Translating God Methodology

There are some aspects of young people’s lives that haven’t changed that much over the last 20 years. Take school for example. If we time-travelled back to 1994, school uniforms would largely look the same as they do now, the day would still comprise five or so periods for teaching the same kinds of subjects, and teenagers would still be worrying about their skin.

But while some things remain the same, others are dramatically different. Nearly every young person now has a phone in their pocket - an incredibly sophisticated portal to multiple worlds of entertainment, knowledge, connection, and risk. We’re living in an era where the rapid development of new technology is driving social and cultural transformation, and young people are absorbing this change faster than anyone.

And all of this is shaping their worldview.

This phase of the Translating God project seeks to understand more about what has, and hasn’t changed, for young people We want to put to bed lazy myths and stereotypes, acknowledge the complexity that’s out there and help you ‘see’ young people and the worlds they inhabit with more clarity and compassion.

To do so we have pursued two main questions.

• What are the primary ways that young people’s lives have changed over the last 10-12 years?

• What shifts in wider culture and society ae driving and defining these changes?

Review of trend data

Phase 1 involved reviewing a wide range of published data relating to young people’s lives. We wanted to know how life is different for a 15-year-old today, compared with someone the same age in 2010. So, we focused almost exclusively on studies with a ‘time-series’ design. This means that the same questions were asked of young people in a particular age-bracket every year, or every few years.

So it’s not just that we love a line graph (though who doesn’t?). We are trying to tell a story about key trends over time.

We aimed to collect, synthesize, and summarize data from the best quality studies produced over the last 10-15 years. This means we have prioritised evidence produced by government departments, established longitudinal and panel studies and research projects with large sample sizes and robust methodologies.

This report draws heavily on the following data sources.

In some studies, a group of young people are surveyed every year, and then replaced with younger participants as new households are recruited. Meanwhile in other studies different young people with the same characteristics are randomly selected and asked the same question every year or few years. In exploring how life has changed for young people over 10 years we needed to avoid picking up the ways that young people’s views or experiences change simply by virtue of them growing older. For example, the Millennium Cohort Study tracked the same young people at age 11, 14 and 17. So if do use this data, we make that clear.

Who did we cover?

We mostly refer to ‘young people’ in these charts and texts, by which we mean 11–17-year-olds, or those of secondary school age. However, we do include data about primary-school aged children occasionally, because each study collects data on slightly different age groups. For example, we have used lots of data from ‘Understanding Society’, which sometimes groups young people into 10–15-year-olds, and other times into 12-15 year olds. Each graph should tell you which age group the data covers. Likewise, some of these studies focus just on England, and others are UK-wide. You can always find out more by looking at each data source.

Limitations and challenges

For the sake of managing the work we have presented data on young people as a whole group, which is likely to mask significant differences according to gender, socio-economic background, ethnicity and other aspects of young people's identity or experience. It's important to hold that in mind as you view the charts, and remember the ways 'young people' are diverse!

Each study is limited in the questions it covers, the age range it includes, the years data was collected and by geographical reach. As a result these 50 charts don't paint a comprehensive pictures of what’s changed - they can only show us what we know from the research we happen to have available to us. There are lots of topics on which we just don't have trend data, so if you spot any glaring omissions this is likely to be the reason. However, if you are aware of data that you think should be in here, please let us know at research@youthscape.co.uk.