advice, cheekily mocking missed shots and darting in to challenge the winner.

Groups of boys and girls drifted in and out throughout the evening and took up their respective positions; a tight and silent pack of Gypsy boys held the far right corner of the pool room, moving as a unit and rarely glancing at the girls and fixing their attention on the pool tables. Loud gaggles of girls sauntered in from the corner shop clutching cans of pop and bags of chips, furiously texting and gossiping or disappearing off to the chill-out room to lounge on the sofas and watch Hollyoaks, Waterloo Road or Eastenders. Very rarely did these two groups interact. ‘Ellie’ and ‘Stacey’, both seventeen and

tomboys, were the undisputed queens of the pool table and would take on all comers. Outside, younger Gypsy boys were smoking roll-ups by the back door, while some of the very oldest members were shooting basketball hoops. Every now and again, the stereo would be cranked higher.

Underneath the apparent turmoil, however, lay an order that operated with precision. ‘Jonesy’ and ‘James’, two young men in their early twenties, were part-time paid volunteers and were overseeing the action in the pool room.

Turn-taking was rigorously adhered to and self-policed effectively for the most part by the young people. Jonesy was frequently called upon to adjudicate a shot, which he did with calm authority and his word was immediately accepted. ‘Dai’ was a youth worker and had instant rapport with any young person; he could be relied upon to defuse even the tensest situation and was at turns authoritative with rowdy or foul-mouthed younger boys and a joker with the slightly older teenagers. Upstairs, ‘Chris’, another young volunteer in his early twenties, was patiently coaching yet more young boys in the fine skills of ping-pong.

Overseeing all of this was Claire the head youth worker, who would move between the rooms throughout the evening, chatting to each and every young person and keeping up to date on events. It was GCSE results day the week before, and she noted that several of the members had come in specifically to tell her and Dai their results. She beamed with pride at their achievements and at the number of young people who were going on to college; this was a sign, she argued, that young people could see the value of education and this marked a definite turn-around for some youngsters from when they had first attended the youth centre a couple of years previously.

From these extracts it is possible to discern several aspects of the ways in which social order was constructed at the youth centre. How the young people organised themselves is of particular interest, with the social divisions between different groups of teenagers by age, gender and also relating to the status of some as members of the Gypsy and Traveller community who were settled in the neighbouring estate of Galon Uchaf, at the boundary with the Gurnos. The young people from this community tended to congregate together, and besides the endless games of pool, did not interact significantly with other young people from outside their group. The extreme poverty experienced by some of this group was evident through their clothes and shoes; in the bitterly cold winter of 2010 that saw

would frequently turn up at the youth centre in flimsy plimsolls, holed tracksuit bottoms and a too-large hooded top. They were also the only children to not possess mobile phones, a rather significant indicator of social exclusion amongst this age group.

The youth centre was the first place where the word ‘tidy’ was used to describe behaviour. Tidy is a slang term used in South Wales to denote something good or positive, as well as its literal meaning of ordered or neat (www.talktidy.com). It was used by many people in the field specifically in relation to behaviour, and although there were competing ideas about who was tidy, a basic conception with regard to conduct was arrived at over the course of observation and in several interviews. Head youth worker Claire’s words illustrate the broad meaning of being ‘tidy’ at the youth centre, meaning to be free from the influence of drugs and alcohol before entry would be permitted:

But we’ve never had no problems with regard to people on substances coming here because of the fairness. Because if they do come to the door I say, ‘Look, you’re not welcome’, either if they’ve been drinking or if they’ve been taking Valium or substances, I say, ‘Look, you know you can come here when you’re tidy but you’re not coming here now because we’ve got a lot of young people,’ and they’ll go, they will go, so we’re lucky in that way.

– Claire, head youth worker

It was the aim of the staff and volunteers to guard against unruly behaviour which might get overly boisterous or out of control. But those young people whose behaviour elsewhere had seen them excluded from school, or those who were electronically tagged or who had criminal convictions, were welcome as long as they behaved well at the youth centre.

Members were not permanently banned for ‘untidy’ behaviour while at the youth centre, but were ejected for the night and made to apologise before regaining entry the following evening. In other words, a spoiled identity elsewhere did not preclude young people from being seen as ‘tidy’ at the youth centre, the reason being that it was preferable, in the eyes of the youth workers and the local police officers, for them to engage with the centre and the opportunities it offered than to be roaming the streets and getting into further trouble around the estate.

During fieldwork, it became apparent that young people from a wide variety of backgrounds socialised at the youth centre, including those whose behaviour outside of the centre, or the activities of their families, meant that their identities were spoiled. Claire was familiar with the backgrounds of many of the young people, and would point out those whose parents were engaged in criminality, or those who came from Gypsy and Traveller families. One or two of the larger families from this community were notorious for their criminality and that of their older children, and a walk around this part of the estate on several evenings demonstrated a presentation of self and home that was regarded with suspicion by others. These included the burning of fences and furniture in the front garden, adults and older teenagers congregating in the street or front garden to drink and play music, and dilapidated houses without curtains and vastly overgrown gardens. Claire confided that the parents of some of the members were well-known drug dealers and petty thieves, and yet their children were welcome at the youth centre as long as they did not break the rules.

