Exploring selfhood in the 1960s through secondary data analysis

Jon Lawrence, University of Cambridge

Jane Elliott, Centre for Longitudinal Studies

Sub-brand to go here

CLS is an ESRC Resource Centre based at the Institute of Education

Aims of the presentationIntroduce the essays written by eleven year old children in 1969 as a resource for

secondary analysis

Explore the original context in which the essays were written

What can analysis of the essays tell us about children’s understandings of gender, class and family life in the late 1960s?

How can the essays be used in conjunction with quantitative material from the 1958 cohort study?

What are the limitations of the children’s essays as a source for historians and historical sociologists?

PMS NCDS1 NCDS2 NCDS3 NCDS4 NCDS5 NCDS6 Biomedical NCDS7 NCDS8(1958) (1965) (1969) (1974) (1981) (1991) (2000) (2002-3) (2004-5) (2008-9)Birth 7 11 16 23 33 42 44-45 46 50

17,733a 16,883 16,835 16,915 16,457 15,600 15,145 12,037 11,739 12,316

Mother — Parents — Parents — Parents

School — School — School

Tests — Tests — Tests Tests

Medical — Medical — Medical — Medical

Subject — Subject — Subject — Subject — Subject — Subject — Subject — Subject — Subject

Census — Census

Spouse/ Partner Biometric measures

Consents to linkage

MothercBlood samples

Children Saliva sample

17,415b 15,425 15,337 14,647 12,537 11,407 11,419 9,349 9,534 9,793

Notesa: Target sample - Excludes emigrants, refusals & deaths. Includes immigrants at NCDS1-3.b: Achieved sample - At least on survey instrument partially completedc: Mother - Could be Cohort Member or spouse/partner

NCDS Follow-ups and sources of information 1958-2010Original sample: all living in GB born in one week in 1958

Biographical interview

Hypothetical life history

x

Born

1958

1st Child 1984 2nd Child

1987Age 7 Age 11 1991 2000

Age 42

2004

Age 46

Age 16

Age 23

1981

Age 33

Gets married

Parents’ social class

Parental interest in school work

Free school meals

Mother smoking

Parental divorce

Maths and reading tests

Teachers’ assessment of child’s behaviour

Exam results

Job 1 Job 2 Job 3

Voting behaviour

Psychological well being

Working hours preferences

Savings

Domestic division of labour

Union membership

Training and skills

NCDS 11-year old EssaysAt age 11, in 1969 NCDS Cohort members completed a short

questionnaire (at school) about leisure interests, preferred school subjects and expectations on leaving school

They were also asked to write an essay on the following topic: ‘Imagine you are now 25 years old. Write about the life you are leading, your interests, your home life and your work at the age of 25. (You have 30 minutes to do this).’

13669 essays completed, mean length 204 wordsCopies of the original essays (in children’s handwriting) are

available on microfiche at CLS and have been digitised.

Existing research on the essays

A small sample of 521 essays have been coded for word count

• Boys 180 words• Girls 228 wordsAll essays have been coded for employment aspirations,

over 90% give a classifiable occupationNo other systematic coding and analysis of the essays

has been carried out to date

Combining quantitative and qualitative methodsHistorical/cultural information provides a context for both qualitative and quantitative

analyses

Analysis of quantitative data collected in 1969 provides a description of the context in which the essays were written

Large sample and quantitative variables allows for the creation of a stratified sample for in-depth/qualitative investigation

Qualitative – close reading of essays enables development of a coding frame that emerges from the text

Coding of essays using new coding frame produces a quantitative description of a sub-sample of the essays

Extracts from the essays accompanied by a quantitative summary of frequencies provides a more detailed description of the content and style of the essays

Quantitative variables van be used to identify a very specific sub-sample of essays for more in-depth qualitative analysis (and also provides the context for the essays analysed)

Historical context: being eleven in 1969Films and TV – cultural reference for children, discourses around gender

and social class

Popular toys, games and activities

Family life: living conditions, housing, role of mother and father

School life: type of school, class sizes, gender of teacher & head teacher

Political context – including politics of class and gender

Popular toys of the 1960s

The ‘Toy of the year’ Awards began in 1965• 1965 James Bond Aston Martin Die cast Model car• 1966 Action Man• 1967 Spirograph• 1968 Sindy• 1969 Hot Wheels Cars

