Education, Work and Social Change

Young People and Marginalization in Post-Industrial Britain

R. Simmons, R. Thompson, L. Russell

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781137335920
• eBook ISBN: 9781137335944
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Théorie et pratique de l'éducation

Drawing on a longitudinal study of the lives of NEET young people, this book looks beyond dominant discourses on youth unemployment to provide a rich, detailed account of young people's experiences of participation and non-participation on the margins of education and employment, highlighting the policy implications of this research.

1

Introduction

Young people and marginality

This book is about 24 young people whose stories illuminate the experiences of marginalized youth in post-industrial Britain. Drawing on data from a longitudinal ethnographic study of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET), the book charts their experiences, identities and aspirations over a period of more than two years, but also locates their trajectories within a broader discussion of the social and economic context which has shaped the lives of a generation often described as ‘lost’. A central part of the book consists of detailed case studies of six participants, which provide an insight into both the nature of the data and particular themes we want to emphasize.

Popular images of NEET young people often evoke pejorative stereotypes of ‘hoodies’ and ‘pramface girls’ destined for a life on benefits. In August 2011, when a series of riots erupted in London and other parts of England, politicians and the media seized on these events to portray an increasing threat from out-of-control youth in ‘Broken Britain’. Prime Minister David Cameron, attributing the riots to ‘social problems that have been festering for decades’ (BBC 2011), claimed that Britain had become ‘literally de-moralized’ and announced that policies to improve parenting and education, and turn around the lives of troubled families, would be accelerated. However, there is another perspective on such stories, and it is necessary to look much deeper than isolated events or the behaviour of a small proportion of individuals and their families. First of all, there is little evidence that a swathe of young people in Britain have become disconnected from the aspirations and values of mainstream society (MacDonald and Marsh 2005). The research presented here, as well as other studies, suggests that disadvantaged young people generally have quite traditional aspirations, for a job, a home and a family life. Secondly, phenomena such as mass youth unemployment or disaffection from education are related to changes in society on a global scale, although the extent to which social problems actually occur is influenced by policy decisions in individual nation states. This book aims to explore the rich ethnographic data at our disposal by locating it within these global shifts in social experience and to enable the voices of young people to be heard as they recount the stories of their lives and ambitions. A central theme is that their attitudes and behaviours are shaped in the same way as other people’s, by the conditions in which they live and work, by the challenges they face and by the resources available to them. We also examine more specific facets of their engagement with work, education and training, and welfare, drawing attention to the ways in which the construction of NEET young people within social policy shapes their experience and future prospects.

Negative images of youth-as-trouble, of disengaged young people as a threat to society and a drain on its resources, have always been offset (to some extent) by more caring representations of youth-in-trouble and the benefits to society that would ensue if their talents could be harnessed. This dual representation of marginalized youth was expressed particularly clearly in Tony Blair’s foreword to Bridging the Gap, a report on NEET young people produced in the early years of New Labour government.

The best defence against social exclusion is having a job, and the best way to get a job is to have a good education, with the right training and experience … Getting this right offers the prospect of a double dividend. A better life for young people themselves, saving them from the prospect of a lifetime of dead-end jobs, unemployment, poverty, ill-health and other kinds of exclusion. A better deal for society as a whole that has to pay a very high price in terms of welfare bills and crime for failing to help people make the transition to becoming independent adults.

(SEU 1999, p.6)

The reference to social exclusion reminds us that in the last 20 years concerns about poverty have been discursively reconstructed as problems of participation – in education, work and other social contexts. The reason why people and communities are poor, beset by social problems, or both, is because they are excluded from one or more forms of participation, often interacting with each other. Within this paradigm, education plays a central role – in creating responsible citizens, equipping young people with the skills they need to find work and improving the quality of parenting. However, the concept of social exclusion has risen to prominence at precisely the time when the power of nation states to assure a link between participation and prosperity is declining. Globalization, and the intensification of capitalist accumulation, has led to many young people in Western societies being confronted with what Loïc Wacquant (1996) calls advanced marginality. Changes to the nature of wage labour, the increasing disconnection of the lowest-paid from the benefits of economic growth and the decline of social infrastructure in certain neighbourhoods all limit the capacity of participation to remove the threat of poverty. Whilst some of these changes are felt most acutely in large cities, their ramifications are also felt elsewhere, and one of the arguments of this book is that marginality is a powerful lens through which to view the experiences of NEET young people.

