Responsibilities and Rights of Peer Reviewers

“The importance of social inequalities and social institutions in determining or undermining youth transitions is becoming increasingly apparent.” (Barry 2006:3)

The following pages contain a model-description of the objective structures or

“field” mentioned above. This macro-description will illuminate some recent

developments in Irish society where market forces have come to dominate over other social institutions which have compromised well-being and quality of life in Ireland.

This, I hope, will lay the groundwork for chapters 3 and 4 where the discontent and disillusion felt amongst the lads are analysed more closely. As we leave Bourdieu for a while, it is worth noting that over the course of his career, especially in light of the overall increase in human misery which he ascribed to neo-liberalism, Bourdieu came to appreciate the value of a Durkheimian notion that presupposes that the State is the ultimate source of society’s “gravity”. (Grenfell 2008:180-1) I have chosen to pay considerable attention to the underlying values of social institutions and the consequences of what Rosenfeld and Messner describe as an institutional balance of power: “Culture does not exist in isolation from social structure but rather is

expressed in, reproduced by, and occasionally impeded by, social structure.”

(Rosenfeld and Messner in Adler & Laufer 2000:166)

The authors describe social institutions as the building blocks of whole societies and distinguish the following four institutions; economic, political system or ‘polity’, education and the family. The state of anomie (read here as a socially mismanaged society) is according to an institutional, capitalist logic, explained by the fact that the institutional balance is tilted toward the economy which is observed 1) “in the devaluation of noneconomic institutional functions and roles; 2) the accommodation to economic requirements by other institutions; and 3) in the penetration of

economic norms into other institutional domains.” (Rosenfeld and Messner in Adler

& Laufer 2000:171 italics in the original)

The latest research trends on Suicide and Changing Values and Beliefs in Ireland (Cleary and Brannick 2007) suggest that the causes of social disintegration and individual distress are fundamental shifts in moral concepts and values, religious

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beliefs and rapid political and economic reforms. (2007:86) As I stated early on, the issue is not that Irish society has undergone major changes, but how, with what implications and finally, -for whom? The following short summary is a social critique towards the imbalance of social institutions and building blocks of Irish society and Western culture in general:

- Polity

“[Governments] have sought to sustain national and state economies by steering them in particular directions away from certain industries and business practices and toward others. This takes the form of policy advice, various deregulating practices, sundry incentives and disincentives, and strong intervention in the ideological climate.” (Kenway and Kraack in Dolby and Dimitriadis 2004:97)

Nowhere in Europe has this been more apparent than in Ireland which during the so called Celtic tiger became the fastest globalised country in the world. According to Rosenfeld and Messner’s theoretical model, the public confers little honour in the role of the politician and is as a result relatively disengaged in political activity which is left to the “career politician” (Adler& Laufer 2000:171). The contrast between economic and political activity is illuminating the authors argue: The citizen who refuses to vote may experience mild social disapproval while “the ‘able-bodied’

adult who refuses to work is socially degraded.” (Rosenfeld and Messner in Adler &

Laufer ibid. 2000:172) Just as economic participation is obligatory for most adults, voting which could be considered as the very minimal form of political participation:

“(which has more in common with shopping than with work) is considered discretionary and useful primarily to the extent that it leads to tangible economic rewards (e.g. lower taxes). Moreover, the very purpose of government tends to be conceptualized in terms of its capacity to facilitate the individual pursuit of economic prosperity” (ibid.)

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Commenting on the signifying markers of the Celtic Tiger, Kuhling and Keohane (2007) state that the Irish Government “has reimagined its role as primarily about ensuring that markets operate efficiently, rather than as a player in the market, buying and providing services for its citizens.” (Kuhling and Keohane 2007:155) The highest level of agreement (73.8%) on the anomie scale analysed in the NSRF’s study on young men and suicide was for the statement that “People in public offices are not really interested in the problems of the average man.” (Begley et.al. 2004:21) Chapter 3 is dedicated to the social implications of the moral failures revealed and displayed during the years of economic recession, political tumult, and what Meštrović and Brown claim was the intended meaning of anomie (dérèglement).

