New survey evidence - Under 18-year olds’ views on Scottish Independence

With 100 days left before the vote on whether Scotland should become an independent country on Monday, 9 June, AQMeN hosts an event to present findings from a new survey on the youngest voters in this referendum.

The referendum on Scotland’s constitutional future in September 2014 will see 16- and 17-year old voters coming to the polls for the first time at the national level in Scotland. Following on from the AQMeN survey project last year, the team from Edinburgh University’s School of Social and Political Science will present updated findings based on a completely new survey conducted in April and May 2014. The survey addressed voters who will be able to participate in the referendum this September but who are currently under the age of 18 and therefore excluded from other representative surveys on this topic. While some polling institutes include 16- and 17-year olds in their samples, there are too few members of this age group in those polls to allow for any specific in-depth engagement with this age group.

The only comprehensive, representative survey of this age to date has been conducted as part of this project illustrating how the newly enfranchised young people suggested they would vote in 2014 and allowing us to examine what drove their decision making. Using the new data we will now be able to see whether one year later the campaigns have been able to engage with young people in an effective way and thus changing their views and perceptions.

Venue: Royal College of Physicians, 9 Queen Street, Edinburgh

Date: Monday, 9 June 2014

Time: 09.30 – 12.30

There will be coffee and tea during the registration from 09.30 until 10.00. The presentation will begin subsequently and will be followed by an open discussion with the audience and the research team providing ample space for questions and engagement. Places are limited. Register for the event here.



This news and information item first appeared on the home page of  goodenoughcaring.com on May 25th, 2014

The East End Film Festival : films about children and young people and films made by them

Alison Poltock, the Artistic Director of London’s East End Film Festival which this year runs from June 13th to June 26th suggests the following films may be of interest to regular visitors to the goodenoughcaring website.

Angels in Exile

• Angels In Exile is a challenge to pervading myths about street children. The street kids of DurbanSouth Africa mainly have no way out of a cycle of violence, murder and abduction. The film embeds itself in the community, many of whom are huffing glue as a means of temporary escape, and who are in turn facing addiction and a life of crime. The film was made over 8 years and follows Zuleka and Ariel, chronicling their entire adolescence and their fight to survive both immediate dangers and their memories of the awful circumstances that originally forced them on to the street. Sensitively narrated by Charlize Theron, Angels in Exile reminds us that street chilfdren are exactly that, children. (Director : Billy Rafferty)

• In Mass E Bhat one boy’s story weaves together the stories of several children to explore what means to grow up in Bangladesh. As social worker Nasir wanders the alleyways of Dhaka’s Korrail slum searching for working children he can enrol in school, he recounts the story of his own childhood, and his journey through a rapidly developing country. (Director : Richard York)

• Screen Test Shorts is a collection of short films programmed in collaboration with Screen Test, the national student film festival, celebrating the best work from students based in London colleges.

• The Internet’s Own Boy : The Story Of Aaron Swartz  A programming prodigy, information activist and a tragic casualty of the crackdown on so called 'internet piracy’, Aaron Swartz was an internet celebrity from his role while he was 14 years old in developing RSS to co-foundind Reddit, he was a pioneer of the digital realm. He was also a political campaigner, whose dream of a better world meant access to information, a cause which led to him, under the pressure offacing a 35 years jail term and heavy fines, to take his own life. (Director : Brian Krappenberger)

• Neighbours : From Mumbai to Mile End A Selection of short documentary films made by young people about hoods in Mumbai and East London exploring how generations take root in, and young people make use of, their environment in these two very different but vibrant cities. The films feature rag-picking, breakdance, ghettoization and enjoying a day in the hood. The Screening will be followed by a discussion on what home means. This is a collaboration between Mile End Community Project, School of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences and Queen Mary, University of London.

• Willow and the Wind A school window is broken, and kids can’t concentrate because the rain is getting in. The culprit isn’t allowed back into class until he mends it. So he carries a large pane of glass by hand across the countryside in a gale. The wing blows; but will he crack? This simplest of stories becomes an epic quest, poetic and breathtakingly beautiful. It has big-hearted humanism, but Hitchcockian tension too. An edge-of-seat masterpiece. (Director : Mohammad Ali Talebi)

Willow and the Wind

Access the East End Film Festival’s full programme for the venues and scheduling of these and all the other films and events the festival at East End Film Festival programme.

This news item first appeared on the home page of goodenoughcaring.com on May 24th, 2014

On June 15th, 2014 the Scottish Issue of the goodenoughcaring Journal goes online

The next issue of the goodenoughcaring Journal comes in peace on June 15th, 2014, even though this date falls just a week short of the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn and in the midst of the propaganda battle going on over September’s forthcoming referendum on Scottish independence. Nevertheless, one of the principal themes of this issue will be a consideration of different aspects of a childhood in Scotland but their will also be articles of a wider nature too. We hope readers will find that discussion of the way children from different backgrounds have been and are being brought up in Scotland will be of general interest. Articles which are already promised for this issue have been written by David Divine, Ni Holmes, Laura Steckley, Jeremy Millar, Mark Smith, Calum Strathie, George Muir, Cynthia Cross, John Stein, Noel Howard, Charles Sharpe and Robert Louis Stevenson have already been promised and more may be on their way. Submissions of articles for this issue are still being welcomed. This news item first appeared on the home page of goodenoughcaring.com on May 21st, 2014.

Changes on the goodenoughcaring website and Journal

Visitors to the site and readers of the Journal will be aware that finding our website on the internet was an unpredictable exercise during a large part of April. This was due to changes we are planning for the management system of the site which we hope will allow us more variety in the way we can communicate ideas. Our problems cannot be put down to technology, rather they are due to our human imperfection. We do not have a set date for the changeover to the new system but we'll put up a notice on this page as soon as we do. Thank you for your patience.

This news item first appeared on the goodenoughcaring home page on May 7th, 2014