Within such conceptions of marginality, certain forms of education and training can be seen as particularly problematic, and education as a place to ‘warehouse’ young people until the labour market has need of them has been extensively critiqued, as a contemporary reconstitution of the reserve army of labour or as part of a ‘political economy of youth’ in which intergenerational exploitation parallels some aspects of class relations (Ainley 2013; Coté 2013). Even from an instrumental perspective that sees education simply as readying young people for work, such provision has been criticized as inadequate and likely to lead to further marginalization or exclusion. The stigmatization and poor labour market returns associated with low-level vocational provision and condemned in the Wolf Review (2011) is a case in point. As we discuss later in the book, the young people in our research were often reluctant to participate in programmes which they found dull and repetitive, and rarely led to higher-level study or suitable employment.

This chapter sets the scene for the remainder of the book. We first provide a brief overview of the research project on which it is based, and then introduce some of the key concepts we will develop and draw upon later. In addition to tracing how young people who leave education at an early stage have been constructed as a problem group, the chapter also discusses some broader issues of social change, including the debate over individualization, reflexive modernization and structural inequality, and the theorizations of class, gender and race in education which will be needed as we present our data. The chapter ends by outlining the structure of the book and looking ahead to our conclusions.

An ethnographic study of the experiences of NEET young people

Our interest in conducting research with young people on the margins of education and employment stems from a combination of factors. As social and educational researchers, we have a long-standing interest in social class, inequality and social justice, as well as the relationship between education and the economy more broadly. Working in a university school of education during the mid-2000s sharpened our interest in these matters, as it became apparent that the composition of our student body was changing in ways related to particular conceptions of work, education and learning. Our institution is a large provider of teacher training for the post-compulsory education sector and, for many years, tutors in further education (FE) colleges and similar settings have undertaken programmes of professional development at the university. Over time, however, we saw a distinct change in the intake of these courses. Whilst academic disciplines such as English, history or sociology, and established vocational subjects like engineering, accountancy or construction were declining, there had been a notable increase in the number of ‘key skills’ and ‘employability’ tutors. Moreover, whilst some of these practitioners were teaching in FE colleges, many more worked for training providers focusing specifically on work-related and pre-vocational training aimed at NEET young people. At the same time, political and academic debate about social exclusion and its causes directed our attention to youth employment and unemployment, and the role of so-called employability programmes. In September 2008 we began an ethnographic study of young people taking part in Entry to Employment (E2E), a training programme designed to prepare young people outside education and the labour market for the workplace (Simmons and Thompson 2011).

Whilst our E2E research provided valuable insights into the nature of education and training for young people at risk of becoming NEET, it was evident that a more wide-ranging study of the lived experience of marginalized young people would provide a fuller understanding of their lives and the challenges and opportunities facing them. Whilst education is an important site of social differentiation and reproduction it is, after all, only one facet of an individual’s broader societal experiences. Our aim of engaging in longitudinal ethnographic research with a group of young people initially outside education and employment became a reality when we were fortunate enough to obtain a research grant from the Leverhulme Trust, which enabled us to carry out the work upon which this book is based.

The project, An Ethnographic Study of the Experiences of NEET Young People, was conducted between August 2010 and June 2013. Fieldwork took place in two neighbouring local authorities in the north of England between October 2010 and March 2013; 24 young people took part in the ethnography for substantial periods of time although, for various reasons, four of them ended their involvement between October and December 2011. Of the remaining 20 participants, 12 were female; six of the young women were parents or became pregnant during the research. One young man was a father. Ten participants had spent at least some time in care and 15 lived alone. Two young women were of Pakistani descent and one young man was of mixed heritage; the others were White. All were between 15 and 20 years old when the fieldwork commenced in late 2010. By the end of the project, our data included over 280 hours of participant observation conducted in a variety of settings. Seventy-eight interviews were conducted and transcribed, including 20 with practitioners such as Connexions advisers, Jobcentre staff and tutors in training providers; three with employers; and 54 with young people. Other forms of data were collected during the course of the study, including photographs taken by the researcher and by participants; copies of qualifications and certificates of achievement; minutes of practitioner meetings; national and local statistics; and course information literature.

The young people who took part in the research had differing circumstances, educational trajectories and aspirations. However, although one must generalize with caution, certain trends were evident. Some participants had been academically successful at school, but the majority had negative experiences of education and few academic qualifications. In some cases, particularly for those who had been in care, frequent changes of residence had led not only to disrupted patterns of schooling, but being allocated to schools with places available due to lack of popularity and/or high pupil turnover. Perhaps the main common factor in our sample is that they were from largely working-class backgrounds and, in the majority of cases, participants had lived for most of their lives in deprived areas. In many ways, the very richness and diversity of the data generated by longitudinal qualitative research can provide challenges for analysis and presentation. Moreover, when researching the lives of NEET young people, it is important to bear in mind that differences within particular subcategories – such as teenage parents, young offenders and care leavers – can be as great as those between them (Finlay et al. 2010). For this reason, although the book also draws on our data more broadly, the presentation of findings largely adopts a case-study approach. Individual young people’s stories are used not only to illustrate key themes emerging from our research but also to highlight patterns of difference as well as similarity. The six case studies represent something of the diversity of the NEET population, with different biographies, circumstances and responses; they illuminate the themes we wish to explore, but in different ways and sometimes by exception as much as by example.

The normalization of extended schooling

The emergence of the NEET category reflects the normalization of full-time post-compulsory education or training as the initial stage in school-to-work transitions. Whilst in earlier decades the great majority of young people expected to enter full-time employment soon after completing their compulsory education, the decline of youth labour markets associated with de-industrialization in the late 1970s and 1980s confronted school-leavers with a context of sharply reduced employment opportunities, particularly for those with few qualifications. Young people’s experiences became more individualized and fragmented, as collective transitions from school to factory or mine were replaced by a diversity of jobs, often with smaller employers, particularly in the service sector, or a place on the much-criticized training schemes developed to absorb the rising tide of youth unemployment. Whilst young people with high levels of educational attainment, particularly those from middle-class backgrounds, were able to take advantage of increasing opportunities in higher education, the majority were consigned to various forms of vocational education or a place on a youth training scheme.

Young people who rejected these options to seek employment came under increasing pressure, and in 1988 their entitlement to unemployment benefit was removed. Effectively, the unemployed young person ceased to exist, and was replaced with a more problematic figure, the young person outside education and employment. This shift exemplified broader trends to individualize social and economic risk, reflecting the emphasis on markets at the expense of collective institutions characteristic of neo-liberalism. The slogan ‘Education, education, education’ used by Tony Blair during the 1997 election campaign crystallized an approach in which supply-side initiatives, aimed at creating a workforce suited to the demands of post-industrial economies, are seen as more effective and sustainable than interventions aimed at increasing the demand for labour. The global mobility of capital, it is claimed, leaves no alternative, for if productivity and skills are uncompetitive investment – and jobs – will go elsewhere.

The expansion of education and training is an immediate corollary of this argument; if the UK is to compete in a global marketplace, young people must be equipped with the knowledge and skills sought by employers and be prepared to retrain when these skills become outdated. Youth unemployment is attributed to a lack of skills, not a lack of jobs, and extended periods of post-compulsory education are seen as essential to avoiding recurrent exclusion from the labour market. However, the benefits of such policies have been felt largely by employers, and young people are required to run in order to stand still. As educational credentials become extended to the great majority of young people, the least qualified school-leavers become progressively more disadvantaged in the labour market (Roberts 2004, p.212). Forty years ago, most young people left school without qualifications; now, ‘sixteen-year-olds who insist that they want proper jobs and who try to avoid all alternatives have become a new problem group’ (Roberts 2009, p.358).

Introduced initially as a euphemistic term to replace perhaps more emotive descriptions such as ‘Status 0’ (Istance et al. 1994), the NEET category has framed UK policy discourses on youth unemployment for two decades. Although it has well-known limitations – for example, the diversity entailed by the definition not in education, employment or training – the concept of NEET has taken root in many other countries, particularly those dominated by neo-liberal philosophies. Most recently, it has become established in analyses of youth unemployment in the European Community (Eurofound 2012), and although the institutional environment varies considerably between countries which employ the NEET category, its relationship with individualized conceptions of social risk is well established. Furthermore, the scope of NEET has increased considerably as concerns have grown over graduate unemployment and the labour market engagement of other young people over the age of 18. Whilst initially restricted in the UK to 16–18-year-olds, the term now comprises young people under 25 and, in some contexts, extends to the age of 30 or more.

In general, we will avoid talking about NEET young people as a group, due to their disparate circumstances. Generalizations are problematic, and being NEET is not necessarily undesirable for all young people. Occupations such as motherhood or taking a gap year are valued by many, and pursuing activities unrelated to the labour market may be rational in some circumstances. Nevertheless, there is overwhelming evidence that, for the majority, being NEET is likely to have severe consequences in later life. Moreover, both the risk and consequences of early exclusion from education and employment are unequally distributed in society; and from the earliest interest in NEET young people, it has been clear that these risks are structured by gender, ethnicity and – above all – social class.

Individualization, identity and class

Theorists of late modernity argue that social conditions are experienced in increasingly differentiated ways from person to person (Bauman 1988; Giddens 1991; Beck 1992). According to these accounts, the traditions and certainties associated with industrial societies are supplanted by reflexive modernization, in which the self must confront the multiplicity of choices, risks and dangers encountered in post-industrial times unaided by the prefigured scripts of class, gender, religion and culture which characterized earlier generations. As Kehily (2009) points out, reflexive modernity is often taken to imply the primacy of freely created identities, constructed from the fluidity, mobility and choice offered by late modern social worlds. Phrases such as ‘the entrepreneurship of self’ (Rose 1998, p.158) or ‘choice biographies’ provide articulations of contemporary selfhood through recurring themes of plurality, selection and self-narration. However, an alternative reading of reflexive modernization recognizes that, far from ending the inequalities associated with industrial societies, it presents new opportunities for capitalist accumulation in exploiting burgeoning varieties of selfhood. Beck (1992) and authors such as Giddens (1991) and Lash (1992) see individualization as a characteristic feature of capitalism in late modernity. Increased heterogeneity within the middle and working classes (Wacquant 2008), the culturalization of the economy, and the valuing and revaluing of ordinary people as neo-liberal subjects enable the exploitation of labour in both mundane and newly created ways (Skeggs 2004).

What changes is the way in which class relations are perceived. Whilst class-based inequalities have remained remarkably stable in the transition from industrial to post-industrial society, they have been recast in terms of differentiated individual responses to the social and economic risks of wage labour, such as unemployment and deskilling. In this way, the individual lives out the complexity and diversity of the social relations surrounding them, without necessarily confronting them as questions of class. Reflexivity goes only so far, and problems such as unemployment, ill-health and crime are perceived in the light of individual dispositions and failings, or as the price to be paid for freedom and choice. Globalization, the weakening of family and community structures, and the conjunction of technological progress with decreasing confidence in science and authority confront individuals with a variety of options and disrupt their capacity for engaging in collective action. For many young people, marginality or exclusion is a normal part of life or is seen as a stage in their transition to adulthood; it does not immediately strike them in terms of class structures or their intersections with gender and ethnicity. Moreover, activities in which young people engage have, to some extent, ceased to segregate them by gender or class; service-sector employment, higher education and certain forms of popular culture attract young people from many backgrounds. However, although all social groups are affected by the risks of late modernity, structural factors retain their importance. Class, gender and ethnic patterns in youth transitions have by no means disappeared (Furlong 2009), even if the ways that young people deal with decisions concerning education, employment or consumption have diversified and fragmented. Furlong and Cartmel (2007) refer to the apparent contradiction between objective and subjective experiences as the epistemological fallacy of late modernity, remarking that ‘People’s life chances remain highly structured at the same time as they increasingly seek solutions on an individual, rather than a collective basis’ (p.5).

Bauman (1988) proposes that identities no longer wait to be assumed as a young person enters adulthood: ‘Everyone has to ask himself the question “who am I”, “how should I live”, “who do I want to become” – and at the end of the day, be prepared to accept responsibility for the answer … Self construction of the self is, so to speak, a necessity....

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Poverty, Social Exclusion and Marginalization
• 3. Young People Not in Education, Employment or Training
• 4. Researching the Lives of Marginalized Young People
• 5. Education, Training and Youth Employment
• 6. Danny’s Story
• 7. Hailey’s Story
• 8. Sean’s Story
• 9. Family, Community and Welfare
• 10. Isla’s Story
• 11. Saheera’s Story
• 12. Cayden’s Story
• 13. Conclusion
• Appendix
• Notes
• References
• Index