1969 & 1970 Action man dolls

1969 & 1970 Sindy dolls

Home experiences46% of the eleven-year-olds were living in owner-occupied accommodation

while 42% were in council housingAt age eleven, 44% of children had their own bedroomWhen the child was eleven, 19% of girls and 16% of boys shared a bed with

another member of the familyWhen the child was eleven, 54% of mothers and 51% of fathers were

reported to take the child for walks, visits or outings ‘most weeks’When the child was seven, 48.5% of mothers and 34.6% of fathers were

reported to read to the child every weekWhen the child was sixteen [1974], 58% were in families with only a black

and white TV, 41% were in families with a colour TV, 65% of families had a car and 16% of these had two cars.

School experiences (1969)The majority of children were in primary schools when

they wrote the essays

Only 4% of children were at independent schools

At age 11 the median class size was 36 pupils (mean 34.3), while at age 7 the median class size had been 37 with a mean of 35.25

82% of children were in a school with a male head-teacher

45% of children had a female class teacher

Politics of class and gender in 1969

Wilson’s Labour had governed since 1964 elected on a managerial, ‘class-less’ manifesto stressing modernisation and meritocracy

From 1966 Labour lost a swathe of by-elections and councils in its traditional industrial, working-class heartlands

In 1968-69 Goldthorpe and Lockwood published The Affluent Worker in the Class Structure arguing that class differences remained potent

Many concluded that Labour had ‘betrayed’ the working-class rather than that class was ceasing to be a strong source of Labour support

Equal Pay Act passed 1970 (enacted 1975) ~ Dagenham ♀ strike 1968

But first Women’s Liberation conference in GB only in 1969 (@ Ruskin)

16

Coding the content of the essays

1) All essays were coded for occupational aspirations in the early 1970s (21 categories)

2) A coding frame for the main themes within the essays was developed by Elliott and Morrow

3) A subsample of approximately 500 essays have been transcribed and coded for these key themes (and are available from the UK Data Archive)

17

Results: themes in boys’ and girls’ essays

Gender differences in themes and topics included in children’s essays

Boys (N=243) Girls (N=252)

Mother 19% 37%

Siblings 7% 20%

Friends 18% 29%

Domestic labour (Child care etc) 22% 55%

Cars 41% 18%

Money/earnings/savings etc 42% 25%

Occupational skills/nature of work 46% 32%

Working hours 27% 35%

Husband/Wife’s occupation 10% 23%

Football 39% 2%

Social class and children’s essaysSocial class (as Head’s occupation) had no impact on the frequency with which the children discussed holidays or foreign travel, leisure interests, money, or occupational skills

Non-manual children were more likely to write about: fathers, travelling by car & about living in the country

Including information on mother’s occupation & housing tenure into class model → made occupational skills & housing type significant

But most children – regardless of class background – appeared to write aspirational essays - imagining a future different from their present lives

Writing about poor children’s essays from 1976 in A Tidy House Steedman wrote that imagining adult lives: ‘was not a means of talking about the future, for there was none. Their lives had already been lived’

NCDS essays do not support this intepretation of unchanging working-class culture – but they

19

Social class and children’s essaysSocial class (as Head’s occupation) had no impact on the frequency with which the children discussed holidays or foreign travel, leisure interests, money, or occupational skills

Non-manual children were more likely to write about: fathers, travelling by car & about living in the country

Including information on mother’s occupation & housing tenure into class model → made occupational skills & housing type significant

But most children – regardless of class background – appeared to write aspirational essays - imagining a future different from their present lives

Writing about poor children’s essays from 1976 in A Tidy House Steedman wrote that imagining adult lives: ‘was not a means of talking about the future, for there was none. Their lives had already been lived’

NCDS essays do not support this interpretation of unchanging working-class culture – but they DO suggest aspiration was often marked by class

20

Class and the Qualitative analysis of NCDS EssaysEssays coded BLIND for how children talked about their futures

