Premium
‘I Don't Really like It Here but I Don't Want to Be Anywhere Else’: Children and Inner City Council Estates
Author(s) -
Reay Diane,
Lucey Helen
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
antipode
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.177
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 1467-8330
pISSN - 0066-4812
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8330.00144
Subject(s) - feeling , reflexivity , sociology , social psychology , social exclusion , psychology , criminology , media studies , law , political science , social science
This paper explores the experiences of children living on inner London council estates. Prevalent discourses of social exclusion position such children as both ‘at risk’ and a risk to others. They are portrayed as a mixture of deviant delinquent and passive victim. In contrast, this research study found that children have a reflexive awareness of the places they inhabit which recognises the estates as harsh and restricting, yet the same time encompasses more positive feelings of identification and belonging. Most children shared a sense of feeling ‘at home,’ but one which was infused with both a recognition of the stigma associated with ‘sink’ estates and a fascinated horror with regard to the behaviour of a delinquentminority.