Youth Binge Drinking

Youth Binge Drinking

Binge drinking has been fairly topic in the media of late. There is

supposedly a moral panic about the changing social habits of girls who

can now drink similar quantities of alcohol to their male

counterparts. Because this slant has been so extensively documented,

I opted to re-visit binge drinking but a different, yet equally

pertinent angle; the experiences of binge drinkers when they were at

school. I covered numerous theories of delinquency in the AS Youth

Subculture topic. One in particular interested me; it gave different

possible outcomes and this I thought made sense! I even thought that

perhaps Merton had discovered this possible causal link years before

me, when he looked at the rebels who turned to drink. He omitted the

concept ‘binge’ though! Perhaps that is just a reflection of social

change. To re-cap, then, I am investigating the possibility of there

being a causal link between anti-school subcultures and binge

drinking.

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I have decided to conduct my research in a localised context. The

area of study will in my local town of Wem, best described as a lovely

rural town to bring up young children, but less desirable when they

reach adolescence because there are so few facilities for them to

involve themselves in. Consequently, their main leisure activity

revolves around drinking whether it be in a pub or on the local park

a.k.a. ‘The Rec’.

My aims for this research are as follows:

1. Are binge drinkers more likely to have been in lower streams when

they were at school?

2. Does a negative experience at school correspond with a greater

preference to engage in binge drinking?

3. Do binge drinkers fit into a particular typology?

My hypothesis for this research is: There is a causal relationship

between being part of an anti-school subculture whilst in education

and the likelihood of becoming a binge drinker.

Ethics played a significant part in determining the focus of this