THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS AND WHAT ETHNOGRAPHY FINDS THERE: CRITICAL INSIGHTS INTO THE NEW DEAL FOR YOUNG PEOPLE’S VOLUNTARY SECTOR OPTION

Gerry Mitchell

doi:10.1016/S1529-210X(04)10010-7

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Studies in Educational Ethnography

ISSN: 1529-210X
Series editor(s): Geoffrey Walford

Subject Area: Education

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THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS AND WHAT ETHNOGRAPHY FINDS THERE: CRITICAL INSIGHTS INTO THE NEW DEAL FOR YOUNG PEOPLE’S VOLUNTARY SECTOR OPTION

Document Information:
Title:	THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS AND WHAT ETHNOGRAPHY FINDS THERE: CRITICAL INSIGHTS INTO THE NEW DEAL FOR YOUNG PEOPLE’S VOLUNTARY SECTOR OPTION
Author(s):	Gerry Mitchell
Volume:	10 Editor(s): Geoff Troman, Bob Jeffrey, and Geoffrey Walford ISBN: 978-0-76231-144-6 eISBN: 978-1-84950-297-9
Citation:	Gerry Mitchell (2004), THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS AND WHAT ETHNOGRAPHY FINDS THERE: CRITICAL INSIGHTS INTO THE NEW DEAL FOR YOUNG PEOPLE’S VOLUNTARY SECTOR OPTION, in Geoff Troman, Bob Jeffrey, and Geoffrey Walford (ed.) Identity, Agency and Social Institutions in Educational Ethnography (Studies in Educational Ethnography, Volume 10), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.187-204
DOI:	10.1016/S1529-210X(04)10010-7 (Permanent URL)
Publisher:	Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Article type:	Chapter Item
Extract:	This article outlines the strengths of applying ethnographic methods to policy evaluations, even to the study of exhaustively researched policies such as the New Deal for Young People (NDYP). Ethnography is understood as interdisciplinary, combining method and methodology into a perspective (Clifford, 1986) that looks at less conventional units of analysis, such as non-verbal expression and the symbolic use of objects and spaces. Four groups of findings from a study of the NDYP’s Voluntary Sector Option are outlined: the connotations of interviewing in the welfare to work context; institutional-disciplinary processes; deconstruction of dependency discourses and delivery space-time logistics. It is concluded that such a perspective is especially valuable in the context of normative social policies about which people have lay knowledge and common-sense beliefs (Brewer, 2000) and as such should be applied more widely to contemporary social policy evaluations.