A Participatory Action Research; Exploring the Economic Aspirations of Youth within the Context of the Community Wealth Building Initiative in Newham

While the rising inflation and skyrocketing prices across energy, housing, and consumer goods place high economic pressures on millions of people in the UK, the link between socioeconomic factors and well-being is becoming unavoidable. While such a link is backed by a growing body of research that provides unequivocal evidence of the detrimental effects of economic precarity and growing socioeconomic inequality on people's mental health, the economic realm remains overlooked by the profession. More recently, engaging in a new sustainable and democratic economic model, such as the Community Wealth Building (CWB) initiative launched in Newham, has been put forward as one of many possible ways to engage in the economic realm.

Grounded in community and liberation psychology, this research was conducted in collaboration with young people involved with the criminal justice system in Newham, a group often highly impacted by the economy yet mostly excluded from its decision processes. This study used a participatory action research approach, hoping to shift the lens away from the decision-makers towards excluded young people by exploring their relationship with the economy and how they view their future.

A series of focus groups were carried out, and the thematic analysis led to four main themes “Growing up in Newham”, “Education fails us”, “Building a future”, and “Unable to change bigger forces”. The findings raised questions about the accessibility, applicability, and acceptability of the current form of CWB amongst young people who experience exclusion and marginalisation. Young people’s experiences of the economy were found to be through poverty, lack of opportunities, barriers in education, and rising inequality. Young people were interested in conspicuous consumption as a sign of status, had a strong desire to achieve great material success and appeared to adopt highly individualistic solutions in response to structural and systemic barriers.