Onions and Apples: Problems with Comparative European Youth Research

Abstract

Since the 1990s there has been a substantial expansion in funded comparative European youth research projects and an increase in academic papers relating to cross-national sociological research. This is mainly due to an increase in the European Commission funding of comparative research to investigate social problems across Europe and in particular around the issues of social exclusion and educational under-achievement (Coffield, 1999). In this chapter I investigate several methodological and practical problems related to cross-national research and examine the contribution that European research projects can make to our knowledge about the experiences of young people. The title of apples and onions is used to emphasise that in many comparative research projects very different youth experiences are being compared, which is like attempting to compare a vegetable with a fruit. Comparative research across different countries is not a new phenomenon within sociology. Marx, Durkheim and Weber’s sociological investigations all involved theoretical comparisons across countries on subjects such as suicide rates, religions and production relationships. Durkheim (1970) for example examined rates of suicide across seven different countries using official data to establish contrasting patterns across different societies. This methodological trend has continued with the majority of comparative research projects using cross-sectional data (that is data collected at one point in time) to investigate a specific phenomenon.