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This article explores the guest–host relationship in private lodging arrangements in the UK, a living arrangement that has increased dramatically in recent years in response to escalating housing costs. Utilising data from a UK study of diverse forms of shared housing, and situated within literature on critical hospitality, we first explore the spirit in which hospitality is offered by hosts and the importance of the financial transaction relative to other considerations, while also highlighting the experiences of hosts who positively embrace shared living. We then explore the limits of hospitality in private lodgings, foregrounding the experiences of more reluctant hosts, and highlighting how hospitality can easily mutate into hostility. We conclude that the ambivalent nature of the home space that is experienced in private lodgings creates a situation where often neither host nor guest truly feels ‘at home’ while living in the presence of the other, although the extent to which this is seen as problematic depends very much on the orientation of those involved to more communal ways of living and their willingness to compromise in order to achieve a balance between ‘yours’ and ‘mine’.

This paper explores the challenges of everyday practices of co-operation in UK shared housing co-operatives, situated within literatures that stress the relational basis of these practices and the ...

Across high-income economies, more urbanites live longer on their own, in non-family households, than ever before. Solo dwellers amount to 39%, 28%, 24% and 34% of all households in Europe (Eurosta...

This paper explores the housing pathways of young adults following the breakdown of a first intimate relationship based on co-residence. In particular it explores the frequent recourse to shared housing and returns to the parental home, and how these options may be seen as steps backward, yet also offer opportunities for support. Findings are discussed in the context of the de-standardisation of transitions to adulthood characterised by uncertainties related to early years of employment and the shortage of affordable housing. Although often not as consequential as mid-life relationship breakdowns for future housing prospects, intimate relationship breakdowns linked to initial co-residence are nonetheless critical life events for young adults, leading to a re-evaluation of their existing relationships and of their plans in relation to housing and family formation. Our findings also indicate that the backwards and forwards movements associated with intermediary housing arrangements and in-between phases are deserving of greater attention.

In this article, we examine post-accession Poles' shifting identity practices through the lens of their attitudes to other Poles in a high-density post-accession Polish migration destination, namely the city of Southampton on England's south coast. We examine the impact of human capital (in this instance, we will focus on their ability to speak English) and the extent of their social capital (focusing on the restrictions based on their communicative competence with non-Polish groups and their particular trust issues associated with compatriots). We contextualise our findings in other research on post-accession Poles in London, Glasgow, the Midlands of England, the North of England, the Netherlands, Norway, and Brussels, thus drawing together common themes from a wide body of evidence. Through examining biographical data focusing on the everyday lives of our participants, we were able to explore the impact of context on their presentation of their identities and relational practices. By so doing, we exposed the interplay of a range of intersecting factors that result in many of our participants leading restrictive and restricted lives

This paper explores the potential of observational sketching as a social science research tool, informed by our own recent experiments with observational sketching techniques and approaches. We firstly outline the historical roots of academic sketching and note a recent resurgence of interest in sketching in certain disciplines. We then introduce our own explorations in sketching as method, based on a year-long collaboration between an observational artist and a group of qualitative researchers with interests in creative methods. The paper outlines some of the lessons we learnt from our partnership, focusing on three themes: (i) ‘sketchiness’; (ii) ‘concentrated seeing’; and (iii) sketching as interaction. We conclude that observational sketching generates a refreshingly different form of visual data which has considerable potential to be used as a complement to other methods, including as a participatory method and as a useful tool for thinking

The focus of this article is on individual case studies selected for the purpose of illuminating the experiences of post-accession Polish migrant ‘family lives’ in the United Kingdom (UK). These case studies demonstrate what Morgan (1996) calls the movement of individuals through households and family relationships, simultaneous with the examination of the enlargement of the spaces in which family lives are conducted as a consequence of movement across the ‘open borders’ between the UK and Poland (Ryan, 2010). The focus is on how the interviewees’ articulated what they presented to us as the impact of particular structural constraints (in terms of education, pensions, childcare and employment) on their future plans to settle in the UK or return to Poland. However, the main focus of the article is the relationship between these structural constraints and the tensions associated with fulfilling competing familial obligations in the UK and in Poland.

