ABSTRACT
It is impossible to make global generalisations about children and youth from aphenomenological inquiry into the experiences of such a limited number of participants in just one city, Limerick, Ireland, and one case, St. Augustine's. The goal of phenomenological research is. however, not to seek generalisations but to expose the individual case, so I have endeavoured to use a symptomatic rather than representative approach to risk biographies, in so far as we assume all biographies are composed of the partial perspectives of knowledges that are insider and situated. Truths are contingent on differences of time, space, age, gender, class, sexual preference, and other aspects of culture and context. Nonetheless, I am reminded towards the conclusion of this book of a comment made by well-known Irish economist, T. K. Whittaker (1997), who observed: "If we think about it, save for the vagaries of birth, errant biology, class and status, or simply circumstance, we are all but a half step away from the 'other' families we describe as in need of service, or 'at risk.' In the final analysis, it is not 'us' and 'them.' It is all of us. Together" (p. 138). doi:10.1300/J024v29n01_10 [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Senice: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <docdelivery@haworthpress.com> Website: < https://www.HaworthPress.com" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">https://www.HaworthPress.com > © 2007 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]
