Individualisation and social exclusion: the case of young people not in education,employment or training

The characteristics, experiences and long-term prospects of young people outside the labour market and education have attracted widespread international attention in recent decades, and the specific category of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) has been a policy concern for the UK Government since 1997. This paper examines the analytical and empirical basis of our knowledge of NEET young people, in the light of more general conceptualisations of social exclusion and the individualisation of social risk. It relates the NEET category to a conception of social exclusion in which the central policy focus is on moving young people across a boundary between participation and non-participation, and inequalities within education and employment receive less attention. This focus, allied with discourses of individualisation, obscures the structural basis of inequality in education and training. However, the paper argues that the research evidence shows that individualised approaches based on personal and cultural characteristics of NEET young people are inadequate to understand this group and frame policy. The paper proposes that stronger versions of social exclusion need to be used in constructing solutions which acknowledge the basis of NEET issues in wider social inequalities.     

Opportunity structures and educational marginality: the post-16 transitions of young people outside education and employment

This paper reports on findings from a three-year ethnographic study of 24 young people in northern England who were classified as not in education, employment or training (NEET), or at risk of becoming so. Drawing on conceptions of opportunity structure and educational marginality, the paper discusses the processes leading to young people becoming NEET after leaving school. It presents findings concerning the family backgrounds, school experiences, and educational attainment of participants, and traces their initial post-16 destinations and their pathways to NEET status. Although most participants did not become NEET immediately after leaving school, restricted labour market opportunities and a lack of high-quality education and training for middle- and low-attaining young people exacerbated social and educational disadvantage. Over time, participants became increasingly restricted to marginal forms of learning. The paper argues that a focus on opportunity structures provides a powerful way of understanding these processes, and that alongside sustained NEET status, educational marginality should be of equal concern to policy makers.     

Delivering NEET policy packages? A decade of NEET policy in England

This article explores the way in which government policy shapes the lives of young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET). In particular it examines how the concept of NEETs is set within a specific infrastructure and discourse for managing and supporting young people. The article provides a brief history of the NEET concept and NEET initiatives, before moving on to scrutinise the policies of the Coalition Government. A key distinction is made between those policies and practices that seek to prevent young people becoming NEET from those that seek to re-engage those who are NEET. It is argued that the Coalition has drawn on a similar active labour market toolkit to the previous Labour administration, but that this has been implemented with fewer resources and less co-ordination. It concludes that there is little reason to believe that Coalition policy will be any more successful than that of the previous government, and some reason to be concerned that it will lead to young people becoming more entrenched within NEET.     

Disadvantaged neighbourhoods and young people not in education,employment or training at the ages of 18 to 19 in England

There is a growing interest among researchers in the impact of locality on young people who are inactive and not engaged in education, employment or training (NEETs). Previous research on this, however, is rather limited and does not account for a number of characteristics that mediate the effects of disadvantaged neighbourhoods on transition outcomes. This study investigates the effects of neighbourhood context on young people who experience NEET status at the ages 18 to 19 in one cohort born in 1989/90 in the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE). The analyses control for a wide range of factors which may affect NEET status. Drawing on previous sociological theories, we develop a theoretical framework that specifies four levels of influence on young people’s development: individual, family, school and peer group characteristics. Potential pathways between neighbourhood context and individual outcomes are explored using a logistic regression model. We demonstrate that there is a higher probability for young people who live in high-crime areas to become NEETs in comparison to those who live in less-deprived areas.     

The impact of learning difficulties and socioemotional and behavioural problems on transition to postsecondary education or work life in Finland: a five-year follow-up study

Learning difficulties have been found to dilute the possibilities that young adults have in their educational careers. However, during the last few decades, education has become increasingly important for employment and overall life satisfaction. In the present study, we were interested in the effects of mathematical and reading difficulties and socioemotional and behavioural problems (measured at age 16) on three educational situations at age 21: delayed graduation from upper secondary education, short educational trajectory and not being engaged in education, employment or training (NEET). The participants (N = 597; 304 females, 293 males) were one age cohort of ninth graders in general education classes, who were followed for five years after completion of compulsory education. This time frame included two different transition phases: first, from comprehensive education to upper secondary education, and second, from upper secondary education to further studies or to working life. Structural equation modelling was used as analysis method. The findings show that mathematical and reading difficulties as well as socioemotional and behavioural problems had significant long-term effects on the participants’ educational careers. New in part was that these learning difficulties seemed to have somewhat divergent emphases on the three investigated life situations: (1) mathematical difficulties, more strongly than reading difficulties, caused the students to attain lower levels of education, (2) mathematical difficulties and socioemotional problems predicted a student ending up in the NEET group and (3) reading difficulties and behavioural problems predicted delayed graduation from upper secondary education.     

