“Teenagers seem to smoke more now than they did in the past. For young girls they think it means they are grown-up, but having more pocket money nowadays (and their own part-time jobs sometimes) certainly helps. We couldn’t have afforded to smoke when we were that age (even if we’d wanted to!).

Magazines, films, adverts, and television all portray images of beauty and attractiveness which young people (who need to feel that they belong and fit in) aspire to. So the figures for girls dieting, and boys body-building, don’t surprise me at all. Peer pressure is also very important here.

Both my daughter and myself suffer from asthma. It certainly is more prevalent than in the past, maybe because of more teenage smoking, but more likely because of the increased pollution. You only have to look at the number of cars on the road today compared to twenty or thirty years ago”.

“These figures don’t surprise me at all. The pub culture is still very strong in the UK, and to be honest there don’t seem to be many alternatives. There are voluntary organisations like the scouts, church groups, and youth clubs, but they have been in decline in recent years, and anyway tend to be looked down on as ‘uncool’ by most kids of that age.

There is less sport at school because not as many teachers are willing to give up evenings and weekends to (voluntarily) take teams. The amount of paperwork and bureaucracy connected with the national curriculum has certainly had an influence here. Outside of school there has also been a decline in the public playing areas, and a noticeable increase in alternative forms of entertainment (particularly computers). The change from my day is that there is less communal outdoor leisure activity and more individual indoor. The television (most kids nowadays have their own in their bedroom) has a lot to answer for; the attention span of many kids is limited and they seem to need constant stimulation.

As for clothes, well teenagers are incredibly fashion conscious, and you have to buy the ‘in’ brand, even if it is twice as much as the others.”

“The decline of many traditional industries in Britain has meant that there are no longer the apprenticeships available for young men. All kids nowadays seem to be aware that you need qualifications to get on in life and earn good money.

Girls at this age both seem more intelligent and more willing to study. It’s a shame that there is still this aversion though on the part of girls to the sciences, although I think this is beginning to break down, especially with the growth of computers and Information Technology.”

“In some ways this is not a fair question to ask kids of this age. I don’t think identity, in national terms, is something which they would normally think about. The Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish children will be different though, for historical reasons, and the fact that devolution has been much in the news in the last few years. At this age your identity is defined by other things, such as being accepted in certain peer groups, membership of teams, the region you come from, or supporting your favourite club. It would only be when you go abroad, or when there are international sporting competitions that this ‘national’ identity would have any meaning. Moreover, the sample was very small, and I’m sure there would be huge regional variations in this. For example, they didn’t ask to what extent people from the North-East would put their ‘Geordie’ identity above their English and British.

In many inner-city schools we now have ‘citizenship’ classes, focusing on concepts of citizenship which are both local and global. Also having a ‘gap’ year between school and university, combined with better foreign language learning, means that young men and women will have different views about their European identity”.