THE CULTURE OF ALCOHOL IN RELATION TO SECONDARY AGED PUPILS: a feasibility study

Report submitted to funders in 1989, John Schostak, Richard Davies

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Introduction to the Analytic Profiles
It is important to bear in mind that what has been said so far and what follows is by no means prescriptive. The three dimensions described above are the devices created by the authors of this proposal by which they themselves might handle the ethnographic/narrative materials of experience; the developmental profiles. For example 'orientation' provides a useful starting point or purchase for reflecting upon the nature of the experience recounted. It provides an opportunity for analysis; an analysis that may well be widely at variance with the child's own view of the matter. But this is not necessarily important. What is important in this context is the construction of debate, argument, reflection and not who or what is right.

What follows is a demonstration of how we, the authors of this proposal, might use the device of 'orientation' to open up reflection with someone like Maria (see Profile 1, below) and with educationists whose role is to care for the future of people like Maria.

A crucial factor is missing from the developmental profiles below and indeed throughout this report, namely, longevity of relations with pupils and the teachers. The profiles would develop over time in order that relationships are gradually built up. Thus, all the developmental profiles included are fragments plagued by omission and the requirement for further research. A related and equally significant dimension of learning is also missing from the report. This is the potential effect on the nature of experience itself of the reflection made over time by the pupils and teachers involved. i.e. the impact of PSE upon PSD during the period of growing up, of adolescence , of being at school.

We will focus on alcohol in the following analysis and how it functions in the lives of these individuals in terms of orientation, transitional events, and careers/objects/ aims/values. This analysis is exploratory and reveals its own learning.

As a final introductory point, it should be pointed out that the first profile analysis below is somwhat more ramified than the others. This is because it serves amongst other things as an example of how the subsequent profiles may be analysed or 'read' for the purposes of classroom development. Thus a number of points are made in the first analysis that could as easily be made in the others. However there seems little point in the constant reiteration of basic principles or the repeated signalling of similar possibilities of interpretation to those found in the first profile. The point that does seem worth repeating is that nothing that follows is fixed and is by no means complete. Since the method is grounded in experience and in, particular, the processes of reflection of the young person in a relation of open dialogue with the educationist, the following accounts and analyses cannot claim to be more than initial steps in a long process in the life of Maria and the others represented here.

Profile 1: the story .... the analysis

Profile 2: the story .... the analysis

Profile 3: the story .... the analysis

Profile 4: the story .... the analysis

Profile 5: the story .... the analysis

Profile 6: the story .... the analysis

Profile 7: the story .... the analysis