There is new research published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on where people drink and why.
The researchers have looked at two different locations – Stoke-on-Trent and rural Eden in Cumbria – and while their focus isn’t on underage drinking they do touch on how the youth drinking culture is being developed:
The study showed that home was increasingly where young people learned to drink. As such, young people’s drinking habits need to be understood and addressed in relation to their parents’ attitudes to and use of alcohol, and the wider changing nature of intergenerational relationships and parenting practices.
They did find there seems to be a distinct rural culture which included young people drinking:
Young people’s drinking in pubs and informal places was not only tolerated, but often regarded as normal by adults who knew that their children (like themselves) had limited social opportunities. Some rural commercial venues provided socially sanctioned underage access to alcohol in certain situations. This acceptability of underage drinking may be because the close-knit nature of such rural communities deters young people from drinking to excess and behaving anti-socially, as they have less anonymity in the countryside than in larger towns or cities. The countryside also affords young people secluded places for informal drinking without disturbing local residents.
The protective factors associated with strongly held religious views about alcohol in the Muslim community seem to be under pressure:
There were significant levels of alcohol consumption within the Muslim community, whose faith usually presumes abstinence. This was mainly confined to young men, with a common pattern of starting to drink in their mid-to-late teens, largely through peer pressure and curiosity. This drinking mainly took place in informal locations (the park, cars, bus shelters etc) for risk of being seen by family or community members. Informants concealed their drinking from their parents.
However, this youthful drinking is largely seen as a phase and the researchers found that once married young Muslim men returned to an abstemious lifestyle.
As mentioned underage drinking appears to be increasingly condoned by adults, and the researchers suggest that adults see this as a way of trying to develop a responsible attitude towards alcohol:
Parents often appeared to condone and even supply alcohol for under-age drinking by their children and their peers. This sometimes reflected parents’ belief that early, controlled access to alcohol would enable their children to develop responsible attitudes to drinking and prevent them getting into trouble behind their parents’ backs. It also reflected contemporary parents’ desire for a close relationship with their children and to give them freedoms they had been denied. There was also recognition, in light of their own domestic drinking, that it was difficult to preach abstention.
The researchers say that further work needs to be done to understand the impact of home consumption and how parental attitudes affect young people’s drinking.
There’s a full report which is available from here.
Filed under: alcohol, research , Drinking places, Joseph Rowntree Foundation
