Scouting and Guiding in Britain: The Ritual Socialisation of Young People

by Catherine Bannister

Overview

This book explores the prevailing role of rites of passage, ritual, and ceremony in contemporary children’s lives through the lens of modern-day incarnations of uniformed youth movements. It focuses on the socialising ritual and customary practices of present-day grass-roots Scout and Guide groups, asking how Britain’s largest and best-known uniformed youth organisations employ ritualised activities to express their values to their young members through language and gesture, story and song, dress, and physical artifacts. The author shows that these practices exist against a backdrop of culturally-constructed beliefs about what constitutes the ‘good child’ and ‘good childhood’ in twenty-first century Britain, with in-movement practices intended to help children develop positively and prepare for social life. The book draws on case study accounts of group performances, incorporating the voices of children and adults reflecting on their practices and experiences.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783031103599
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Publication date:	11/19/2022
Series:	Studies in Childhood and Youth
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Catherine Bannister is a Research Associate within the School of Education at the University of Sheffield, UK. She works on projects related to children’s play, including digital play with technology, bringing to the research her own interests in folklore, as well as ritual and passage practices for and by young people.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: A Problem of Passage? Perceptions and misperceptions around 'missing' rites of passage for young people in the modern west.- 2. The Ritual Roots of Scouting and Guiding.- 3. Scouting for Rituals: Fieldwork research within youth organisations.- 4. Promising Transformation: The Scout or Guide Promise-making ceremony as a Rite of Passage.- 5. For Scouting, England and St. George? Modelling the 'good Scout'.-  6. Making a Modern May Queen: Guiding and the gendering of identity.- 7. Burning the Birch Bark: Creating identity through nature.- 8. Camping Culture.- 9. Brownies' Stories: Storytelling, legend and locality as markers of group membership.- 10. Conclusion.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Scouting and Guiding in Britain is a rare book. It makes an important contribution to the study of ritual, youth organisations and English social history whilst speaking to all the disciplines that engage with ethnography, especially folklore and sociology. It is perceptive about the lived experience of growing up and the theories that model its transitions. I learnt much about what I knew was there, but never properly understood.”

—Dr Matthew Cheeseman, University of Derby, editor of Folklore and Nation in Britain and Ireland, UK