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BJSW Advance Access published online on August 20, 2008
British Journal of Social Work, doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcn115
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The British Association of Social Workers. All rights reserved

Conceptualizing Young People's Strategies of Resistance to Offending as ‘Active Resilience’

Cathy Murray

Dr Cathy Murray is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Southampton and has researched and published in the field of child welfare and youth justice. Funders for research studies conducted with colleagues include the ESRC, charitable organizations, local authorities and government. She has a particular interest in qualitative methodology and young people's participation in research, such as peer-led focus groups as an innovative approach to involving young people in research.

Correspondence to Dr Cathy Murray, Building 58, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, Hampshire SO17 1BJ, UK. E-mail: c.murray{at}soton.ac.uk


  Abstract

This paper draws on the Quest for Identity study, which comprised secondary analysis of interviews with young people who have never offended (‘resisters’) and young people who have offended, then ceased (‘desisters’), as well as peer led focus groups with resisters. However, the paper focuses solely on the semi-structured interviews with 62 young resisters and addresses the research question as to how they maintain their resistance to offending. Contrary to the passivity associated with non-offending, it is argued that in maintaining their resistance to offending young resisters engage in what I term ‘active resilience’. This is exemplified by a range of strategies employed by resisters, which includes: managing offending peers, taking temporal leaps, ‘othering’ offenders and telling atrocity stories. The concept of active resilience resonates with the key theoretical perspective associated with the social studies of childhood, which characterises young people as agentic social actors, and also with the resilience literature, with its recent perceptible shift towards acknowledging young people's contribution to their own resilience. The paper concludes with the implications of the findings for policy, practice and future research.

Keywords: Active resilience, non-offenders, strategies of resistance, young resisters


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