Introduction

In the 1990s, researchers seriously began to investigate children's views (Hill and Tisdall, 1997; Christensen and James, 2000), complementing earlier research on young people aged 16+ (Hutson and Jenkins, 1989; Wallace, 1989; Banks et al, 1992). With the exception of a few pioneering studies (Mitchell, 1985), this was the first time children's views of parenting, families and family life had been investigated. In a number of studies, researchers found that many children defined ‘family’ fairly flexibly and inclusively, and that the overwhelming majority saw parents as crucial to their well-being (Brannen et al, 1994, 1999, 2000; O’Brien et al, 1996; Borland et al, 1998; Morrow, 1998; Douglas et al, 2000; Dunn et al, 2001; Smart et al, 2001). This period was also a time of new studies of children's friendship and school-based peer relationships (Mac an Ghaill, 1994; Griffiths, 1995; Hey, 1996; Connolly, 1998), demonstrating that friendship was a major focus in most children's lives and also central to their well-being (Criss et al, 2002).

Interest in listening to children and young people has been stimulated by changes in how we think about children and childhood (Jenks, 1996; James and Prout, 1997). The new ‘social studies of childhood’ approach conceives of the child as a knowledgeable social agent with the ability to comprehend, reflect upon and effect change in his or her social world. Concern to investigate children's views of their families was an attempt to understand children's experience of widespread changes in family life and to begin to document children's perspective on the impact on their wider social world of events such as a family household regrouping from two parents to one parent. In this chapter, we explore the insight into family and friendship in the lives of 11- to 15-year-olds offered by the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS).

The BHPS is one of the few quantitative data sources in Britain to incorporate young people under the age of 16 into an otherwise adult study. Since 1994 (wave D), the British Youth Panel (BYP) has provided insights into young people's lives. In that year, all children aged 11-15 in the 605 BHPS households with children of this age (as of 1 December) were asked to participate in the BYP; an 89% response rate produced an original sample of 773 young people.