NEET,unemployed, inactive or unknown – why does it matter?

Background: The UK, like most countries across Europe and other advanced economies, has experienced an alarming rise in the levels of young people (aged between 16 and 24 years) who are detached from both the labour market and the education and training system. In the UK, there are nearly a million 16–24-year-olds who are recorded as being not in education, employment or training (NEET). For governments throughout Europe, the need to address high levels of youth unemployment and social disengagement has become an urgent priority. As a result, policy-makers are faced with the challenge of developing effective interventions to prevent these levels being sustained over the longer term, with potential scarring effects on successive generations, and concomitant economic and social impacts.

Purpose: This paper will inform the development of policy and practice targeted at NEET prevention and reintegration of those young people who have become NEET, with suggestions for areas to be addressed and methods and mechanisms which might be incorporated into programme implementation. The paper highlights gaps in our knowledge and understanding of the size, characteristics and geographical distribution of young people in the NEET group in England, and questions the continued relevance of the term ‘NEET’ to capture youth disengagement.

Sources of evidence: After drawing on Europe-wide data to present a picture of the scale of youth unemployment throughout the continent, official UK data are used to drill down to specific issues which are the focus of the piece, in particular, the regional disparities in the size of the group whose destination is ‘unknown’. This is discussed in the context of a range of literature relating to the emergence of the term ‘NEET’ and the characteristics of the NEET group. A review of current policy intervention in England to tackle the NEET ‘problem’ is also presented.

Main argument: This paper will suggest that the implementation of effective policy interventions to address the ‘NEET’ issue is highly problematic, due to three overriding concerns. These are: (a) a lack of clarity in the definition of this group in England; (b) inadequacies in determining with any precision how many under-18s there are in this group, or where they are located, leading to large numbers whose post-education destination is ‘unknown’; and (c) misguided stereotyping of NEET young people’s behaviour, attitudes and aspirations. These problems have partly been exacerbated by budget cuts and changes to guidance and support services, as well as inadequacies in mapping and tracking systems.

Conclusions: The paper concludes with recommendations that policy development must, in the first instance, be underpinned by robust and reliable data about the size and composition of the group, derived from impartial, independent mapping and tracking services. Furthermore, policies designed to reduce the NEET population should include measures which tackle NEET prevention, re-engagement strategies for the hardest to reach groups and active labour market policies for the young unemployed.     

希腊啃老族和边缘青年的教育、培训、就业现状

文章主要论述希腊青年(啃老族)在教育、就业和培训的现状,着重探讨希腊受经济危机和持续萧条的影响下青年失业和啃老族问题.从希腊青年和啃老族的教育水平、受培训情况、失业问题和社会弱势的现状出发,分析了希腊人贫困代际传递现象、生存战略和青年与啃老族的生活历程.     

Abbreviations

This paper uses Bourdieu's concept of field to analyse findings from an ethnographic study of Entry to Employment (E2E) programmes in England. Entry to Employment is a work-based learning programme which aims to re-engage young people with ‘barriers to learning’ inhibiting access to further education, training or employment. The paper examines field positions associated with E2E, such as learner and tutor, distinguishing between the taking of positions by individual agents and the construction of these positions by dominant institutions. The paper argues that official constructions are based on a discourse which positions E2E learners as a deficit category alongside young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) and separates E2E programmes from those in mainstream educational provision. In consequence, although learners are supported and make individual progress, E2E contributes to the exclusion that Bourdieu identifies as the chief means of social reproduction in the education system.     

NEET in disguise? Rival narratives in troubled youth transitions

Background: The concept of NEET (young people not in employment, education or training) was introduced to capture the varieties of youth labour market disengagement and has become a standard statistical indicator for labour market performance. However, it is criticised for simplifying the heterogeneity of young people in problematic youth transitions and for emphasising their deficiencies in terms of affiliation to key institutions in youth transitions.

Purpose: The article contributes to the research on youth transitions by offering a narrative perspective on the status of NEET. Its purpose is to investigate how NEET periods are embedded and reflected within biographical action and self-perceptions.

