About the research
The Living and Working on Sheppey project explores the recent history and changes in working lives on the Isle of Sheppey over the last 40 years. The project takes its inspiration from Ray Pahl’s extensive community study of Sheppey in the 1970s and 1980s on topics ranging from household work to school leaving. The recent project combines this earlier data with newly collected data.
The project builds on this work with new data from the people of Sheppey, including interviews with older members of the community about their memories of Blue Town and the naval dockyard before its closure in 1960. Local residents conducted many of the interviews.
The Living and Working in Sheppey project has replicated one part of Pahl’s study. In 1978 Pahl arranged for 16-year-old pupils to complete essays where they imagined themselves in old age reflecting back on their lives. In 2010, the new research team asked 110 school leavers to write similar essays in which they imagine what their futures will hold. The project digitised and coded Pahl’s original essays and compared these against the new essays, offering fascinating new insights about what young people think the future holds for their work, relationships, travel and more.
Ray Pahl shared his own reflections on the reuse of his original data collection at a UK Data Service Pioneers of Qualitative Research workshop. “It’s always good to have hindsight”, he said, “so there’s a fresh take on it, a fresh puzzle.” “The re-evaluation of existing material may lead to better and more original interpretations,” he added. “Standing on the shoulders of others enables researchers to see further.”
Publications
Crow, G. and N. Takeda (2011) ‘Ray Pahl’s Sociological Career: Fifty Years of Impact’, Sociological Research Online, 16 (3) 11: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/16/3/11.html
Crow, G. et al. (2009) ‘New Divisions of Labour?: Comparative Thoughts on the Current Recession’, Sociological Research Online 14(2). Retrieved April 4, 2011, from http://www.socresonline.org.uk/14/2/10.html