Threatening youth: political priorities and the professional response

After reviewing (autobiographically) the post‐war historical context, this article outlines some of the key elements of the current assault on public education, especially in the post‐16 sector. It then seeks to identify some of the principles on which less defensive and more proactive curricula and policy responses to this assault might be developed. These, it is argued, need to include attempts both to establish more collective and critical notions of ‘vocationalism’ focused on domestic as well as industrial labour; and, given the extent to which the ‘the youth question’ has been politicized since 1979, to redefine ‘professionalism’ in ways which explicitly acknowledge the need for those working in the public education sector to move away from their more distanced, apolitical conceptions of their roles.