- Education

Rosenfeld and Messner’s thesis continues with how education is highly valued primarily and insofar as it promises future economic rewards but not to the same extent for learning for its own sake: “The ‘good student’ is not looked up to by his own peers; the ‘master teacher’ receives meagre financial rewards and public esteem in comparison with those to be gained by success in business.” (Rosenfeld and Messner in Adler & Laufer 2000:171) Nolan and Anyon (in Dolby and Dimitriadis 2004) explain the backgrounds and implications of high-stake standardised testing that students must pass in order to graduate which also serves as an example of this imbalance.

“High stake testing holds appeal for both conservatives and neo-liberals because on the one hand they help to carry out the conservative agenda by maintaining tight control over what constitutes “official knowledge”, while on the other hand these exams fit nicely into the new corporate logic as they help to shift blame for school failure onto students, foster competition, and create new markets within the burgeoning testing industry.” (2004:141)

The Irish equivalent is the Leaving Certificate. Within a period of two to three weeks Irish students take ‘the Leaving Cert’ in June of each year. They are then tested on at least five subjects undertaken over the last year. The negative pressures and

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psychological implications of ‘taking the Leaving Cert’ are always highlighted in the media during the weeks surrounding it. The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) conducted a study where the qualitative data showed that students place an enormous weight on their performance emphasising the perceived implications for their future quality of life. This research further indicated that some of the school staff also noted increased stress levels among students and that they in some cases feared for their health and mental well-being. (Smyth, Banks and Calvert 2011:94-5) Considering gender differentials it was also clear that “female students have higher stress levels than male students, even controlling for a range of school experiences and prior achievement-“ (Smyth, Banks and Calvert 2011:78) Again, this reflects the ambiguous paradox as to whether those who are doing better are also feeling better or if the opposite is true. The implications of this overall logic are illustrated in McCormack’s thesis (2010): “Over emphasis on the economy and human capital may result in a situation where a country is doing very well but the people living there don’t feel very well.” (McCormack 2010:34)

McCormack stresses that the imbalance has resulted in an over-emphasis of human capital in Irish education and that greater emphasis needs to be placed on well-being.

Adopting Bourdieu’s notion of capital she argues that to become, not only

competitive players in the labour market but participative members of society we need social and cultural capital. (McCormack 2010:34) Despite a gradual awakening to the need (especially for boys where it is currently undermined) for the

development of social and cultural capital, McCormack argues that there is still a

“prevailing anti-intellectual bias” and ”a preoccupation with coverage of course material and preparation for final examinations--- designed for assessment in public examinations --- [with] an absence of non-instructional forms of learning”

(McCormack 2010:30) Inglis proclaims that:

“(t)he monitoring of schoolchildren is almost as relentless and rigorous as of patients in intensive care. Pupils are seen and understood, and see and understand

themselves, in terms of their educational performance. Schools and colleges are places where young people learn to become orthodox capitalists. (Inglis 2008:175)

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From what the lads have shared about their school experiences some of them

expressed sentiments about how schooling in their opinion should have offered more than it did. This is how one of the lads (age 28) put it:

F – What kind of function is school supposed to fill in your opinion?

What is it there to do?

X - Get you set up for adulthood like.

F – And did it?

X – To a certain degree like.

F - What did you get out of it?

X – A Leaving Cert.

What this informant recalls was that he liked to sit in the back of the classroom away from the immediate attention of the teacher and close to the radiator to keep warm. I asked another one of the lads what he had liked most about his time in school. He compared his schooling to traditional same-sex schools and he appreciated going to school with girls and making friends in general. Other than this his comments were:

“That’s all that matters. Get the results. Pass your exams at the end of it. I wasn’t pushed to attend.”

