Background to the Research

• In a 'divided city' such as Belfast the focus is often on what would be classed as the key division of religion/ethno-national identity and this can reinforce assumptions that there are two separate homogenous communities. However, in Belfast, as with any city, there are other social divisions such as class, age and gender that impact upon and are interwoven with perceptions and experiences of ethno-national identity.
• One of the core purposes of this research was to explore young people's perceptions of their immediate localities and the city centre of Belfast as places of safety or risk and to ascertain whether they attributed meanings of safety and risk to ethnosectarian or other factors.

Research Approach

• The majority of the data was gathered using a questionnaire, administered to 442 pupils attending 20 schools throughout Belfast. All the schools were segregated on the basis of religion and the majority were also segregated on the basis of gender. One hundred and thirty two young people from 6 schools also wrote stories on 'what's good and what's not so good' about growing up in Belfast.

Main Findings

• Over 70% of the sample felt that Belfast was a good place in which to grow up. The teenagers produced a number of reasons why Belfast was a good place to grow up, the most prominent of which focused on their perception that Belfast is made up of very close knit communities; an emphasis was placed on family and friendship ties. When asked if they felt they would still be living in Belfast in five years time, 50% said yes, 16% no and 34% were unsure.
• Streets and shops were the most popular locations cited by around three quarters of the sample as core places for meeting up with friends. Several young people indicated that their immediate localities were vital as social venues. Half of the sample used their own or their friends' houses as meeting places, half mentioned local parks, football pitches or other public spaces, and around one fifth used youth clubs or churches as venues for meeting and interacting with peers.
• In terms of feeling safe in their neighbourhood, 56% generally felt safe, 38% felt safe most of the time and only 6% reported that they felt unsafe. Many young people indicated that feelings of safety were enhanced when they used local spaces as members of groups rather than as individuals. The city centre was a key location, with nearly two thirds of girls and just over one third of boys stating that they went into Belfast city centre at least once per week, generally on a Saturday.
• Young people indicated how they used city centre locations to act out teenage identities, to evaluate other teenagers in terms of teen style and at times to attract the other sex. Over 90% of young people suggested that they felt safe using these places and regarded these locations as arenas where religion was not overly important. " Around a quarter of those who suggested that they felt safe most of the time and about half of those who did not feel safe in their locality attributed their apprehensions to ethno-national divisions and the legacy of the troubles. Young men were more likely than young women to state that they had been involved in violent assaults or rioting and to 'getting jumped' or 'chased' by Protestants/Catholics. Feeling unsafe in one's locality was not simply reduced to ethno-national divisions but to fears of being victimised by crimes such as general assault, stabbings, burglaries, fights, joyriding and, for girls, rape.
• Young people's spatial strategies were shaped by gender and this impacted differently on how boys and girls negotiated local and city centre spaces, particularly at night. Girls in particular were concerned with using the city centre at night because of the presence of 'suspicious adults. " When asked to reflect on whether they thought that, overall, Belfast was a safe or unsafe place to grow up in, slightly less than half of the group regarded Belfast as an unsafe place. Of this group, around one quarter attributed this to anti-social behaviour, but nearly two thirds mentioned sectarian violence and rioting.
• When asked if they felt that Belfast was a 'shared city', 13% of the sample were unsure what this meant, while 62% felt that Belfast was a shared city, commenting on it being shared by Catholics and Protestants and in some cases by other ethnic groups. However, 25% of the sample disagreed, commenting on the continuing relevance of sectarianism. The on-going legacy of the troubles was the most frequently mentioned aspect of 'what's not so good about growing up in Belfast'.
• Since all of the schools were segregated on the basis of religious identity, the wearing of a school uniform could be perceived as a physical marker of ethno-nationality, even if the young person did not subscribe to such identities. Almost one quarter suggested that at some point they had felt unsafe going to and from school. For many, this was linked to perceived or actual sectarian abuse/attacks.
• Overall, 42% indicated that they would feel safe in the city centre wearing their school uniform, just under one third indicated that they would feel safe most but not all of the time, and 19% indicated that they would feel unsafe. Girls provided additional reasons to account for feeling unsafe, which were linked to perceived sexual worries around paedophiles or generally to passing 'strange men'.
• The majority of young people (64%) said that a police presence in their area made no difference at all as to whether they felt safe or not. This was partly because young people saw the presence of the police as a common occurrence. A quarter of this group felt that the police were ineffective in confronting and dealing with problems in their neighbourhood. Only 12% indicated that a visible police presence made them feel safer, with slightly more Protestants than Catholics responding in this way.
• Almost a quarter of the sample felt less safe when the police were around, because their presence suggested that something was wrong or something bad had happened. Over two thirds of Protestant teenagers and just under half of Catholic teenagers felt this way.
• The research produced limited evidence to suggest that attitudes to the police, particularly in relation to feeling safe when they are around, were linked to ethno-religious identity. Catholic teenagers were slightly more likely to imply that mistrust of the police was stronger in Catholic areas because of a perception that the police responded to both communities in different ways. However, their identity as teenagers meant that they were regarded with distrust by the police regardless of ethno-religious identity.
• For the most part, young people felt that they were regarded negatively by adults; 71% of boys and 47% of girls felt that other shoppers in the city centre were suspicious of them, while 76% of boys and 64% of girls felt that shop workers were suspicious of them. A significant number, 74% of boys and 56% of girls, had been asked to 'move on', making them feel anger and resentment and feel that adults made stereotypical judgments and regarded 'normal' teenage behaviour as unacceptable.

Conclusions

• This is a preliminary account of ongoing research, hence the conclusions are tentative. Initial analysis suggests that there are grounds for cautious optimism in relation to young people's experiences of growing up in Belfast in terms of the overriding significance of ethno-nationalism as an important marker of identity. Nonetheless, ethno-national concerns and considerations did emerge as a subtle subtext, indicating the fragility of change and the resilience of ethno-national dispositions, even in young people who have grown up in a period of relative stability. Focus group interviews with young people suggest that attention needs to be paid to the on-going segregation of localities and the education system.
• Preliminary analysis of the richer interview material from young people who grow up in interface areas seems to support the conceptualisation of post-conflict Belfast as a 'dual' or 'two speed' city, with working class areas, particularly in interface areas, remaining trapped in local sectarian competition, while middle class populations benefit from post-conflict prosperity.
• While it is a positive development that young people in Belfast are less influenced by traditional ethno-national identities, creating a 'shared future' for young people necessitates confronting and challenging adults' negative perceptions of teenagers, particularly in their use of public space.

Please see the article on the Community Relations Council website