Researching with young people on health and environment: the politics of self-esteem and stress

This paper describes a research project with young people froma group called the Bellarine Youth Network (BYN). The projectinvolved the identification of the perceptions of health andenvironmental issues held by these young people. A foundationof the project was that perceptions of health and environmentwere socially constructed, and reflected vested interests andpolitical agendas. Traditional positivist research projects(designs) which attempted to generalize, marginalize and categorizeyoung people were seen as inappropriate for this study. Themost pressing environmental health concern for the members ofthe BYN was stress caused by school work. Attempts by communityhealth workers, psychologists and consultants to minimize thestress felt by young people only served to individualize theproblem. These attempts included diary keeping, time managementskills, and the maintenance of a balance between work and leisureactivities. These individualistic strategies to reduce stresswere also based on the often perceived centrality of the conceptof self-esteem. There was rarely any understanding of the complexlives of young people and the range of identities held by them.Instead of simplistic and naive projects focusing on self-esteem,future research with young people needs to be more sympatheticto the relationships between behaviour, context (or settingor environment) and meaning, and also needs to involve a recognitionof the importance to young people of the varied social environmentswithin which they find themselves.