"Well my friends all speak Spanish, it's normal for us because everyone has to do the same thing": constructions of young peoples' accounts of normative activities in families

This paper will examine the ways in which young people view activities within culturally diverse family situations. Taken from a wider project examining young peoples’ constructions of normative work roles (e.g. babysitting and shop work) and non-normative work roles (young caring and language brokering), issues around the construction on an adequate/inadequate parent will be discussed. 46 young people (15-18 years) were interviewed using a semi-structured vignette methodology. A key finding from the project was that some young people viewed working activities as normative that might be seen by others as non-normative - “Well my friends all speak Spanish, it’s normal for us because everyone has to do the same thing”. This was a common finding for language brokers where young people who translate for others are often in contact with school friends and family members who are also language brokers. In this study we found no evidence of young carers drawing on a contextual way of normalising their activities through engagement with informal contact with others in a similar position (O’Dell, Crafter, de Abreu and Cline, et al in press). These are not to be read as the only way in which either young carers or language brokers could access support. However for us a key area of interest is in the ways in which the context of young people’s activities can normalise or problematise their activities