This article adds to literatures bridging the divide between internal and international migrations by investigating patterns of internal mobility following the international move of post-accession Polish migrants to the UK. Our analysis is based on a large-scale qualitative study carried out among 83 Polish migrants living in urban and rural locations in England and Scotland. We analyse the reasons behind their initial choice of location in the destination country and the propensity for subsequent internal mobility after arriving in the UK. We consider the role of family characteristics, migration channels, and time in the spatial moves the migrants undertake. In our analysis, we differentiate between residential mobility (which was generally very high among our study participants) and internal mobility (undertaken by one-third of our sample). Our research findings indicate that migrants who arrive through recruitment agencies and do not have children (with them in Britain) are the most internally mobile, whereas those who arrive through personal networks (of family, friends, or acquaintances) and with (especially school-age) children are the least likely to relocate after arriving in the UK. Moreover, it appears that migrants with families are more willing to make urban to rural moves, whereas young and childless migrants favour rural to urban relocations. Notably, the internal migration of some of our (childless) study participants was sometimes interspersed with short-term return migration. Finally, the general propensity to move internally seems to decrease with time: once the migrants secure permanent employment and stable accommodation, they are less willing to uproot again.

Glasgow is a city well known for bringing together a ‘housing need’ with a ‘housing supply’. Post-accession Poles are the most recent population to fill the ‘void’ in Glasgow’s ‘unpopular’ and therefore low-demand housing in areas of social deprivation. In this paper we will focus on the intersection of individual paths with institutional projects occurring at specific temporal and spatial locations: through examining the housing-seeking activities of migrants and the low-demand accommodation letting activities of, for example, the Glasgow Housing Association. In the paper we examine the meanings, processes, experiences, and perceived advantages (for migrant families and for housing associations) and also the disadvantages associated with post-accession Polish families taking up and being potentially ‘steered’ into tenancies in particular areas of Glasgow. Keywords: Poland, European migrants, post-accession, social housing, Glasgow, housing associations

A central ethical issue confronting researchers using visual methods is how to manage the use of identifiable images. Photographic and other visual materials can make the anonymisation of individuals problematic; at the same time many researchers, as well as research participants, view image manipulation as undesirable. Anonymisation is one of a range of ethical concerns that need consideration in relation to the use of identifiable images. Other concerns include the contexts in which images were produced and through which they may be consumed; the longevity of images in the public domain and the potential for future uses and secondary analysis of images. This paper explores some of the ways in which researchers specifically approach anonymisation in relation to visual methods, drawing on a qualitative study of ethical issues in visual research. Focus group discussions and interviews with researchers who use visual methods revealed the ongoing challenges of identification and anonymisation. While decisions about visual identification are inevitably complex and situated, our explorations revealed ongoing tensions between, on the one hand, research participants’ rights and researchers’ desire for participants to be seen as well as heard and, on the other hand, researchers’ real and perceived ethical responsibility to safeguard participants.

This paper explores whether and in what ways young people's perceptions and experiences of higher education (HE) can facilitate the transmission within their social networks of social capital both upwardly (from child to parent) and horizontally (from sibling to sibling), and thus can potentially provide bridging capital to family members, especially in families with little or no prior experience of HE. It utilises data from a project that explored the embedded nature of decision-making about HE amongst a group of 'potentially recruitable' adults and their wider networks. The study researched 16 networks, and the resultant sample of 107 individuals included six teenagers and 15 young people in their twenties. The paper concludes that, despite the general emphasis within existing theoretical approaches to network capital on the downward transmission of social capital, the educational experiences of younger generations can be critical in shaping the perceptions of other (including older) network members, albeit not always in ways that encourage formal educational participation.

