UK OPINION

If our teenagers are the worst in Europe, it's because we place too much emphasis on individual achievement and not enough on solidarity.

Divided we fall

Our teenagers are crap and it's all the fault of the parents. That seems to be the gist (to see today's "Today" feature CLICK HERE ) of an IPPR report into teenagers in Europe due out next week. Our lot drink too much, have sex too early, get into drugs and fights and are even greater consumers than their American counterparts.

The report has found out that young people in the UK have far less contact with adults than their counterparts in other countries. They are less likely to eat together - which is hardly surprising since, as St Jamie has discovered, the eating experience in the UK is usually nasty, brutish and short - and the minute they have eaten their tea the majority of British teenagers are off down their mate's house rather than staying at home and doing the washing up. (Well what's to wash up if you just ate out of a plastic microwaveable dish?)

The DFES response is that it's okay really, because; " the vast majority of teenagers are achieving more and enjoying more prosperous lives." And perhaps therein lies the story. The only thing that we in this society seem to care about is that our children achieve. Our education system, from an ever-earlier stage, is geared to the assumption that the only important thing in life is to learn and then earn.

Everything young people encounter tells them that individual achievement, not consideration for others, or a social conscience, or a sense of public duty, is what we value. It doesn't matter too much what you excel at, as long as you demonstrate that you are an individual - not just one of the herd. Even being bad is good as long as you are free and independent and owe no allegiance to anything other than the market.

If, as Margaret Thatcher told us, "there is no such thing as society - only families", then the IPPR is probably right. It must be the fault of the family. However if you think that the family is merely a reflection of social mores that are produced and diffused via social policy, education, the media and every one of us, in a never-ending chain of action and response, then we need a rather more holistic response.

What is it about the UK as a whole that contributes to this culture of short-term hedonism? Could it be nearly 30 years of public policy built on the idea that the individual is more important than society? Our education system, from the earliest years, is devoted to grooming the best at the expense of the rest. Visiting Scandinavian, French and Italian nursery schools it is striking just how much thought is put into encouraging children to act in solidarity rather than as individuals, Scandinavian children don't start to read until everyone is ready to read so that no one is left behind; Hungarian schools use games to encourage trust and solidarity from the very earliest years; Italian nurseries encourage children to work together by giving them tasks which no child could manage alone.

Social solidarity can only grow in a society that reflects inclusive values. Ours doesn't. One of the biggest participation sports we have is the public pillorying of people on television. Huge numbers of us tune in to watch television programmes (incidentally produced by our best and brightest achievers and earners) in which individuals compete against each other for prizes - and those who fail are routinely ridiculed. What does a generation of young people brought up on Pop Idol followed by The Apprentice learn about social solidarity?

Our children have learned that freedom - from every form of social tie or responsibility - is the ultimate high and that getting high is what life is about. Perhaps that is why they are in such a rush to go out and try it - by whatever means.

Angela Phillips
2 November 2006

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/angela_phillips/2006/11/blame_the_parents_again.html

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