We coded whether future “wholly unbounded,” “limited or constrained”, “stable and certain” or “unstable and/or incoherent”

Stable/Unstable futures did not correlate with child’s social class

‘Middle-class’ children 5 times more likely to conjure “unbounded futures” than ‘working-class’ (c. 3 times more than ‘intermediate’)

‘Working-class’ children almost 4 times more likely to describe a “limited or constrained” future than ‘middle-class’ children (‘intermediate’ children were 3 times more likely to do so)

BUT when only girls’ essays were analysed this difference ceased to be significant – ‘middle-class’ girls also imagined constrained futures

21

Class and the Qualitative analysis of NCDS EssaysEssays coded BLIND for how children talked about their futures

We coded whether future “wholly unbounded,” “limited or constrained”, “stable and certain” or “unstable and/or incoherent”

Stable/Unstable futures did not correlate with child’s social class

‘Middle-class’ children 5 times more likely to conjure “unbounded futures” than ‘working-class’ (c. 3 times more than ‘intermediate’)

‘Working-class’ children almost 4 times more likely to describe a “limited or constrained” future than ‘middle-class’ children (‘intermediate’ children were 3 times more likely to do so)

BUT when only girls’ essays were analysed this difference ceased to be significant – ‘middle-class’ girls also imagined constrained futures

22

NCDS Essay – Example 1 (unbounded but unstable)My age is twenty Five. I am a manager of a big firm I am not married but I am engadged [engaged] to a young lady called Paula she is 21. Her job is my secroday [secretary]. Every Saturday I am at Chelsea football match with Paula. After the match we have a drink then drive home. Once a month we have a firm party. I have four cars Rolls, Bently and 2 minis. When at work I plan all the new building contracts. These contracts include sky scrapers, Bungalow, Houses, Farms and even Docks. The Americans have sent us a contract for 200,000,000 dollers to build a city on the moon. I live in a big house called 'The Villa'. In it there is 10 bedrooms for entertaining guests, 5 bathrooms and toilets. In the garden there is a swimming pool as big as Putney and open air with heating A private yacht, you might call me a millionare. I am only this because my mum owns the firm. My mother owns 27 pubs 18 sweet shops 9 toy shops and 13 Hotels plus 19 grocere [grocery] shops. I go to soc[i]al clubs and many firm meetings. In 1 months time I am of on a trip round the world for places to build towns ect ect. My first part of the Journey will be by privite jet the second by my Privite Yacht. I am takeing Paula and the Rolls with 12 men 4 Engineers the other 10 are architects [!] and the men who plan the site. When I was little I wanted to be a Footballer like GOARGE BEST but I saw this was not as good as being what I am now. My mother is now a widow my father left our family when I was 9. I have two brothers in this firm who are in a good position and a sister. But for me I am happy with my life and Paula and I intend to get married next month.

Male, Unskilled head of house [no father present] 511209D

23

NCDS Essays – Example 2 (bounded and stable)

I am 25 years old. I am married have two children. My friends are all round about the same age as I am. My hobbies are reading, printing and model making. At home I mend things that broken cultery [cutlery,] chairs ect. I am a teacher. We live at Blackpool and go to the fair at holidays time and sometimes go to morecambe and hesham. The year after I would like to work in London for a few years.

Male, Skilled manual father 085016W

Social class and gender: conclusions

In summary the essays appear to be very clearly gendered- but despite the gendered nature of the essays, both boys and girls have aspirations for family life

There appear to be subtle differences in how children ‘do’ gender depending on their social class

Compared with gender, there is much less evidence of ‘doing class’ within the essays, but class did influence HOW futures imagined

25

Websitewww.cls.ioe.ac.uk

Please register for regular updates

Appendix

27

Aspirations of boys and girls at age 11- top 10 occupations

25.2

12.1

2.5 2.8

8.5

12.2

1.0

6.3

0.0

1.71.9

5.6

15.014.3

5.4

0.4

11.4

5.8

11.6

9.4

0.0

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0

30.0

Occupation

Per

cen

tag

e

Boys

Girls842 boys and 375 girls expressed aspirations for a professional occupation in their essay at age 11.