Defining network boundaries is a key challenge in social network analysis. In our recent qualitative study of network influences on educational decision-making — based on interviews with 107 individuals from 16 case study networks — the set of members with whom interviews were secured in each case represented only a sub-set of the broader networks from which they were drawn. Following an introduction to our study and an outline of our approach, we consider some of the processes of filtering and selection that affected the specific composition of our network sample, and reflect upon what this tells us about the processes by which participants in network-based research make decisions about the representation of their networks within research contexts. We then explore the question of whether the partiality of our data actually matters, and conclude that it reflects the permeable, partial and dynamic nature of social networks, characteristics which are central to qualitatively-informed understandings of SNA.

This article explores the ways in which social researchers manage issues of confidentiality and the contexts in which deliberate and accidental disclosures occur. The data are drawn from a qualitative study of social researchers’ practices in relation to informed consent. It comprised 31 individual interviews and six focus groups as well as invited email responses with researchers working with vulnerable groups or with an interest in research ethics. Researchers reported feeling compelled to break confidentiality when participants were perceived as being at risk of harm but not in cases of involvement in illegal activity. Situations in which accidental disclosures occurred were also identified. Researchers reported varying ways in which they protected the confidentiality of their participants in the dissemination of their research, including omitting data and changing key characteristics of participants. The implications of researchers’ practices on data integrity and relationships with participants are d...

Much contemporary theorising on educational decision-making starts from the premise that the process of decision-making is a deeply embedded social practice, which is inextricably linked to behaviours, attitudes and dispositions which hold sway within an individual's social network. Drawing on data from a project focusing on decision-making amongst non-participants in higher education (HE) who are nonetheless 'potentially recruitable' to HE, this paper uses the sociological concept of ambivalence as a useful tool in exploring their educational decision-making within a broader network-based approach. In focusing on the ways in which individuals manage contradictions and tensions within their networks, and how the ways in which they manage these tensions are linked to broader structural factors, the concept provides a framework which is able to bridge social structure and individual agency. The concept of ambivalence provides a useful complement to other frameworks which focus on the degree to which forms of advantage and disadvantage are transmitted between and within different social groups and specific social contacts, and suggests a mechanism by which existing social relations are either reinforced or challenged through individual actions in the realm of education.

Gaining informed consent from research participants is widely regarded as central to ethical research practice. This article reports on research which sought to identify contemporary practice in this area amongst researchers working in fields where research participants are often constructed as vulnerable within the research process, and where their potential involvement tends to be mediated by institutional gatekeepers. Drawing on telephone interview and focus group data, the article focuses specifically on the experiences of researchers working with children and young people. It highlights the tensions experienced by many researchers between a personal commitment to an ethical framework which seeks to prioritise the agency and competency of children and young people, and the conditions imposed upon them by working within institutional settings where these principles may be undermined. This research suggests that the consent practices of child- and youth-orientated institutions, however much frowned upon, tend to go largely unchallenged by researchers, to the detriment of the rights of children and young people to opt in and out of research on their own behalf.

Embarking upon a pre‐university gap year is an increasingly popular option among British students. Drawing on Brown et al.’s work on positional conflict theory and the increased importance of the ‘economy of experience’, this paper seeks to explore this growing popularity and argues that the gap year’s enhanced profile raises important questions concerning the processes by which certain groups of young people are able to gain advantage over others during a period of educational expansion. Indeed, it is arguably no coincidence that the gap year’s popularity has taken off in parallel with this expansion, as the gap year emerges as an important means of ‘gaining the edge’ over other students in the context of increased competition for entry to elite institutions.

There is widespread debate about ethical practice in social research with most social researchers arguing that situational relativist approaches are appropriate for resolving the ethical issues that emerge. In this article, we draw on research conducted on an ESRC-funded study of informed consent in social research to explore the ethical issues that are raised when conducting research with one’s peers. The study involved conducting focus groups and telephone interviews with academic and non-academic researchers. The ethical issues emerging from the study related to consent, data ownership and the management of confidentiality and anonymity. Participants’ responses to these issues and the ways that we managed them are discussed. We conclude by exploring the implications of this study for research more generally and argue that the increased regulation of research needs to enable researchers to attend reflexively to the social context in which consent takes place.