Some of the lads were always persistent in that I read Keane (2003), the

autobiography of Roy Keane, -famous and infamous footballer and Corkman. Keane was born in 1971 in Mayfield, a working class resident area in Cork City. One of the lads felt it necessary to write this down in my journal himself: “Roy Keane- You either love him or hate him. Sportsman or not, he is a leader of men that never forgot his roots. A LEGEND.” (One of the lads age 27)

In the book Roy Keane looks back on his roots, his childhood and school in particular. Growing up during the country’s previous recession in the 1980’s he wrote:

“To observe that in 1983 the Irish economy was a basket case of high

unemployment, high interest rates and rising inflation is not to pardon my lack of interest in learning. For I didn’t know those economic statistics. What I do recall is the palpable sense of pessimism and apathy among the people Mayfield Community School purported to serve.” (Keane & Dunphy 2003:6-7)

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With an unmistakingly similarity to what the lads describe Keane kept to the

“customary obscurity at the back of the classroom.” (Keane & Dunphy 2003:7) The preparation for life and adulthood the lads had hoped for was not provided by the school system. In-depth accounts of the implications of these deficits in social learning, social-, and cultural capital in the Irish educational system will be dealt with in parts 4 and 6.

- Family

Anthony Clare (2000) argued for the importance of time spent, by both men and women in their families and in their communities. Writing extensively on the implications of the removal and under-involvement of fathers, he stated: “The truth about both parents⁷ working in the world of work as it is presently structured is that the world of home and family is invaded by the very time and organisational modes that make work efficient.” (2000:211) Kuhling and Keohane paint another gloomy picture of how Ireland has one of the worst records of balancing home and work life in the EU and that the Forum on the Workplace of the Future has revealed that Irish childcare costs were the highest in Europe. (Kuhling and Keohane 2007:19) The Eurobarometer measured gender equality in the EU in 2009 found that 89% of the Irish public agreed that “in many cases, childcare facilities cost almost as much as the mother earns from working” (Eurobarometer Gender Equality in the EU in 2009 2010:84). This rendered Ireland the second highest out of all other EU member countries that deemed childcare too expensive. (Only Greece was higher by a 92%

agreement.)

Kuhling and Keohane argue that neoliberalism as the dominating political ideology

‘disassemble the collective household … to aggressively promote market

opportunities for enterprising individuals’: “Social security, housing, pensions and health care in particular are increasingly privatised. The health and well being of Celtic Tiger cubs is now a matter for themselves in the economic jungle of the free market.” (Kuhling and Keohane 2007:123)

7 A gendered analysis on family and domestic responsibilities will be included in parts 4 and 6.

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- The Market Economy

The over-emphasis on the economy and economic participation before all has various consequences; personal responsibility for failure both within education and the labour market, social stigma attached to unemployment also during economic recession, deficits in social and cultural capital amongst marginal groups to name a few.

“Globalization is characterized by the worldwide primacy of financial and

speculative capital, the creation and integration of flexible systems of production of goods and services, increased international mobility of workers, and the bifurcation of national economies into rich and poor.” (Nolan and Anyon in Dolby and

Dimitriadis 2004:137)

This is how one of the lads expressed his frustration over the state that the country was in, and in his opinion, the world. As in most cases when this topic comes up, the language the lads used was characterised by a lot of swearing and some much needed comic relief.

X: I’d like to see radical changes!! Not just... Europe is pissing me off as well you know that?! And America? They can go away and fucking... suck the back of my balls! Did you hear that guy on the telly there the other day you know on Bloomberg? (In an American accent) “In the next sixty days...” You know when he was doing that? You know you’re gonna see...one night--- Vincent Browne was talking about them. There’s them kind of guys over in America...

F: They want to make Ireland cheap so they can buy the whole lot of it...

X: Yeah! And they’re making money out of making it a bigger recession than it is... for like –an hour! They make money! I’ll like to shoot that ...bah, fu--- face in the hole you know!!! (One of the lads age 28 January 2009)

The very last few words are very hard to make out in this extract. There is so much swearing coming out all at once that one foul word simply interrupts another.

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Chapter 3 will describe in further detail how outrage and disillusion is expressed amongst the lads.