Sample: The article is based on the analysis of 21 cases from a qualitative longitudinal study about coping strategies of secondary school-leavers in school-to-work transitions in a city in the west of Germany (altogether, 180 interviews were conducted). During the first wave of interviewing in 2012, the young men and women were 16–20 years old.

Design and methods: In order to reconstruct the young people’s biographical experiences of the transition as well as their interpretations of these experiences qualitative problem-centred interviews were carried out over three waves of data collection. The qualitative analysis combined case reconstructions with cross-case analysis of typical narratives, which focused on the identification of key themes organising the biographical orientation of the young people.

Results: In biographical accounts, analysis revealed that NEET periods are embedded in analytically distinguishable rival narratives that establish different selective perspectives on events, choices and experiences. We identify seven main narratives related to the topics of vocational status, self-actualisation, meaningful activity, convenience, money, leisure and life problems. Young people are well aware of the problematic nature of NEET status. On the level of action, they try to avoid or exit them by accepting precarious and de-qualifying activities; on the level of biographical reflection, they use rival narratives to re-embed the NEET experience, to bypass it or avoid mentioning it altogether. We suggest calling this phenomenon ‘NEET in disguise’ (NID) referring to acts of system justification.

Conclusions: This article shows how young people struggle to avoid and conceal the problematic status of NEET and thus, contribute to the institutionally suggested normalisation of biographical discontinuities.     

Education and training for young people at risk of becoming NEET: findings from an ethnographic study of work‐based learning programmes

This report provides a summary of findings from an ethnographic study of work‐based learning provision for 16–18‐year‐olds who would otherwise fall into the UK Government category of not in education, employment or training (NEET). The research project took place in the north of England during 2008–2009, and investigated the biographies, experiences and aspirations of young people and practitioners working on Entry to Employment (E2E) programmes in four learning sites. The detailed research findings are reported in four papers covering the conceptual background to E2E, and the experiences of learners, tutors and Connexions personal advisers involved with the programme. This report highlights and synthesises some of the key issues raised by these papers and looks ahead to a three‐year longitudinal study of NEET young people which is intended to continue and extend this work, providing an opportunity to follow this group during a period of far‐reaching economic and political change.     

RAISING THE AGE OF COMPULSORY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND: A NEET SOLUTION?

ABSTRACT:   This paper problematises the official discourse of economic competitiveness and social inclusion used by the 2007 Education and Skills Bill to justify the proposal to extend compulsory participation in education and training in England to the age of 18. Comparisons are drawn between this attempt to raise the age of compulsion and previous attempts, which took place in a significantly different socio-economic context. It is argued that the needs of those most likely to be affected by the current proposal – young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) – are subordinated to the needs of an English economy that is increasingly based upon low-skill, low-pay work relations.     

Young people on the margins: In need of more choices and more chances in twenty‐first century Scotland

The aim of this study was to find out more about the lives of young people in the category ‘not in education, employment or training’ (NEET). We worked intensively with 26 young people in four smaller groups, spending three days with each group. During our time with them we engaged in a variety of creative and artistic activities designed to help them to construct accounts of their lives for us with the purpose of gaining an understanding of what it was like to be NEET. Three significant issues that emerged from these life stories are discussed in this paper. These are the problematic nature of the discourse of NEET sub‐groups; the challenges of school‐exclusion policies and practices; and the myth of low aspirations.     

Researching marginalised young people

Young people not in employment, education or training (NEET) are not a static, homogenous group. For most, being NEET is a temporary state as they move between different forms of participation and non-participation. This paper explores how the complexities of defining NEET, the re-structuring of the careers service and the nature of post-16 provision shape the way young people are identified, accessed and participate in ethnographies. Data drawn from a study exploring the experiences of being NEET are used to investigate the complexities involved when doing ethnography with ‘hard-to-reach’ young people. Challenges include gaining and maintaining access; conducting multiple site ethnography; and taking account of the socio-political context. Working with NEET young people across multiple sites and using various data collection techniques compound the issue of consent. This paper reveals how ethics, power and consent were experienced by the ethnographer and the young people. There is a need to understand how ethnographies are done in order to clarify how specific issues can be avoided and overcome.     