In practice, being tidy also meant that the young people had to treat the youth centre, its staff and other members with respect, to listen to instructions not to swear or to be too rowdy, which could be potentially dangerous and which would spoil other people’s enjoyment of the youth centre. During the period spent volunteering at the youth centre, some examples of informal social control behaviour relating to tidy norms were witnessed;

typically this involved telling off boys for swearing, waving pool cues about, running or kicking footballs in the corridor, misusing the ping-pong bats or larking about on the stairs and landing. Sometimes girls were cautioned for bad language, but the vast majority related to the boys aged between twelve and sixteen. Notes taken over the course of fieldwork during evenings at the youth centre included the following examples, again taken from field-notes:

‘James’ [young volunteer, aged twenty] told off Tommy [twelve-year-old boy] for mucking around in the chill-out room and bouncing on the sofas.

James told Tommy to ‘sit down tidy, now butt, or I’ll get Claire to put you out for the night’. Tommy rather grudgingly obeyed.

‘Mark’ [adult volunteer] told off Danny and Alex [both Gypsy boys aged thirteen] for shouting and calling each other ‘fucking dickheads’

Rhys was being particularly wild in behaviour and language tonight, and

‘Claire’ the head youth worker grilled him by the front door as to whether he had been drinking energy drinks, having noted that he had gone out to the corner shop earlier and had come back ‘high as a kite’.

Emily, Kelly and Steph [all aged thirteen or fourteen] were having a very animated discussion about a mutual acquaintance who was absent, which descended into the latter being called a ‘fucking slag, fucking skanky ho!’

and being told off by both Mark and Mandy the volunteers.

Informal social control behaviours regarding more severe transgressions were also witnessed at the youth centre, with one example concerning a potentially serious dispute with the neighbours as noted in this fieldwork diary entry:

Claire related the story to me in the office just before the centre opened for the evening. The previous evening, two boys had been swinging about on a lamppost after leaving the youth centre at closing time. One of the residents came out and told the boys to stop, whereupon they told her to

‘fuck off’; she called the police and they had come round to see Claire earlier in the day. The youth centre was to close an hour early that night and the night after, and the officers had warned Claire that that this could not be tolerated and that the culprits had to apologise. The woman had described Rhod and Danny, two Gypsy lads, and Claire had a trick up her sleeve to get them to confess.

Later in the evening, Claire was hanging out by the back door with Emily, Katie and Louisa, while Rhod and Danny were skulking in the yard smoking roll-ups. The girls were discussing the disturbance, and Claire had mentioned closing early and the threat that this kind of bad behaviour posed for the youth centre. The girls were outraged at the bad language, with Emily loudly declaring that she’d batter anyone who spoke to her Nan like that and that some people had no respect for others. The other girls concurred, and Claire sadly noted that the whole centre could be in trouble if the culprits didn’t own up, with the whole conversation being conducted for the benefit of the boys who were still within earshot. Rhod and Danny, clearly piqued by this, equally loudly protested their innocence; denying using any bad language or misbehaving. But Danny’s smirk gave the game away, and the girls remonstrated with them even more fiercely.

At this point Mandy, one of the volunteers, appeared by the back door for a smoke and was informed as to the identity of the culprits. Rhod and

Danny were now under concerted pressure to ‘do the right thing’, and Mandy offered to drive them round to apologise. The situation was by now turning slightly farcical as the boys were visibly wilting in the face of Emily and co’s continued verbal onslaught, and were duly packed into the back seat of Mandy’s tiny car. Sometime later they reappeared, having apologised, with Mandy reiterating to Danny how proud she was of him for owning up. Later, she noted that Rhod had been much more reluctant, but that Danny had told her that he had never apologised like that before and that he was also proud of himself. The evening’s activities ended early, with Claire, Mandy and Dai all praising the boys in front of the others; Rhod still appeared very embarrassed at having to apologise but Danny was more bullish about it.

The story of Rhod and Danny is an instructive example of how informal social control operated in practice at the youth centre, and of the importance of being seen to enact informal social control by the wider community where necessary. What is also apparent is a notion of reintegration, in that this transgression which had potentially serious consequences was forgiven upon their apology. In this instance, the reputation of the youth centre within the community was threatened, and so the aspect of identity management was also central to this act of informal social control. While ‘tidy’ was used as a descriptor of a particular type of behaviour, its associations with identity management were clear; to behave ‘tidy’ at the youth centre meant that the otherwise spoiled identities of some of the members were at least temporarily negated.