Social Conditions for Stress: Young people's experience of doing GCSEs

Abstract

This article describes and analyses the experiences of 15–16 year-olds in the East Midlands of England in relation to the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE). In particular, it focuses on the way that GCSEs constitute a new and distinct source of stress in the already stressful lives of young people. Using data from Economic and Social Research Council funded research involving a large-scale questionnaire survey, focus groups and interviews, it is argued that, when doing GCSEs in years 10 and 11 at school, the stress experienced by young people can be linked to the social conditions of late modernity. In this social context there is a tendency to approach GCSEs from a self-centred and instrumental perspective, which emphasises the need for good results in terms of their utility for getting a job or continuing in education, and their value in relation to self-identity and self-worth. Seen in this light, the stress stems from the fact that GCSEs constitute a fateful moment in the life trajectory of the young people.