Title: TRUTH ABOUT YOUTH Perceptions of Young People in Society: June 2010
Department, body or committee: Regional Youth Work Unit - North East.
Date published: June 2010.
URL: http://www.rywu.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/TAY-Research-report.pdf
"i. Perceptions and Experience
• Young people generally found other young people to be friendly,
helpful, and welcoming
• Young people believe that society thinks that they are intimidating,
unfriendly, and rude
• The media was identified as the major source of information in shaping
peoples’ opinions of young people
• More than half of the young people interviewed felt unhappy about the
perception of young people held by society
• Gang, Alcohol, Anti-Social, and Chav/Charver were the most common
words linked with young people
• Wearing hoodies and groups of males were also perceived in a highly
negative way"
"ii. Reasons for Perceptions
• There was a difference of opinion in response to the question of
communication and respect between young people, adults of a middle
age and older people.
• Almost two thirds of the young people felt that the media portray
young people as bad, or very bad"
"6. Recommendations
The research team propose:
1. Positive images campaign – A multi-media project to capture the
positive images and stories of young people and challenge the
common negative stereotypes of young people."
"Survey Results – Analysis
Perceptions and Experience
Q3 Where do you think people’s opinions come from?
• Television was the most popular reason behind people’s opinion of YP
• Rumours scored very high and was the second most popular factor in
shaping people’s opinions.
• Newspapers and internet were the third and fourth popular reasons"