Researching adolescent boys’ care relationships in times of the Covid pandemic

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Sylka Scholz
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: from 2018 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 406701246

This project builds on the findings of the DFG project “Caring boys? Alternative research perspectives on the social crisis of reproduction” that researched adolescent boys’ orientations regarding care. The proposed project now focusses on care in relationships and care practices under the social conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic. In public discourse as well as in research, care and care work is seldom associated with boys and men. With regard to adolescence this is of particular interest, since an attitude of caring for others, i.e. a generative perspective, is mainly developed during adolescence. However, research in the field of sociology of masculinity predominantly describes boys as competitive and prepared to take risks. Boys appear not to feel any responsibility for themselves or others. Challenging these rather narrow assumptions, our findings from the prior project show that competitiveness and an orientation towards risky behaviour on the one hand and caring attitudes on the other hand are in fact not incompatible. Boys do display caring behaviour towards themselves and others both in the sphere of the family and in friendships, in some instances to a considerable extent. However, during the research project the social conditions in which caring relationships and a generative perspective are developed radically changed due to the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020. The boys participating in the project faced spatial restrictions, e.g. regarding school, leisure activities as well as public spaces. Above all, the boys’ social relationships were severely constrained and restructured due to social isolation measures. To a significant extent, peer interaction shifted to online spaces while relationship dynamics in the family also were subject to change, e.g. due to parents suddenly working from home. The research project proposed here therefore focusses on the perspectives of the adolescent boys, their experiences regarding (self) care under the changed circumstances of the pandemic and the role these changes play for the construction of masculinity during adolescence. Empirically it is based on 55 initial interviews with adolescent boys (conducted prior to the pandemic) and 34 follow up interviews conducted online during the pandemic (autumn 2020). The planned project has three objectives: (1.) to extend the current state of knowledge on masculinity, care and adolescence under the conditions of the pandemic; (2.) to reflect and further develop methodological approaches amid interviews conducted online, as well as enhance in depth hermeneutical approaches by developing an instrument which allows systematic comparative analyses of a large amount of empirical material; (3) focus on knowledge transfer between the project on the one hand and practitioners as well as researchers of various disciplines on the other hand in order to ensure fruitful exchange and sustainable dissemination of the research findings.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants