Understanding Youth in the Global Economic Crisis
Abstract
In this innovative book, Professor Alan France tells the story of what impact the 2007 global crisis and the great recession that followed has had on our understandings of youth. Drawing on eight countries as case studies he undertakes an in-depth sociological analysis of historical and contemporary developments in post-sixteen education, training, work, and welfare policy to show how the ecological landscape of youth has been affected. He maps the growing influence of neoliberalism as a political strategy in each of the countries, showing how, after the crisis, it is accelerating the reconfiguration of institutions and practices that are central to the lives of the young. This book is essential reading for students of youth studies, sociology and policy, seeking a greater understanding of international public and social policy in relation to the youth question.
... However, despite being a precise indicator of the labour market, there exists a variation in defining NEET concept across the countries (Mascherini, 2019). With the acceptance of NEET concept across the European countries in the late 2000s, the labour market faces the challenge of uncertainty on whom to count as NEETs (France, 2016). The reason is the variations in NEET criteria across the countries, largely depending on the demographic, socioeconomic or cultural context (Batini et al., 2017). ...
... The 'Bronfenbrenner ecological systems theory' finds significance in understanding youth labour market status based on the complex relationships of their background characteristics (France, 2016). ...
... While assessing relative contributions of socio-economic factors of youth being in a NEET status in India, it has been observed that, for the year 2018/19, youth aged 20-24 and 25-29 demonstrate 20.0 percent and 17.5 percent, respectively, higher probability of falling in NEET category regarding the 15-19 aged youth (Table V) The youths' successful transition from school-to-work depends on their education level (Jensen, 2012). The incomplete or no educational attainment among youth enhances their risk to fall in NEET category (France, 2016). The analysis reveals a decline in probability of being a NEET youth with advancements in their educational level. ...
Challenges for youth being Not in Employment, Education, or Training (NEET) in India are enormous in quantitative terms and multidimensional in qualitative terms. Therefore, this study aims to underpin the vulnerability of youth in the Indian labour market by investigating the magnitude and heterogeneity of NEET youth and how it has evolved during the Neo-liberal paradigm of the Indian economy.
... The recent upsurge of 'precarity' in youth literature has led some to interrogate its meaning (e.g. France, 2016). Millar (2017) poses several questions to assist a critical analysis of precarity: ...
... Discussions of youth precarity have come to be shaped by the critical juncture of the 2008 GFC, which resulted in a sharp rise in youth un-and under-employment, an expansion of education and training, a housing crisis which prevented many from leaving the parental home or buying their first home, and a raft of public service cuts and austerity measures (McKee, 2012;France, 2016). In the years since 2008, insecure, zero-hours, casual and fixed-term work contracts are significantly more commonplace than they previously were (Hardgrove et al., 2015;Furlong et al., 2017) and the private rented housing sector, with its time-limited tenancy agreements, has dramatically grown (Kemp, 2015). ...
... Yet as several of the papers in this Special Issue note, precarity is typically traced back to the late 1970s which marked the beginning of a significant period in recent history in which neoliberal and free-market politics took hold. Deindustrialisation and labour market deregulation in the decades that followed paved the way for private companies to thrive (France, 2016) and were married with the push towards homeownership aspirations, while social housing was deliberately eroded (Crawford and McKee, 2018). Socioeconomic inequalities grew, with working-class families finding themselves pushed further towards the poverty line (Hills, 2017). ...
In recent years, the association between youth and precarity has become increasingly strengthened. Most commonly, youth precarity has been linked to the labour market (Shildrick et al., 2010; Crisp and Powell, 2017; Formby, 2017) and the housing market (McKee et al., 2020) although other social strata such as precarity of place (Banki, 2013) and precarious leisure (Batchelor et al., 2020) have also received attention. Deindustrialisation, forceful neoliberal politics, the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2008, austerity measures and, most likely now, the social and economic costs of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic have accelerated academic attention on young people with concern over how they are faring amid a complex web of unpredictable and insecure social structures and what consequences these will have for their futures.
... Across Europe, the last three decades have witnessed the expansion of education, with more young people participating in upper secondary and tertiary education than ever before (France, 2016). In these circumstances, academic qualifications are regarded 'as central cultural capital ' (2016: 85) necessary for successful labour market entry. ...
... Instead, today's young people are facing a precarious labour market which offers limited access and scarce jobs to inexperienced new entrants. Moreover, young people tend to be concentrated in insecure, short-term, poorly paid jobs with few career development opportunities (Ainley and Allen, 2013;Bell and Blanchflower, 2011;France, 2016). ...
... Indeed, in 2018 in the UK, 23% of 16-24 year olds with no qualifications were NEET, compared with 9% of those qualified to GCSE1level and above (Powell, 2018). International statistical evidence also shows that underqualified young people are the most likely to become NEET (France, 2016). In fact, the risk factors most associated with becoming NEET are often described, both in academic research and policy, in individual terms: low academic attainment, physical or mental health problems, special educational needs (SEN) and so on (Furlong, 2006;Powell, 2018). ...
Periods of being NEET (not in education, employment or training) can have long-term consequences for individuals’ future job opportunities, earnings, psycho-social well-being and health, all with high societal costs. Therefore, policy-makers across Europe seek interventions that successfully reduce NEET numbers. Drawing on a longitudinal qualitative study in London, this paper explores the processes and mechanisms that contribute to young people becoming NEET after leaving education.
Through analysis of 53 young NEETs’ accounts of their school and transition experiences, we draw upon Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory to explore the multitude of factors and structures of disadvantage that might have contributed to these young people’s marginalisation in education and employment. We discuss how unfulfilled support needs, a lack of career advice and socio-economic disadvantage can lead to educational disengagement, dropping out and, ultimately, becoming NEET. While many of these issues were presented as personal difficulties, in this article we reject the individualisation of the ‘NEET problem’. Instead, we argue that negative school experiences need to be understood in the context of structural conditions, including funding cuts in education and support services, transformations in the labour market and socio-economic deprivation.
... These policies deeply influence contemporary youth societal conditions in general and the student condition in particular; our analytical attempt here is that of addressing the latter. According to some scholars, the interplay of neoliberal policy framework and policy delivery in social and education policies hugely impacts on contemporary youth condition 2 (France, 2016;Sukariek&Tannock, 2015;Wyn & Woodman, 2014). To what extent young people respond to these conditions in general, and the student movements in particular, is regarded here as a very fruitful analytical perspective. ...
... Here, competition represents a moral principle of economic behavior which also involves other societal domains. Moreover, a sort of permanent revolution has been underway since at the heart of neoliberalism lies the idea of re-organizing society through the multiplication and intensification of market mechanisms; this transformation inescapably implies a transformation of subject and subjectivities, as well as the emergence of an entrepreneurial subjectivity regarded as a source of "human capital" (see Dardot& Laval, 2031;France, 2016;Peters et al., 2009). In this context, education policies and the transformation of welfare into workfare are inextricably intertwined. ...
... In reality what we have witnessed over this last decade are two crises, the second being driven by the use of austerity as a policy response to the Great Recession. To clarify the point, austerity measures are fundamentally neoliberal practices that encourage states to prioritize the "economic imperative" and market principles as the core of economic recovery (see France, 2016;Konzelmann, 2014). In particular, as Konzelmann explains: "the private sector (finance in particular) has steadily increased its power and legitimacy relative to the state. ...
... Over the last thirty years, young people's lives have been affected by social transformations and processes of globalisation characterised by increasing uncertainty and rapid technological change (Furlong and Kelly, 2005;Furlong and Cartmel, 2007;Furlong at al. 2011;Woodman, 2012a;Woodman and Wyn, 2014). More recently, the global financial crisis and the policies of austerity which have emerged have exacerbated the effects of globalisation on young people's lives, wellbeing and experiences of the labour market (Woodman and Threadgold, 2015;France 2016;Kelly and Pike, 2017). Furthermore, young people's everyday lives are inscribed in corporate capitalism and the development of a consumer society in which consumers have 'infinite choices on display-except the choice of choosing among them' (Bauman, 1999, p.39) (see also Hall and Jefferson, 2006;Winlow and Hall, 2009). ...
... Research in the field of youth studies has continuously underlined the role of social formations such as class, gender and race in shaping young people's experiences in the context of education, work, leisure and relationships (Skeggs, 1997;Reay et al., 2001;Ball et al., 2002;Furlong and Cartmel, 2007;Roberts, 2009;Furlong 2009aFurlong , 2013. At the same time, young people's experiences have been reshaped (often mirroring existing social divisions) by the expansion of education and training, the increase of unemployment, underemployment and nonstandard patterns of work as well as the advance and implementation of neoliberal and austerity policies Kelly, 2005, Henderson et al., 2006;Furlong et al, 2011;Cieslik and Simpson, 2013;Coté 2014b;Woodman and Wyn, 2014;Woodman and Threadgold, 2015;France 2016;Kelly and Pike, 2017). ...
... It briefly reviews Beck's theory of individualisation which has extensively been used to 16 understand the impacts of late modernity and social change on young people's lives and establish a middleground position in the field (Woodman, 2009). The section then outlines a more recent body of work in youth research which has loosely used and/or advocated for political economy or critical approaches to understand young people's lives (see Coté, 2014bCoté, , 2016Woodman and Wyn, 2014;Woodman and Threadgold, 2015;France, 2016). Finally, the section examines, drawing on empirical research, how young people's lives have been reshaped in the last decades by social change and broader economic and political relations. ...
Young people's engagement with social network sites have predominantly been depicted in binary ways, overplaying either the risks posed by digital technologies or their positive benefits. Adopting a critical perspective, this thesis understands young people’s uses and perceptions of social network sites as continuously negotiated and deeply entrenched in their everyday lives; and analyses them within the social struggles and power structures in which they are embedded.
Based on qualitative interview material with 32 young adults aged 20-25 and on an innovative research design incorporating digital prompts, this study explores the meanings that participants ascribed to social network sites and their everyday uses of the platforms. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of practice and Foucault’s work on power and governmentality, the thesis argues that young people actively negotiate social network sites. Yet their uses and understandings of the platforms are constituted through a 'practical knowledge' of the world which reflects existing social divisions and, are embedded within broader neoliberal narratives of entrepreneurship, choice and responsibility, producing corresponding forms of governmentality.
Throughout the interviews, participants described their engagement with social network sites, for example their attitudes towards privacy or the ways in which they managed and maintained relationships through the platforms, in terms of individual choice, personal preference and growing up. The analysis of the data suggests, that their engagement were, nonetheless, substantially informed by the economic interests and the monopolies enforced by private corporations; by the technological affordances and playful designs of the platforms; by social processes of differentiation rendering specific uses legitimate; and by neoliberal discourses encouraging individual responsibility and understandings of the self as enterprise. All of the above combined to actively shape and produce participants' understandings of social network sites as 'useful' and 'necessary' tools for managing the everyday and their relationships, for maximising professional opportunities, and for engaging in practices of profile-checking and monitoring.
In short, the thesis argues that young people's uses and understandings of social network sites are complex and cannot be reduced to risks or positive leverage, nor can it be understood without an analysis of the asymmetrical relations of powers between private corporations which own the platforms and users, and a critical engagement with the pervasive neoliberal discourses that shape them.
... According to this position, increasing numbers of wage earners are running the risk of falling into precariousness, characterized by temporary contracts, spells of unemployment, deteriorating working conditions, poor prospects, and low income (Kalleberg, 2018). In particular, there has been much concern over the prospects of younger cohorts to gain a foothold in the labor market and to earn a decent living (France 2016). ...
... We separated the analyses by gender and educational attainment, as these factors are determinants of career trajectories (Järvinen et al. 2020). We will test the hypothesis that younger cohorts have endured more fragmented mid-careers than older cohorts (e.g., France 2016). Moreover, since population-level studies suggest only modest changes in careers across generations (Becker & Blossfeld 2017;Hollister 2011;Stawarz 2018;Van Winkle & Fasang 2017), we also hypothesize that inequality between industrial employees with low and high levels of education, and between men and women, persists. ...
It is often argued that global competition and technological development have made industrial jobs more unstable. In this article, we ask how career stability has evolved in the Finnish forest, metal, and chemical industries, comparing 14 cohorts (age groups) by gender and educational level. We focus on industrial employees born in 1958-1971 and compare their career stability at ages 30-44 using Statistics Finland's linked employer-employee data from 1988 to 2015 and an application of sequence analysis. We analyze career stability over time by examining annual main labor market statuses (employed, unemployed, student, disabled, retired, out of the labor force), adding estimators for workplace and industry changes. The results show no evidence of career destabilization across the cohorts, but they do reveal persistent inequalities between industrial employees with low and high levels of education, and between men and women.
... They teach professional and soft skills with the goal of rehabilitation or (re)integration into the labour market or society. These services form a part of the socalled activating labour market policies (ALMPs) (for a brief review about ALMPs targeting young people see France 2016). ALMPs, in turn, do not exist independent of welfare conditionality. ...
... This article shows that policies targeting youth are also dissimilar within countries and can differ, for example, in the ways in which different groups of young people are viewed (Nikunen 2017). For young people, this means that if their transition period from school to work does not follow a straightforward path, it will be governed through labour market policies and youth activation policy, rather than for example educational policy (France 2016;Haikkola 2019). ...
This article examines the role of youth activation in reproducing classed and gendered youth transitions. A large body of research on transitions examines how structural conditions continue to pattern youth transitions in the context of detraditionalization and individualisation. What is often missing from these analyses, is the role of institutional actors and youth policies. Based on a multi-sited ethnographic research in employment services in Helsinki, Finland, this article explores the role of youth activation and welfare conditionality in NEET young people's transitions. Youth activation refers to a complex mix of employment services, prevention of social exclusion, active labour market policies and welfare conditionality. The article shows how the seemingly supportive practices provided by youth employment services channel young people to a limited number of occupational tracks at the lower end of the labour market in a gendered manner. This channelling is institutionalised in the services’ organisational structures and practices, and strengthened by welfare conditionality. The consequence is a powerful institutional pattern that structures and restricts youths’ transition paths.
... Precarious employment is considered to be typical for young people entering the labour market in particular (e.g. Korhonen et al., 2006;Koivulaakso et al., 2010;France, 2016). These changes in working life have also affected young peoples' experiences of the transition stages. ...
In autumn 2019, the Norwegian Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion and the Nordic Council of Ministers commissioned a literature review from the Centre for Work Inclusion (KAI) at OsloMet based on relevant Nordic research literature on vulnerable young people, exclusion and inclusion. Responsibility was assigned to a group of researchers at OsloMet/KAI who have collaborated with an external research group, reference group and user group, all comprising representatives from the Nordic countries/areas. A strategic literature search was conducted comprising a systematic search and subsequent identification of relevant studies based on input from the research group. A total of 84 studies were included. The main focus has been on studies from the social sciences on inclusion in work, school and society. The literature review identified many common challenges between the Nordic countries, but also contextual differences.
... This is observed in young people moving out from parental home later or returning to the family home, delayed entry to the labour market and entry to graduate-level jobs, as well as extended periods of financial precariousness (Chesters et al., 2019;Tomaszewski et al. 2016;Woodman & Wyn, 2015). Though with complex and varied social impacts (Roberts and France 2021), the diversification of life pathways has occurred in response to larger-scale structural processes such as globalisation, technological advancement and economic fluctuation (Côté & Bynner, 2008;France, 2016). ...
Happiness is an inescapable notion within everyday life and central to the human experience. With evidence that happiness decreases significantly between adolescence and adulthood, this article aims to inform further exploration of why this is so, by first understanding how young people define happiness. In this article, we present data from 29 in-depth interviews with Australian young adults (aged 26–27) in which we asked what they understand happiness to be. From their responses, we found support for a previously proposed typology of happiness. Notably, distinct temporal paradigms emerged in our sample’s definitions of happiness not yet considered within previous typologies. These temporal orientations are not only made up of three-time perspectives, past , present and future ; furthermore, nuance was identified in temporal outlooks characterised as adaptable , controllable , predictable and uncertain . With early indications that these temporal orientations play a significant role in shaping happiness, this study argues that temporalities are key to understanding the decline of happiness from adolescence to adulthood.
... We also considered the socio-economic position of families. This is particularly important because the economic, social, and cultural capital of young people and their families are unequally distributed (France 2016;Erola et al. 2016). Finnish families are typically dual-earning, with couples working full-time and sharing equal gender roles (Bittman 1999;Pääkkönen 2005;Tammelin 2009). ...
We investigated the role of teenage everyday social ties in educational outcomes by examining the association between teenage time use and educational attainment in adulthood. The sample consisted of young people aged 10–18 from the 1979 Finnish Time Use Survey, and the same respondents’ educational attainment later in life recorded from population register data at the year of 40th birthday (n = 366 men and 393 women). We assessed the associations of time spent with the parents, on studying, leisure activities, as well as social connectedness with friends and participation in extracurricular activities, with educational outcomes. Our findings indicated that time spent with the father is positively associated with the likelihood of completing tertiary education for both daughters and sons. In particular, time spent with lower-education fathers was associated with teenagers’ future tertiary education. However, intense friendships and participation in extracurricular activities were not associated with academic achievement later in life. The findings suggest that educational attainment is partly explained by teenage time spent with the family. Less-educated fathers can enhance the attainment of higher education of their children by spending more time with their teenage children.
... 2006;Koivulaakso ym. 2010;France 2016). Prekarisoituvan, eli tilapäisen ja pirstaloituvan työn nähdään koskettavan erityisesti nuorten suhdetta työhön ja työntekijyyteen. ...
Tässä artikkelissa tarkastelen Ohjaamoa koulutuksen ja palkkatyön ulkopuolella olevien, alle 25-vuotiaiden nuorten näkökulmasta ja kysyn, millaista toimijuutta Ohjaamo sekä sen puitteissa tarjottu ohjaus nuorille mahdollistaa. Teoreettisena kehyksenä käytän väitöskirjassani kehittämiäni suuntaviivoja yhteistoimijuudesta ohjauksessa ja syvennän käsitettä ohjaustutkimuksen kentän toisilla keskusteluilla. Artikkelin aineistona on haastattelu- ja havaintoaineisto, joka on tuotettu vuosina 2014–2016 ESR-rahoitetun Nuorten tuki -hankkeen kehittämien toimintamallien, Ohjaamon ja Avoimen ammattiopiston, kontekstissa. Analyysissa on sovellettu valtarakenteita tunnistavaa feminististä
ja narratiivista lukutapaa. Tuloksissa keskeinen jännite rakentuu yksilöllistävien ohjauksen käytäntöjen sekä nuorten kokemusten välille. Politiikka sanelee, että nuoren pitäisi oppia pärjäämään omillaan ja itsekseen – kun taas nuorille Ohjaamo on ollut houkutteleva paikka nimenomaan rinnalla kulkevan tuen, vertaistuen ja yhteisöllisyyden vuoksi. Nuorten oma kerronta rakentaa poliittiseen retoriikkaan nähden hyvinkin toisenlaista tarinaa siitä, miksi Ohjaamoja tarvitaan ja mihin nuorten tarpeisiin ne vastaavat.
... However, it is not only their gender that shapes these decisions, but also their age and generation. The experiences of this cohort of undergraduate students (graduating 2019) was tied both to their current stage of their life-course and broader social and spatial processes influencing their opportunities and expectations (France, 2016). The preceding decade of recession and slow economic growth is an important backdrop, which has led to complex and extended youth transitions (Pimlott-Wilson, 2017), along with a need for young people to distinguish themselves to gain a good job (Holdsworth, 2017(Holdsworth, , 2018. ...
This paper examines young women university students’ expectations of gender inequalities in the workplace, drawing upon semi-structured interviews with 21 young women at three mid-high ranking universities. Our original findings show that the young women were factoring-in expectations of the gendered workplace as a backdrop to their career choices and life-planning. Critically, these young women are relatively privileged and educationally successful, yet are framing their career choices in light of expectations of gendered constraints. We label this phenomenon the ‘mirrored ceiling’, as these expectations are reflected back onto young women’s current experiences and life-mapping. Crucially, these pervasive understandings of gendered workplaces and career trajectories were transpiring at a critical moment when young women are making crucial choices about their careers and life-courses. The specific environment of the university is a pivotal space of formal and informal learning, and the circulation, sharing and (re)production of the mirrored ceiling. This is also a key moment in time and space when career services, and specific industries could intervene in proactive ways to demonstrate how gender inequalities are being challenged. This paper therefore uncovers an important, and previously overlooked factor influencing gendered career pathways, which needs addressing by careers services and broader university practices.
... Another body of literature focuses on the youth-specific precariousness and precarity. It is widely agreed that the ascendance of precarious employment disproportionately affects youth and young adults, despite the existence of class, gender or ethnic differences (France, 2016;MacDonald, 2016). Neither the unskilled youth nor college graduates can avoid employment precariousness to different degrees. ...
Purpose
Retirement protection has been widely debated in Hong Kong over two decades. The debate about the relationship between social insecurity and retirement protection, and provoked consideration of a choice between a rights-based universal retirement system and means-tested protection for senior citizens are still contested. This study aims to explore the understanding and behaviours of young workers regarding retirement planning, their difficulties and worries with the implementation of providing support for their parents' retirement.
Design/methodology/approach
This was an exploratory study to target young workers aged 20–34 years to participate. Qualitative data presented in this study were drawn from 16 young workers. Seven were female and nine were male young workers.
Findings
The research found that young workers who have a relatively low level of income, particularly for non-standard workers and the self-employed, both are likely to find difficulties to contribute to their own retirement planning and their parents' retirement with the emerging problems of job insecurity and instability. Young working people in lower socio-classes have further limited choices and control over their own retirement planning, as well as providing support for their parents' retirement that may cause a breach of intergenerational contract.
Originality/value
With the increasing number of young workers with precarious employment or unemployment, this study has contributed to a shift in views regarding intergenerational contracts, particularly in the need to support other generations of family members in a contemporary Hong Kong society.
... 2017). Erityistä huolta on kannettu nuorempien ikäluokkien kiinnittymisestä työmarkkinoille ja heidän mahdollisuuksistaan ansaita riittävä toimeentulo (France 2016;Helve & Evans 2013;Pyöriä ym. 2017). ...
Tässä luvussa tarkastelemme työuria teollisuudessa 14 kohorttia verraten. Vertaamme 30-vuotiaina teollisuustoimialoilla työskennelleiden, 1958-1971 syntyneiden kohorttien työurien kehitystä ikävuosien 30-45 välillä. Työuria arvioimme seuraamalla henkilöiden työmarkkina-asemaa eri vuosina (työllinen, työtön, opiskelija, työkyvytön, eläkkeellä, työvoiman ulkopuolella) sekä työpaikan ja toimialan vaihdoksia. Tutkimuksen kohteena ovat metsä-, metalli-ja kemianteollisuuden eri koulutustasoryhmiä edustavat työntekijät. Menetelmänä on sekvenssianalyysi, jolla voi ryhmitellä erilaisia työurapolkuja. Arvioimme myös oletusta työurien pirstoutumisesta ikäkohorttien välillä: tarkastelemme työurien de/stabilisoitumista ja de/standardisoitumista koskevia hypoteeseja. Tulosten mukaan teollisuuden työurat ovat säilyneet kohorttien välillä ennallaan- ne sisältävät yhtä paljon liikkuvuutta kuin aiemminkin. Poikkeuksen muodostaa 1990-luvun lama, jolloin aineistoon tulleilla kohorteilla oli eniten erilaisia työmarkkinasiirtymiä. Ennallaan ovat myös työurien sukupuolittuneet ja koulutustason mukaiset jaot.
... In recent decades, many scholars have argued that youth transitions have become more complex, heterogeneous, and fragmented in most developed countries (France, 2016). The body of research they generated has shown, however, that factors pertaining to young people's identities and ascribed membership still play an important part in structuring their horizons of actions and transition choices (Struffolino, Borgna 2020). ...
... In recent decades, many scholars have argued that youth transitions have become more complex, heterogeneous, and fragmented in most developed countries (France, 2016). The body of research they generated has shown, however, that factors pertaining to young people's identities and ascribed membership still play an important part in structuring their horizons of actions and transition choices (Struffolino, Borgna 2020). ...
In this volume, we examine the relationship between gender and education with respect to the Italian context. The purpose is to forge a space for a progressively varied and dense area of interdisciplinary research on gender and education. As new gender studies fields are rapidly developing and becoming pivotal in the traditional social disciplines of sociology, educational studies, pedagogy, anthropology, we felt a greater need for a
dynamic and intersectional examination that plots emerging definitions and debates while uncovering the critical complexities of gender and education in Italy. These include issues relating to: - the influence that family socialization and pre-school education
have on both the formation of gender identities and the development of educational paths; - the female hegemony in the demography of the teaching staff and the repercussions of this numerical dominance for both male and female colleagues and students in terms of patterns and methodologies; - the reproduction of women and men’s traditional choices in fields of study such as STEM in the tracks of the Italian secondary education and university system; the barriers to a gender neutral vision of university career choices; the influence of parents’ educational attainment – especially that
of mothers – on the educational achievements of younger men and women over time;
- the growing importance of learning IT and digital skills for employability - especially for women; - the efficacy of experiments in coding, robotics and computational learning as part of innovative programs for pupils; - gender gaps in financial literacy and gender divides in more complex financial skills; - the social construction of gender categories in standardized assessments of adolescents’ competences. In adopting a critical approach
to gender and education as the complex intertwining of these crucial issues, we recognize the importance of probing beyond the boundaries of specific domains in order to develop a more intersectional focus.
... 2006;Koivulaakso ym. 2010;France 2016). Prekarisoituvan, eli tilapäisen ja pirstaloituvan työn nähdään koskettavan erityisesti nuorten suhdetta työhön ja työntekijyyteen. ...
... Those wanting to translate Bourdieu into youth studies need to understand what Bourdieu was doing. This is the case in France and Threadgold (2016) and France (2016). ...
Against a backdrop of lively discussion about the best ways to do youth studies, or sociology of youth, this article asks: Can Pierre Bourdieu’s work be translated into youth studies in ways that benefit the field? We begin by considering Bourdieu’s thoughts on the category of ‘youth’ using a new translation of this text, and then turn to an important discussion by Furlong, Woodman, and Wyn about certain long standing tensions in youth studies. These tensions are between writers engaging in the ‘structure versus agency’ debate that is mapped onto the ‘culture versus transitions’ binary. We consider the case for adopting a ‘middle-ground’ represented by Bourdieu’s writings. We argue that many in youth studies work from an unacknowledged substantialist tradition, which is contra to Bourdieu's relational perspective. The result includes misunderstandings of Bourdieu's thinking and expectations of his work, for example, that it can pass certain empirical tests. We argue that if Bourdieu's relational perspective is to be translated into youth studies, we will need a more determined effort to understand that perspective first.
KEYWORDS: Bourdieu, youth, youth studies, relational perspective, substantialism
... Neoliberalism does not constitute a universal body of practice, but it has influenced the way public services such as education are delivered and managed, commodifying education as a good that can produce employable skills (France, 2016;Franceschelli, 2016). Through this lens, education is commodified, serving a functional role with an assumed linear relationship between an investment in education and skills and economic return (Becker, 1964;Powell, 2005;Preston and Dyer, 2003;Stevens, 1999;Tan, 2014). ...
Although the Saudi education system has provided an opportunity to pursue varying pathways for young people, there is a limited understanding of young people’s post-secondary education and employment trajectories in Saudi Arabia. Challenges to implementing educational strategies and reforms include a large youth population, diverse stakeholders, economic diversification and limited education and employment opportunities. With the launch of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, education and labour policy efforts included an expansion to the vocational education and training (TVET) sector to stimulate economic growth and increase the employment of young Saudi citizens in place of foreign employees. However, the relatively low enrolment in vocational education and training (TVET) and its weak status can provide insight into the way young people make decisions about their education to work transitions and highlights a variety of individual and structural challenges young people continuously negotiate in the rapidly changing country. Quantitative empirical research studies fall short in explaining the motivations behind young people’s choices and the extent to which choice is available. This research addresses this gap, employing a qualitative constructivist methodology. Through 18 focus groups and 16 individual interviews, this thesis shares the sentiments of 152 young men and women in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia who were enrolled in initial TVET as well as secondary students at a transition point where TVET became an option. The findings indicate that ‘choice’ is often illusionary, as youth aspirations are not always in line with opportunities and are influenced by the dominant characteristics of the education pathways and the labour market. Young people are influenced by embedded cultural factors such as social networks, family and gender. In making choices that are socially acceptable, young people minimise potential risks and social sanctions by ‘colouring within the lines’ of social acceptability rather than re-drawing them.
... Young adults face the most severe consequences of a contemporary political economy that is marked by deep inequalities and constraints on social mobility (France 2016). Young people without a high school diploma or college education face some of the biggest obstacles to social mobility, and some of the greatest vulnerabilities to criminal justice system contact (Western 2006). ...
... A pressing issue for scholarly communities is the investigation of why the recent expansion of the higher education system and initiatives to widen participation has not overcome the enduring influence of social class and family influence on participation and outcomes. The widening participation agendas in many Commonwealth countries have had limited impact in increasing the participation of disadvantaged groups (France 2016). Reay's assessment of the UK system seems to parallel well with the current situation in Australia: 'regardless of what individual working-class males and females are able to negotiate and achieve for themselves within education, the collective patterns of workingclass trajectories remain sharply different from those of the middle-classes' (Reay 2006, 294). ...
... Dillane, Power, Devereux, and Haynes (2018) detail that across the world, we find examples of protests led by young people within music scenes where a sense of attachment and commitment flourish. In Portugal, the song 'What a Fool I Am' ('Que Parva Que Eu Sou', 2011), which was used as a manifestation of the conditions of austerity and precariousness experienced by qualified young people post-2008 crisis is one such example (Guerra, 2018;France, 2016). Young people in the use of social networks-civil and digital platform Real Democracy Now (¡Democracia Real Ya!), led the Movement 15-M in Spain. ...
In this special edition on popular music, we seek to explore Simon Frith’s (1978, The sociology of rock, London, UK: Constable, p. 39) argument that: ‘Music’s presence in youth culture is established but not its purpose’. ‘Songs that sing the crisis’ captures contemporary accounts, which build upon popular music’s legacy, courage and sheer determination to offer social and cultural critique of oppressive structures or political injustice as they are being lived by young people today. Young people have consistently delivered songs that have focused on struggles for social rights, civil rights, women’s rights and ethnic and sexual minorities rights through creative anger, emotion and resistance, and we know that music matters because we consciously feel the song (DeNora, 2000, Music in everyday life, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). However, in the aftermath of the post-2008 global economic and cultural crises, young people, in particular, have faced austerity, social hardship and political changes, which have impacted on their future lives (France, 2016, Understanding youth in the global economic crisis, Bristol: Policy Press; Kelly & Pike, 2017, Neo-liberalism and austerity: The moral economies of young people’s health and well-being, London, UK: Palgrave). This special issue assesses the key contestation where popular music is a mechanism to not only challenge but to think through ordinary people’s experience and appeals for social justice. The present introduction starts by presenting the historical and theoretical background of this research field. Then, it introduces the articles about the songs that sing the crisis in Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Finland, Norway, Egypt and Tunisia through the rhythms of rap, hip-hop, fado, electronic pop, indie rock, reggaeton, metal and mahragan.
... Precarity can be understood broadly as a deviation from the standard employment relationship, with features including low pay, short-term contracts, faux self-employment, few or no guaranteed working hours and few employment rights and protections (see European Parliament Policy Department for Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs, 2017;Grimshaw et al., 2016). 1 Insecure employment is not new, especially in lower-skilled occupations, although it may have reached a new peak since the 2008 crisis (Prosser, 2016; see also Bessant et al., 2017;France, 2016). Indeed, two decades ago, Richard Sennett warned of 'flexible capitalism ', wherein 'uncertainty' and 'instability' were becoming 'woven into the everyday practices of a vigorous capitalism' (Sennett, 1998: 31; see also Beck, 2002). ...
The 2008 crisis crystallised the trend towards ‘precarious’ labour market conditions which disproportionately affect young people. Few studies since the crisis, however, examine how young people understand and engage with their economic circumstances and industrial relations. This article draws upon rich and original data from focus groups and an online community exercise to examine the attitudes of young people in relation to the apparent ‘normalisation’ of precarity in the post-crisis economy. It argues that although young people have internalised precarious labour market conditions, they recognise the abnormality of this situation. It shows that their view of these conditions as immutable, however, means they often fail to see value in conventional forms of trade union organisation. The article concludes by outlining a future research agenda around economic crisis, generational identities and the future of industrial relations.
... Those wanting to translate Bourdieu into youth studies need to understand what Bourdieu was doing. This is the case in France and Threadgold (2016) and France (2016). ...
Against a backdrop of lively discussion about the best ways to do youth studies, or sociology of youth, this article asks: Can Pierre Bourdieu’s work be translated into youth studies in ways that benefit the field? We begin by considering Bourdieu’s thoughts on the category of ‘youth’ using a new translation of this text, and then turn to an important discussion by Furlong, Woodman, and Wyn about certain long standing tensions in youth studies. These tensions are between writers engaging in the ‘structure versus agency’ debate that is mapped onto the ‘culture versus transitions’ binary. We consider the case for adopting a ‘middle-ground’ represented by Bourdieu’s writings. We argue that many in youth studies work from an unacknowledged substantialist tradition, which is contra to Bourdieu's relational perspective. The result includes misunderstandings of Bourdieu's thinking and expectations of his work, for example, that it can pass certain empirical tests. We argue that if Bourdieu's relational perspective is to be translated into youth studies, we will need a more determined effort to understand that perspective first.
... 'School-to-work' transitions have virtually disappeared and have been replaced by educational transitions. Becoming the 'new' workers now requires young people to be better trained, qualified and 'job ready' (France, 2016). Beck (1992) and others (Du Bois-Reymond, 1998) also suggest that in this process we are seeing a growing influence of individualisation and the emergence of what is called 'choice biographies', in which recent changing social conditions are seen as impacting people's traditional rhythms of life. ...
Uncertainty and insecurity in the labour market for young women have increased dramatically. Globally, notions of ‘precariousness’, ‘flexibility’ and ‘gig working’ have grown and the idea of secure permanent work and ‘career building’ is seen as a thing of the past. Simultaneously, and not unconnected, we have also seen the ‘massification’ of higher education where more young women than ever are entering university aiming to improve their situation in the labour market. But how, in these uncertain times, are they imagining their futures? What is influencing their planning and what are their motivations? These questions were explored with a diverse group of young women (n = 26) who were third-year students at a university in Aotearoa New Zealand. The analysis of their interviews draws on the work of Pierre Bourdieu and findings highlight the need to recognise the important relationships between their past, the present and their imagined futures.
... Young people are also more likely to experience growing conditionality and increasingly reduced entitlement in the benefits system (Watts et al. 2014;Crisp and Powell 2017a). France (2016) highlights how youth unemployment is also becoming more entrenched around the globe, emphasising new and deeper problems around underemployment and the precarious nature of work. In Australia, for example, the length of time a young person has been unemployed increased from 16 weeks on average in 2008 to 29 weeks in 2014 (France 2016, 117). ...
This paper uses empirical evidence to explore the nature of employment transitions for a cohort of marginalised young people in England. The findings presented reveal the importance of past experiences, largely determined by prevailing opportunity structures, in shaping the present and reiterate the need to see transition as a historical process. Longitudinal data collected as part of an evaluation of a youth employment programme called Talent Match provides the evidence for the paper. The routes participants took in terms of securing and sustaining employment are examined. The paper develops a typology of different transitional groups to explore these routes based on the movement (or lack of) into and out of employment. The relative importance of different factors in explaining the groupings are assessed, with results underlining how the ongoing change participants were encountering in the present was inextricably linked to their past. In response, this paper suggests a reemphasis on understanding youth as both a stage of ‘being’ and ‘becoming’, seeing youth as both a condition in its own right but also part of the life course process, and calls for a more dynamic understanding of youth transitions among policymakers and those designing youth employment programmes.
... Overall, since the beginning of the economic crisis, among Italian young people the risk of unemployment has been three times higher than for adults. Ten years of economic crisis have profoundly changed the generational and social structure of the job market, as well as its dynamics, and not only in Italy (Furlong, 2009;Blossfeld, Bertolini and Hofacker, 2011;Sukarieh and Tannock, 2015;France, 2016). In this situation, the perception and idea of «work» has also changed. ...
Agencia y vulnerabilidad no son términos alternativos; al contrario, su encuentro hace emerger una característica distintiva de la agencia: la del “débil” que se enfrenta con dificultad a las restricciones y que descubre nuevas oportunidades. Tras una discusión teórica en torno a la relación entre agencia y vulnerabilidad y de las transformaciones de los procesos de subjetivación, este artículo se centra en la situación específica de vulnerabilidad en el mercado de trabajo que vive la actual generación de jóvenes. El texto analiza, apoyándose en una investigación realizada en Italia entre 2013 y 2017, los límites y potencialidades de la agencia de los jóvenes como una obligación en un contexto de precariedad en el trabajo. El objetivo es recalcar cómo agencia y vulnerabilidad —más que ser características intrínsecas del individuo— han de entenderse en relación con posiciones temporales, en la intersección de categorías y recursos, en condiciones situadas y relacionales.
... Furthermore, young people's understandings of social media platforms sit in a wider context of changes in education and in the labour market in Western countries characterised by the rise of non-standard and precarious forms of employment as well as by the exacerbation of neoliberal policies and subjectivities (Kelly and Kamp 2015;France 2016;Furlong et al. 2017). Woodman (2012) has shown that these changes impacted on the temporal structuring of young people's everyday lives which has become increasingly 'out of sync'. ...
Drawing on empirical data from qualitative interviews, this article explores young adults’ everyday experiences of ‘logging in’ and their accounts of their engagement with social media platforms, in particular Facebook. By doing so, it shows how ‘logging in’ can turn into feelings of being ‘locked in’–both in relation to personal data-mining and expectations of participation. The paper highlights the complex ways in which young adults responded to these feelings and negotiated connection and disconnection on social media platforms by deploying tactics of limitation and suspension. For example, in order to regain control of their time and negotiate their relationships, young adults tactically used Facebook Messenger’s previews to bypass read receipts and temporarily suspend connection. Using de Certeau’s distinction between ‘strategy’ and ‘tactics’, the article argues that although young adults managed social media platforms on an individual level (by deploying ‘tactics’), their understandings and negotiations of the platforms were significantly shaped by the platforms’ designs and features, by the strategies of the corporations owning and operating them as well as embedded within the asymmetrical relations of power of platform capitalism. © 2019
... A pressing issue for scholarly communities is the investigation of why the recent expansion of the higher education system and initiatives to widen participation has not overcome the enduring influence of social class and family influence on participation and outcomes. The widening participation agendas in many Commonwealth countries have had limited impact in increasing the participation of disadvantaged groups (France 2016). Reay's assessment of the UK system seems to parallel well with the current situation in Australia: 'regardless of what individual working-class males and females are able to negotiate and achieve for themselves within education, the collective patterns of workingclass trajectories remain sharply different from those of the middle-classes' (Reay 2006, 294). ...
International Perspectives on Theorizing Aspirations offers new insights and guidance for those looking to use Bourdieu's tools in an educational context, with a focus on how the tools can be applied to issues of aspiration. Written by contributors from the UK, USA, Australia, Nigeria, Jamaica and Spain, the book explores how Bourdieu's tools have been applied in recent cutting-edge educational research on a range of topics, including widening participation, migration, ethnicity, and class. The contributors consider how aspirations are theorized in sociology, as well as exploring the structure/agency debates, before recapitulating Bourdieu's tools and their applicability in educational contexts. A key question running through the chapters is: how does social theory shape research?
Including recommended readings, this is essential reading for anyone looking to use Bourdieu in their research and for those studying aspiration in an educational research setting.
This article presents a two-fold analytical structure: it offers a critical reflection on both the findings from an in-depth case study I conducted on three Italian student organisations and their mobilisations over the last decade in particular, and also explores two pivotal concepts in youth studies (i.e. generations and the transition to adulthood), in the broader framework of a critical approach to the impact of global neoliberal policies on the youth condition, focussing on neoliberal education, welfare and work policies in particular. In this framework, the concept of the political economy of generations provides a privileged standpoint from which to examine the current, precarious condition of young people in their de-standardised transitions to adulthood. Analysing the political engagement, mobilisations and protests (mainly, even if not exclusively, against neoliberal reforms) of these student movements, viewed as generational units, also contributes to defining the conceptual and empirical context of the article.
Investigaciones realizadas en un nivel internacional han puesto de relieve la vulnerabilidad de los
jóvenes debido a las altas tasas de desempleo juvenil que se han instalado tras la crisis mundial de
2007 (France, 2016). Esta situación de riesgo puede verse acrecentada por la actual crisis sanitaria,
provocada por el COVID 19, que amenaza con mermar aún más las posibilidades económicas y
laborales de la juventud, con previsiones que alcanzan el 13.8% de desempleo juvenil en el mundo en
el 2021 (Fernández, 2020). En concreto, en España, el octavo Informe sobre Exclusión Social y
Pobreza (Fundación Foessa) indicó que la exclusión social, entre la franja de edad de los 18 a los 24
años, pasó del 14.2% en 2007 al 22.6% en el 2018. Estos datos ponen de relieve la necesidad de
examinar qué investigaciones se están realizando sobre la juventud en riesgo social y, más
concretamente, aquellas que relacionan, desde una perspectiva ecológica, los factores que influyen en
un funcionamiento psicológico positivo, generando un capital protector frente a la exclusión social y
fomentando el bienestar de las personas.
En este sentido, los esfuerzos por comprender el bienestar y sus causas es algo que ha suscitado
interés a lo largo de la historia. De hecho, las intervenciones médicas, psicológicas, políticas, sociales,
educativas o económicas siempre han tenido como uno de sus objetivos principales aumentar la calidad
de vida de las personas. Sin embargo, el foco tanto desde las ciencias de la salud como de las ciencias
sociales se ha dirigido, tradicionalmente, a la reducción del dolor, el sufrimiento y las carencias, que se
producen en condiciones de ausencia de bienestar, más que en el desarrollo de capacidades
individuales y colectivas que ejerzan de factores promotores del mismo (Vázquez et ál, 2009). Sin
embargo, en el ámbito de la psicología a lo largo de las dos últimas décadas (Seligman y
Csikszentmihalyi, 2000) se ha comprobado que el estudio de los rasgos positivos, las fortalezas del
carácter, las emociones positivas, la resiliencia, las experiencias vividas, la familia (Kennedy y
Kramer, 2008), la escuela, el contexto y las relaciones positivas, etc., producen efectos y cambios en el
bienestar de los individuos y en sus procesos de inclusión social.
Este creciente interés por el estudio de este constructo en las últimas décadas ha permitido
acercarse a una definición que indica que es muy determinante la evaluación que la persona hace de su
vida en áreas específicas como la laboral, familiar, de pareja, etc., una evaluación afectiva relacionada
con la frecuencia e intensidad de emociones positivas y negativas (Díaz y Sánchez, 2002). Así, Diener
(1994) describe tres características del bienestar psicológico: a) su carácter subjetivo, que descansa
sobre la propia experiencia de la persona; b) su dimensión global, puesto que incluye la valoración del
sujeto en todas las áreas de su vida; y c) la apreciación positiva, ya que su naturaleza va más allá de la
mera ausencia de factores negativos.
En esta misma línea, resulta particularmente interesante un enfoque cuyo principal marco teórico
ha sido construido por Ryff (1989, 1995). Esta autora, haciendo una simbiosis entre las teorías del
desarrollo humano óptimo, el funcionamiento mental positivo y las teorías del ciclo vital, se refiere al
bienestar psicológico o salud mental positiva atendiendo a las siguientes categorías: autonomía,
autoaceptación, crecimiento personal, dominio, metas en la vida y relaciones positivas con los otros,
buscando una concepción positiva cuyos elementos fundamentales estarían presididos por las metas en
la vida y las relaciones interpersonales.
Evidentemente, las situaciones de vulnerabilidad y exclusión repercuten en el bienestar
psicológico y, por tanto, en la salud de las personas, sobre todo si atendemos a la declaración
constitucional de la Organización Mundial de la Salud de 1948 que, como es sabido, definió la salud
como el estado bienestar físico, psicológico y social. Pero, es aquí donde es necesario delimitar los
1
Jorge Díaz es diplomado en Trabajo Social, graduado en Educación Social, Master en Pedagogía Social y doctorando en el
Programa de Doctorado en Educación de la UNED.
2
Rosa Goig Martínez es Profesora Contratado Doctor en el Dpto. MIDE I de la UNED. Es Doctora en Ciencias de la
Educación por la UNED.
3
Ángel De-Juanas Oliva es Profesor Titular en el Departamento de Teoría de la Educación y Pedagogía Social de la UNED.
Es Doctor en Ciencias de la Educación por la UCM.
1
conceptos de vulnerabilidad y riesgo con el de exclusión. Puesto que ambos conceptos, en muchas
ocasiones, son confundidos y mal utilizados como sinónimos de exclusión. La vulnerabilidad tiene que
ver con la indefensión, la inseguridad y la exposición a riesgos provocados por diversos
acontecimientos y circunstancias, al tiempo que incorpora a los análisis los recursos de cada grupo para
afrontar esos riesgos. Es un proceso en el que destacan cuatro dimensiones: trabajo (paro, precariedad,
incertidumbre), capital humano (escasa formación, dificultad de acceso a estudios), capital físico
(ausencia de recursos productivos) y dificultad para formar parte de las redes sociales (Pizarro 2001).
Mientras que la exclusión social es entendida como una acumulación de desventajas, individuales o
colectivas, referidas tanto al trabajo, la vivienda y la educación como a otros factores emergentes como
son la edad, género, salud, cultura, migraciones. Esas desventajas pueden ser debidas a condiciones
iniciales del individuo y/o grupo o también a transformaciones estructurales imprevistas (Escarbajal�Frutos, Izquierdo-Rus y López-Martínez, 2014). Por eso, Tezanos (2002) diseñó un esquema, basado
en círculos concéntricos para explicar la relación existente entre inclusión-vulnerablidad/riesgo�exclusión. En el círculo central, este autor sitúa a las personas con empleo estable, ingresos suficientes,
vivienda propia y que están integrados en redes sociales (incluidos en la sociedad); el círculo exterior
se consideraría el de las personas en exclusión social y estaría formado por los desempleados, los que
están situados en situación de pobreza, ocupan viviendas muy deterioradas y carecen de apoyos
institucionales, incluido en ello la no pertenencia a redes sociales; finalmente, y siguiendo con la
imagen de los círculos concéntricos, en medio de los dos anteriores se encuentran las personas
vulnerables, con trabajo precario, poco remunerado, vivienda en alquiler, crisis familiares, redes
sociales débiles y apoyos institucionales basados en la filosofía compensatoria. En este último grupo es
donde se ha visto desplazada gran parte de la juventud por las crisis económicas, sociales y sanitarias
que se han vivido en los últimos 15 años. Una “zona gris” de la cual se puede salir mediante la
introducción de los individuos y colectivos en procesos de inclusión que han de partir de políticas y
acciones socioeducativas orientadas a promocionar las capacidades individuales y colectivas y el
bienestar psicológico.
Con todo esto, en este capítulo se busca indagar sobre aquellas fuentes científicas actuales e
internacionales cuya transferencia contribuye a la fundamentación de aquellas intervenciones
socioeducativas dirigidas a la prevención de la exclusión social, en un sector especialmente vulnerable
como es el de los jóvenes, mediante la identificación de factores que influyen en la constitución del
bienestar psicológico subjetivo de los miembros de este colectivo.
Historically youth transitions have been a central feature of how youth studies have conceptualized and theorized the notion of youth. This special section aims to continue and contribute to the reimagining of transitions in a complex and ever-changing world. What is interesting to note is that social acceleration processes have an impact on people’s lives. This impact involves many aspects of personal and social life, and, compared to the previous era, the speed of these changes has visibly increased. What emerge from current debate on youth is the pressure to be part of a mechanism that predisposes people to be constantly active, without having the possibility to stop and reflect, or simply to enjoy the moment they are living. In this sense, Italy is a particularly relevant case as it shows the multifaceted and complex reality with which young people have to cope nowadays when imagining and planning their future. Stemming from these data and considerations, this special issue of IJSE aims at investigating the multifaced nature of youth transitions, using the Italian setting as fertile ground. Its main goal is to bring together research and analyses on educations policies, experiences and interventions dealing with life transitions and adulthood by collecting contributions that examine the situation in Italy, comparing it with other similar or contrasting settings to delineate the state of the art and research gaps on youth transition studies in a controversial high-speed society.
This paper aims to promote thinking about care leave leaving from a historical perspective. It suggests that Bronfenbrenner's social ecological modelling of human development provides a promising conceptual framework for doing that. It not only provides a micro to macro layered systemic perspective but also draws attention to the ‘chronosystem’, covering both biographical and historical changes. The potential use of the historical dimension to Bronfenbrenner's modelling will be illustrated by considering the development of care leaving within Northern Ireland over a 50‐year period (1968–2018). Reflecting the historical trajectory of recent political conflict in this UK jurisdiction, the dynamics of the chronosystem of care leaving within two periods will be described and discussed: the ‘Troubles’ (1968–1998) and ‘Post Conflict’ (1998–2018). It will be concluded that there is a need for further work of this type because acknowledging history in this way as part of social ecology provides a deeper understanding of the systemic dynamics of care leaving.
As the baby boomers neared retirement at the turn of the twentieth century, attention focused on what the future might look like for both them and succeeding generations. Public discourse about boomers often depicts them as a selfish and narcissistic generation that have benefitted from the largesse of the modern welfare state yet seem intent on denying those benefits to their children and grandchildren. Millennials have similarly been condemned as a ‘snowflake’ generation unwilling to accept the responsibilities of full-blown adulthood, though, unlike the boomers, they have experienced the negative effects of late capitalism, such as job insecurity, student debt and housing unaffordability. Sometimes disparities between boomers and millennials have been seen as producing a ‘generations war’. However, using generation as shorthand for what are often more complex issues suffers ‘generationalism’ insofar as it belies intragenerational heterogeneity, among other things. Drawing on sociological conceptions of generation, it is an aim of this article, and the contributions contained in this Special Section, to explore the veracity of claims made around generations, ‘generations at war’ and the legacies of baby boomers.
Pierre Bourdieu is a preeminent Northern theorist whose concepts and ideas have been applied extensively in global youth studies. Yet Bourdieu has been critiqued for his assumptions of cultural homogeneity and failure to include local voices in his theory making. Therefore, the question arises: Are Bourdieu’s concepts still useful for research in the Global South? Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a remote Indonesian village (Ngadas), this essay interrogates Bourdieu’s concepts of cultural capitals in explaining young people’s conceptions of ‘success.’ In contrast to acquisition of capital for individual distinction and competitive advantage, Ngadas youth accumulate capital in order to maintain collective harmony and sustain a gift-giving cycle (guyub rukun). This study presents an expanded understanding of capital as a collective endeavour which challenges narrow interpretations of Bourdieu in the context of Southern youth studies and suggests the need for more contextually nuanced usage of his theories. It is central to the merging theory of navigational capacities which draws on Bourdieu’s notion of capitals but places emphasis on the collective nature of these capitals.
This article analyses to what extent the social and solidarity economy (SSE), the aim of which is to prioritize people’s needs and well-being, can offer young people education-to-work transitions conditions and opportunities which are different from those in the conventional economy. The very nature of SSE means that it is especially suitable for challenging gender inequality and proves to be exceptionally useful for testing feminist economics. Against a backdrop of economic crisis, SSE has shown greater resilience when compared to other sectors, although it is still not widespread. To examine how SSE can improve young women’s experiences and labour trajectories, this article analyses working conditions, job satisfaction and gender roles in school-to-work transitions of young women in SSE in Catalonia. Results show that the collective and value-driven nature of SSE entails a specific awareness and commitment that empower young women’s transitions experiences and expectations.
Aims and contents
Empirical and theoretical studies show that youth transitions have tended to occur later than the previous generation and to be more multifaceted. More individualized analyses point to individualization, destandardization, and second demographic transitions as suitable processes for interpreting today's youth transitions. The emphasis has been placed on the existence of a common pattern in the demographic and social events defining these transitions, which researchers describe as complex, delayed, and prolonged. Some transitions theories are more critical in their interpretations of youth transitions, calling for a renovated focus on the importance of structural factors that shape youths' conditions and identities. Recent data shows how traditional axes of inequalities, such as class, gender or ethnic origin, influence youth transitions, and how their intersections might shape this influence. In this sense, Italy is a particularly relevant case as it shows the multifaceted and complex reality with which young people have to cope nowadays when imagining and planning their future. Stemming from this consideration, this special issue of IJSE aims at investigating the multifaced nature of youth transitions, using the Italian setting as fertile ground. Its main goal is to bring together research and analyses on educations policies, experiences and interventions dealing with life transitions and adulthood by collecting contributions that examine the situation in Italy, comparing it with other similar or contrasting settings to delineate the state of the art and research gaps on youth transition studies in a controversial high-speed society. The comparative perspective must be intended in a broad sense: either by comparing Italy with other countries in Europe (e.g. other countries belonging to the Southern European model) or showing differences within territories in Italy, and how the territorial fragility of certain areas, e.g. in the south, in the periphery or rural context, might play a role in delaying and making complex the youth transition to adulthood. We welcome all approaches-theoretical and empirical, micro and macro, qualitative and quantitative, as well as geographically specific research. We are also interested in manuscripts that discuss and propose new metaphors in order to interpret these new forms of youth transitions. The focus will be specifically on: i. intergenerational relationships. What parents do or not do for their young sons? Are there patterns of exchange of resources between parents and sons? These patterns are crucial for the well-being of individuals and families and the broader issues of social policy and social inequality; ii. education and work paradoxes. Young people continue to have a strong commitment to education, believing it will still help them in their career path to successful employment. Does it? iii. Do structural factors (and their intersections) have a role in determining different trajectories of youth transitions? We use the term 'intersection' purposively: we specifically invite research that adopts an intersectional analytical frame the multiple dimensions of disadvantage to which young are subjected (e.g. gender, social class, ethnicity, living in fragile territories, etc.). We eventually welcome papers interrogate young people changing experiences and opportunity 'in the middle' of COVID-19 pandemic, explicitly focusing on direct and indirect effects of this call key points.
In this significantly revised second edition of Bronwyn Hayward's acclaimed book Children Citizenship and Environment, she examines how students, with teachers, parents, and other activists, can learn to take effective action to confront the complex drivers of the current climate crisis including: economic and social injustice, colonialism and racism. The global school strikes demand adults, governments, and businesses take far-reaching action in response to our climate crisis. The school strikes also remind us why this important youthful activism urgently needs the support of all generations. The #SchoolStrike edition of Children Citizenship and Environment includes all new contributions by youth, indigenous and disability activists, researchers and educators: Raven Cretney, Mehedi Hasan, Sylvia Nissen, Jocelyn Papprill, Kate Prendergast, Kera Sherwood O' Regan, Mia Sutherland, Amanda Thomas, Sara Tolbert, Sarah Thomson, Josiah Tualamali'i, and Amelia Woods. As controversial, yet ultimately hopeful, as it was when first published, Bronwyn Hayward develops her 'SEEDS' model of 'strong ecological citizenship' for a school strike generation. The SEEDS of citizenship education encourage students to develop skills for Social agency, Environmental education, Embedded justice, Decentred deliberation and Self-transcendence. This approach to citizenship supports young citizens' democratic imagination and develops their 'handprint' for social justice. This ground-breaking book will be of interest to a wide audience, in particular teachers and professionals who work in Environmental Citizenship Education, as well as students and community activists with an interest in environmental change, democracy and intergenerational justice.
In concluding the book, this chapter offers a reflection on two key contributions the book makes to the related fields of youth studies and youth sociology. Against a backdrop of increasingly complex globalising, structural processes that impact on young people, this chapter discusses the significance of taking young people’s subjective understandings seriously in analyses that account for the ways in which individual biographies and structural processes intersect. In focusing on subjectivities, it discusses the ethics of gathering and representing the narratives shared by the participants of the Life Patterns research program over an extended period of 27 years for cohort 1 and 15 years for cohort 2. The discussion of participant contributions affirms the value of their narratives, as an integral part of taking an holistic approach that recognises how a new adulthood is being forged through daily struggles in the lives of families and institutions. The chapter also reflects on the insights the book offers into the new adulthood, as the two generations represented by the two Life Patterns cohorts (Generations X and Y) forge their lives in changing social, economic and political conditions. As transformations of a global scale create new patterns of life that can no longer be seen as simply ‘life cycle’ transformations, the analyses of the lives of the Life Patterns participants reveals a new adulthood that involves strong ties of interdependence between parents and adult children, increased precarity and inequality, a sense of temporal disjuncture as older patterns of transition are disrupted, new approaches to imaging the future, concern about wider issues for Australians, including environmental change and a sense of cynicism about political leadership.
This chapter focuses on the nature and design of the mixed method longitudinal data that informs this book. Longitudinal panel studies are especially effective tools for analysing the dynamic lives of young people and tracing the intersections of individual biographies with societal processes across time. In this chapter we focus on the ways in which the longitudinal mixed methods design of the Life Patterns research program has provided insight into the lives of two generations of Australian young adults, focusing specifically on how it has made both change and continuity visible, and in so doing shedding light on old and new inequalities, and problematising the very concept of transitions. The research program has several distinctive features. It is a panel longitudinal study, which means that it tracks the same people over time; it tracks two cohorts of Australian young people, the first of whom left secondary school in 1991 and the second in 2006; it uses qualitative and quantitative research tools which inform each other; it generates data on young people’s lives and records their subjective understandings; and it contains a participatory element. We consider three important aspects that have emerged from the analysis of the data to highlight both the design features of the research program, and the affordances of this design. Firstly, we consider entrenched patterns of gender inequality in the field of work that are inconsistent with the equality of participation evident in the sphere of education. Secondly, we examine the impact of precarious employment on the lives of cohort 2, including their emerging consciousness that insecure work is the new norm. Thirdly, we discuss spatial and residential mobility trends in both Life Patterns cohorts to illuminate inter-generational differences in housing and mobility opportunities. Using the insights from this analysis, we demonstrate how this longitudinal design has provided a platform for researchers interested in examining entrenched assumptions about inequality and youth transitions in a period of rapid social change.
The present monograph composed of works written by a group of authors and edited by Krzysztof Dziurzyński and Ewa Duda develops and promotes readers' engagement and critical thinking thanks to its content, structure, and, in general , the overall method of processing. Moreover, it provides a comprehensive, compact, exhaustive, systematic analysis of the subject; the individual parts follow upon each other and their main intention is to communicate scientific knowledge to professional and scientific circles. The authors of the chapters integrate the already known as well as new, so far unpublished information, using a scientific language, which is nevertheless understandable to readers, and present a discourse on education in various contexts based on relevant literature. The monograph coming to the book market has the potential to become useful not only to academic and scientific circles, but also to students of (especially and not only) pedagogi-cal and assisting professions, practitioners, and to a certain extent also to the general public, who has the opportunity to understand the context, mission and importance of education. The monograph entitled "What is new in the Field of Education?" is developed on a high-quality theoretical and methodological level and does not lack practical and applicative aspect. It provides a lot of relevant and so far unpublished knowledge from the field of education. Among other things, it has an educational intention, which also makes it a great contribution to the development of higher education, especially for teaching sciences and partly also socio-behavioural sciences. from a review of Ladislav Vaska
Agency in marginalised youth has been studied from various perspectives, yet the challenges that mental health problems pose for their agency remain poorly understood. Drawing on data from a study on youth transitions fractured by mental health problems, this study sheds light on this important issue. The data consists of 49 life story interviews with young adults. Using Ruth Lister’s four-dimensional taxonomy of agency, the analysis shows how everyday struggles with mental distress are entangled with the practices of the social security system, medical care, education, labour markets, and work life. It also reveals how emerging attempts at strategic agency can fail or flourish depending on the response of the social and structural context. If strategic agency is restricted by institutional practices, it will soon return to day-to-day struggling or become everyday resistance and cynicism towards the system. However, if the strategic agency is supported by institutional practices, a genuine path out of distress emerges. The paper suggests that taking seriously the experiences of mental distress and situating them in a specific socio-political context is essential for understanding youth agency today.
The changing nature of youth (under)employment in England since the start of the new millennium is explored through a comparative analysis of three cohorts of young working class men searching for work in English towns between 2001 and 2017. Labour market changes, including the rise of precarious work and forms of self-employment, as well as increasing inequality and cuts in youth services since the financial crisis in 2008, are having a serious impact on the least qualified young men. However, changes in the nature of employment at the bottom end of the service suggest the re-evaluation of earlier claims about the relative disadvantage of (some) young men.
This chapter’s authors argue that social policy on leaving care is a critical resilience process for promoting care leavers’ successful transition toward emerging adulthood. Care leaving literature has given limited attention to the wider policy contexts in which care leavers make this transition. This chapter argues for a better understanding of how these contexts can bolster the social ecology of care leaving by providing a policy scaffolding to the support and services required by care leavers. South Africa is used to illustrate the argument, capitalizing on the heightened political sensibilities of a society still grappling with the legacy of apartheid and committed to developmental social welfare as a strategic policy direction. The chapter concludes that the South African case study not only highlights the need to address the policy context of youth transitioning from out-of-home care, but also demonstrates the benefits of cross-national reflection on policy and practice development and implementation.
Despite the reference to the neologism of ant tribes, which refers to low-income university graduates living a poverty-level existence in the cities of China, warnings such as this have resounded in the public, policy and scholarly fields for many years now. Concerns about young people’s ‘mortgaged futures’ (Kelly 2017, p. 57) were amplified in the wake of the GFC, with its grim immediate and downstream effects on young people’s labour market participation, as well as on their life chances beyond that. They are now accelerating again in response to the kinds of uncertainties which we have described in the Introduction and which include mutable and precarious labour markets; strained or reformed social fabrics; unsettled economic presents and prospects; deepened inequality and threats to social justice and cohesion; the destabilisation of political orthodoxies; environmental and planetary change; and a deep challenge to the certainties of human life.
Waithood has been defined as a structural gap between youth and adulthood induced by failed neoliberal policies (Honwana in “Waithood”: Youth transitions and social change, Response to Syed Mansoob Murshed. Leiden, Brill, pp. 28–40, 2014 Honwana 2014). Young people may be caught in waithood due to lack of education, unemployment and effects of social and political conflict. This chapter considers the relationship of waiting and belonging in youth transitions based on analysis of young people’s perspectives in two Southern contexts. We discuss the findings of two small research projects, both of which investigated young people’s resilience in contexts of marginalisation. The first project focused on Brazilian students’ views on schooling; the second on African young leaders’ projects in Melbourne. In this chapter, we discuss the different ways that structural violence and discrimination play out in the two contexts and how young people negotiate them. We draw on theories of waithood (Honwana in “Waithood”: Youth transitions and social change, Response to Syed MansoobMurshed. Leiden, Brill, pp. 28–40, 2014 Honwana 2014) and waiting (Hage in Waiting. Carlton: Melbourne University Publishing, 2009 Hage 2009) to explore young people’s experience of belonging. Young people may negotiate waithood as a mundane, tedious waiting to belong. However, our young people’s accounts also emphasise how waithood engenders the desire and concrete action for social change. We argue that this transformative waithood underlines the importance of reconsidering the politics of ‘who waits for whom’ (Hage in Waiting. Carlton: Melbourne University Publishing, 2009 Hage 2009, p. 2).
This chapter aims to identify key labour market patterns in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries that have emerged during the transition from state socialism to a market economy and integration into the European Union (EU). Labour market developments can be interpreted as the outcome of interactions between general economic developments and the evolution of specific labour market institutions (Riboud et al, 2002). Both aspects have changed dramatically over the past two decades. First, the transition from socialism to a market economy has induced substantial economic changes. Second, labour law and regulations on industrial relations have been adopted to promote the emergence of capitalism. In the following, we will take a more in-depth look at whether these changes have translated into labour market changes.
The analysis begins with a short overview of the economic context of transformation, identifying important contextual factors such as the diversity of existing initial conditions, the different pathways of privatisation and other institutional economic reforms. An examination of trends and cross-country differences in labour force participation, labour market flexibilisation and unemployment dynamics follows, with a specific focus on the youth demographic group. Finally, the chapter discusses the nature of labour market institutions the CEE countries have adopted since the transition. The central dimensions of employment protection regulations and industrial relations are examined. The entire analysis relies substantially on comparable quantitative indicators and their qualitative evaluation.
Economic development
Initial economic conditions and GDP growth during the transition
The former socialist Eastern European countries experienced significant variation in initial conditions at the outset of the transition period 1988-92 (Ringold, 2005). For example, the Baltic countries were part of the Soviet Union and therefore suffered from an unfavourable set of initial conditions inherited from the social, economic and political activities of the former Soviet regime. In contrast, Central European socialist countries like Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia had more contact with Western markets, and some market-oriented reforms were already in place before the transition. The variation in initial conditions can be displayed in a simplified manner in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, measured in current international dollars for reasons of comparability. At the time of the fall of the Iron Curtain, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Hungary were the wealthiest CEE countries with a GDP per capita twice that of the poorest CEE countries Romania and Bulgaria (Table 2.1).
‘Citizen’ is a word that is difficult to translate into Japanese in a way that preserves its original meaning in English. Reflecting its origin in Western social thought, the word is most often translated as either ‘Shimin’ or ‘Kokumin.’ Each of these conveys different, sometimes contradictory connotations according to the political contexts into which they are put forth. Nevertheless, one can still find capacities of ‘the good citizen’ that both sides agree on. Recent educational reform discourses unfolding in the context of the so-called ‘globalized’ or ‘knowledge-based-economy/society’ exhibit commonality: problem-solving skills and communication/social skills are essential. However, these polarized political debates often conceal an important question regarding the ‘good citizen’: Does everyone have the potential to become a ‘good citizen’ in Japanese Society? In this article, I argue that uncovering hidden inequality in the realization of those capacities deepens understanding of the effectiveness of citizenship education. After briefly summarizing education reforms implemented in Japan since the 1990s, through cross-sectional analyses of three cohorts of nationally sampled Japanese youth, I will focus empirically on this issue of inequality in educating ‘good citizens.’
The pace, directions and outcomes of international student mobility are significantly influenced by a complex interplay of multiple push and pull variables. While outward mobility of international students has grown at a steady pace, it masks the changing nature of the growth and external factors that influenced it. The changing context of the global knowledge economy has transformed and continues to transform the nature of student mobility. The focus of this chapter is to discuss the future of globa1 student mobility with a comparative and critical perspective. First, comparative analysis of mobility from key source countries and key destination countries is discussed with an emphasis on the role of economic environment, immigration policies and demographic shifts. In addition, the relationship between international students recruitment and skilled migration is presented. Second, a critical analysis of the role of mobility in the larger framework of internationalization is presented, addressing optics such as types of mobility students, the language factor, mobility by level and area of study, and other factors (reputation, costs, cross-border delivery) as well as study abroad as part of the home degree. Finally, we conclude with future directions of student mobility.
This chapter explores the transformation of the 2008 financial crisis into a fiscal crisis and a welfare crisis. It provides an endogenous theoretical explanation of the crisis in terms of the collapse of neo-liberal inequality and debt-fuelled growth. The chapter then analyses the progress of this crisis in the UK — a major global player due to the City of London — in two stages: the impacts of financial bailouts, Keynesian measures and sharp recession on public finances; and the subsequent reactions as governments switched to fiscal tightening and welfare cuts. It concludes by sketching out an alternative framework for a sustainable and just economic and welfare system.
This article examines the current practices of welfare surveillance in Ontario Works (OW). Although neoliberal policy changes to social assistance have been well documented by a variety of scholars, the surveillance technologies behind them have received less scrutiny. The article questions how new surveillance technologies have transformed the administration and everyday practices of OW. Based on primary research of policy documents, legislation, regulations and directives, the paper explores the eight surveillance tools used to police OW recipients including the Consolidated Verification Procedure (CVP); Maintenance Enforcement with Computer Assistance (MECA); Service Delivery Model Technology (SDMT); Ontario Works Eligibility Criteria; Eligibility Review Officers (EROs); Audit of Recipients; Drug Testing and Welfare Fraud Hotlines. I argue the Ontario Works Act (OWA) 1997 justified increased surveillance, regulation and control of poor families creating new forms of surveillance. Additionally, the rationales behind the implementation of OW surveillance (anti–fraud and workfare) were unjustified and have made OW recipients, particularly racialized single mothers more vulnerable. Using a feminist political economy critique, the article endeavours to explore the gendered, classed and racialized implications of welfare surveillance and the expanding ways the state has created ‘deviants’ out of those who fail to be ‘good market citizens’.
Over the previous seven years the application of a social generation paradigm or ‘theory’ has gained increasing currency as a method in analysing young people's relationship with the life course. Whilst not a new concept or approach its resurgence and reconfiguration to ‘new’ times has seen some writers positioning it as a ‘new orthodoxy’ or ‘consensus’ within youth studies. In this it is seen as providing a conceptual framework that better helps us understand the complexity of circumstances and conditions that shape youth identities in late modern society. In this paper we examine and explore the underlying assumptions and claims that are made by those advocating the social generational paradigm, raising questions and seeking further clarification on a number of key themes. We accept youth studies needs to move beyond ‘old models’ that define and understand social context as a simply a tension between ‘structure or/and agency’ or as a ‘flavour’ to social action. To conclude therefore we propose the need to have an approach that is ecological and both accepts ‘social change’ and ‘continuity’ as critical parts of the life course, one that recognises the nature and influence of power and social reproduction, especially for different social classes, in shaping the experience of being young.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine how recent changes in labour market policy in Poland, such as the activation shift, formal incentives for policies integration and inclusion of private and civil society actors in the policy‐making process, are actually put into practice on the local level. By applying Amartya Sen's capability approach, decisive factors in the process of implementation, the role of normative assumptions in the assessment of unemployed people and the impact of performance indicators on local civil officers’ actions are analyzed.
Design/methodology/approach
– The text is based on the results of research conducted with a variety of methods: in‐depth and semi‐structured interviews, analysis of official reports, surveys among enterprises and among the employed, unemployed and inactive.
Findings
– The paper shows the limitations of the activation model in Poland. The normative assumptions underlying ALMP lead to reproduction of social inequalities and stigmatisation of unemployed people, whereas the disciplinary approach discourages employers from cooperating with employment services. The increase of resources for the active labour market policy is not translated into an improvement in the quality of services.
Originality/value
– Previous researches on labour market policies in Poland are mainly based on quantitative data and analysis of legal regulations. Not enough attention is paid to the actual uses of law and the role of normative assumptions in the process of implementation. The paper attempts to reintroduce the perspective of policy practitioners and beneficiaries that is completely absent from research on labour market policy in Poland.
In February 1993 when the Prime Minister proclaimed that ‘society needs to condemn a little more and understand a little less’, and the Home Secretary referred to ‘really persistent nasty little juveniles’ (Daily Mail, 22 February 1993), they set the tone for subsequent policy and practice in relation to children in trouble. It is a policy and practice which in ‘condemning more’ and ‘understanding less’ rides roughshod over the welfare needs of children and negates their claims to justice. Moreover, the representation of children as ‘really persistent nasty little juveniles’ has apparently served to legitimise the harsh excesses of government responses. This paper challenges such ‘legitimacy’ and calls for a fundamental change in the policy and practice relating to children in trouble.