Patterns of research governance are changing rapidly in the field of social research. In current debates about these changes one issue of particular concern is the impact that new patterns of research governance will have on the quality of the data collected. The ‘optimistic’ scenario on this issue is that more ethical research practice will lead to better‐quality data, but a more ‘pessimistic’ scenario exists in which the unintended outcome is poorer‐quality data. Drawing on material from a study of researchers’ experiences of dealing with the process of gaining informed consent from research participants, this article identifies the various ways in which the researchers position themselves in relation to the competing ‘optimistic’ and ‘pessimistic’ scenarios. It concludes by seeking to develop a synthesis of the two positions in which ethical research practice is treated neither as an automatic guarantee of, nor as an inevitable obstacle to, the collection of good‐quality data.

An increasing proportion of single young adults can expect to spend at least some of their 20-something years living in peer-shared households, defined here as households consisting of unrelated individuals living in self-contained houses and apartments. Indeed, many will also find themselves returning to such arrangements after living alone or with a partner. This article explores the nature of the relationships that exist between young people living in such households. First, using Maffesoli’s concept of ‘neo-tribalism’, the article explores the importance of proximity, shared space (both real and symbolic) and ritual to the everyday framing of relationships in peer-shared households. Second, the article considers the conditions under which some shared households may move beyond neo-tribalism to take on the characteristics of ‘quasi-communes’, marked by the institutionalization of friendship within a domestic setting. The article draws on empirical research involving 25 shared households in the south of England.

House sharing amongst young adults is often regarded as being of significance only as a short term, transitional arrangement, and is associated with economic constraint. This association is, however, undergoing change, as it is a household form increasingly adopted by young people in professional and managerial occupations. This paper focuses on the experiences of these rather more advantaged sharers, and explores their own accounts of why they live in shared housing. The language of choice features heavily in their narratives, embracing a consideration of the material and non-material benefits of sharing, and of their own projected domestic trajectories. It is concluded that, whilst financial concerns are not unimportant in their decision-making, most regard their living arrangements as appropriate to the needs and demands of their current lifestyles, and do not experience their living arrangements as products of constraint.

The interface between labour market commitment, shared household living, and the maintenance of couple relationships amongst graduates and young professionals in their twenties and early thirties is explored. Following a discussion of the growth of independent living amongst this group and some of the factors that have led to this trend, evidence is presented from a study of relatively affluent sharers living in the south of England. Perceptions of labour market mobility, preferences for independent living and the negotiation of couple relationships across households are all considered. Shared living appears to be particularly suited to young adults who are strongly committed to the labour market: it is a flexible household form, but one which can provide 'professional standard' accommodation as well as ready access to a social life for time-constrained and geographically mobile employees. The presence of other household members, however, is both its greatest weakness and its greatest strength, at best pr...

(1999). Watching the Backlash: the problematisation of young women's academic success in 1990s Britain. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education: Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 249-266.

Young adults in the UK are increasingly dependent on family support to offset the costs of living independently. This article explores these complex intergenerational exchanges from the perspective of a group of single young adults in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties who had been in receipt of various forms of financial and material support from family members since leaving the parental home. We outline the nature of this support and then consider how these forms of assistance are understood by those in receipt of them. We conclude that the co-existence of a sense of both gratitude and discomfort which is often generated by these exchanges is managed but by no means resolved by a blurring of the boundaries between gifts and loans, a set of negotiations which may not even be an option amongst less advantaged young adults. © The Author(s) 2013.

The funding criteria for the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative included a high‐profile commitment to equal opportunities for boys and girls. By including such a commitment, the architects of TVEI implicitly assumed that it was possible for TVEI to act as an agent of change with respect to gender divisions within schooling (and, indeed, beyond). This paper firstly considers whether TVEI was actually setting itself a theoretically impossible task given that socialist feminist critiques of education are largely based on the premise that schools overwhelmingly serve as agents for the reproduction of sexual divisions of labour. It then briefly considers the emphasis which the policy developed once TVEI was in operation, and finally questions the origins of the policy, suggesting a number of alternative reasons for its inclusion, in contrast to the somewhat contradictory ‘official’ justifications. The paper concludes that “whilst TVEI undoubtedly had an important catalytic effect in putting gender i...