Comfort radicalism and NEETs: a conservative praxis

Young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) are construed by policy-makers as a pressing problem about which something should be done. Such young people’s lack of employment is thought to pose difficulties for wider society in relation to social cohesion and inclusion, and it is feared that they will become a ‘lost generation’. This paper draws upon English research, seeking to historicise the debate whilst acknowledging that these issues have a much wider purchase. The notion of NEETs rests alongside longstanding concerns of the English state and middle classes, addressing unruly male working-class youth as well as the moral turpitude of working class girls. Waged labour and domesticity are seen as a means to integrate such groups into society thereby generating social cohesion. The paper places the debate within it socio-economic context and draws on theorisations of cognitive capitalism, Italian workerism, as well as emerging theories of antiwork to analyse these. It concludes by arguing that ‘radical’ approaches to NEETs that point towards inequities embedded in the social structure and call for social democratic solutions veer towards a form of comfort radicalism. Such approaches leave in place the dominance of capitalist relations as well as productivist orientations that celebrate waged labour.     

“啃老族”的成因探究与对策

近年来"啃老族"现象日益演变成复杂的社会问题,"啃老族"的出现是传统亲子家庭教育观,学校教育理念偏差和社会因素等一系列因素作用的结果;转变不合理的社会化模式,强化政府的责任,转变青年就业观念,可以为消化"啃老族"问题提供支撑。     

加强高职学生养成教育的着力点

养成教育是在思想政治教育的基础上,通过多种手段指导和训练个体使其形成良好的行为习惯教育。针对高职学生在个人基础、培养目标、就业定位等方面的特点,对高职学生进行养成教育要有准确着力点。     

Perceptions of STEM-based outreach learning activities in secondary education

We investigated and compared the learning environment perceptions of students, teachers and guides who participated in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)-based outreach activities in secondary education. In outreach activities, schools and teachers work together with companies and other external institutions in learning activities in order to motivate students for the STEM domain. In this study, we identified characteristics of outreach activities that explain variance in perceptions of students. Data were gathered from 729 high-school students as well as 35 teachers and guides in 12 activities both in the US and the Netherlands. A questionnaire was used to asses outreach activities based on subscales from validated questionnaires such as the What Is Happening In this Classroom, Constructivist Learning Environments Survey, Classroom Environment Scale and the Learning Climate Questionnaire. Teachers’ perceptions were more positive than students’ perceptions for most scales, while guides perceived the outreach learning environment in almost the same way as students. Student perceptions were very positive for outreach activities. Outreach activity characteristics such as teaching method and emphasis were found to be the most important factors in explaining variance in students’ perceptions between activities. Long-term problem-based activities and the perspective of new views of science and scientists were perceived as providing the most positive learning environments. Additionally, outreach learning environments can create opportunities to increase students’ motivation in STEM.     

Adolescent psychosocial factors and participation in education and employment in young adulthood: A systematic review and meta-analyses

Adolescence is a critical period for successful transition into adulthood. This systematic review of empirical longitudinal evidence investigated the associations between adolescent psychosocial factors and education and employment status in young adulthood. Five electronic databases (MEDLINE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, ASSIA and ERIC) were searched. Meta-analysis was conducted by using odds ratios (OR) as our common effect size; a narrative synthesis of results was also completed. Of the 8970 references screened, 14 articles were included and mapped into seven domains, namely, behavioral problems, peer problems, substance use, prosocial skills, self-evaluations, aspirations and physical activity. The results showed that behavioral problems (overall OR: 1.48; 95% CI: 1.26–1.74) and peer problems (overall OR_adj: 1.27; 95% CI: 1.02–1.57) were significantly associated with being out of education, employment and training (NEET) as young adults. Prosocial skills did not present a significant association (overall OR: 1.03; 95% CI: 0.92–1.15). Other domains were narratively synthesized. The role of substance use was less clear. Only a few studies were available for self-evaluations, aspirations and physical activity domains. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

上海“啃老族”的现状与对策分析

随着全球金融危机的到来,我国青年人就业形势愈来愈严峻,啃老族已经形成一支庞大的队伍,带来许多社会问题和消极影响。本文从四方面来分析啃老族的现状,并从家庭教育和就业指导方面进行了对策分析。     

“啃老”现象与大学生就业研究

"啃老"与就业之间的关系,已成为全社会关注的公平与效率问题。既有研究对"啃老"的界定尚无共识,厘清"啃老"与大学生就业之间关系的研究更是凤毛麟角。"啃老"表现为"啃钱财"、"啃劳力"、"啃关系"三种类型;它通过就业成本、就业观念、就业能力三个方面影响大学生初次职业选择,并受到社会、学校和家庭三种环境的调节作用。本研究在...