Pushed out, shut out: Addressing unjust geographies of schooling and work (original) (raw)
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This report documents evidence from an Australian Research Council Linkage Project entitled "'Getting a job': identity formation and schooling in communities at disadvantage" - a project which traced the experience of 32 high school students over an 18 month period in the years 2011-2013. The purpose of the research was to listen to young people's stories with a view to better understanding the barriers and obstacles to 'getting a job' and from their vantage point, identity the educational, policy and practice context that needs to be created and more widely sustained to assist their career aspirations and life chances. The intent of the report is to provide schools, community organisations and educational institutions with a a set of resources organised around 16 conditions that are conducive to supporting young people in 'getting a job'. The report provides a toolkit of ideas, stories, reflective questions, provocations, and policy/practice im...
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It is common for organizations such as the International Labour Organization and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development to acknowledge that the links between education and work are far from smooth, creating a ‘crisis’ for youth. This includes increasing rates of unemployment, under-employment and precarious work. In Australia, the federal government response to this crisis for youth has been to suggest the end to an ‘Age of Entitlement’ for youth, cutting education, health and social security provisions and proposing the deregulation of the higher education system. This approach, which fails to acknowledge the profound changes to youth and young adulthood that have occurred over the last 20 years, will exacerbate hardship for young people. This article draws on the concept of a ‘new adulthood’ to analyse the changing nature of school to work transitions, and the impact of these conditions on young adults. Evidence from a two-decade longitudinal research study with two generations of Australians indicates that youth are already immersed in an ‘unspoken’ crisis that has its base in the increasingly complex and tenuous nexus between education and work, creating scarring effects that will mark a generation.
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This paper invokes the voices of young people who had been separated from mainstream schooling because they were positioned as 'disengaged' and 'at risk of failing'. The authors argue that streaming students out of schooling needs serious questioning as an escalating number of young people are framed as non-performers within a globally competitive educational market. Throughout the paper we use critical ethnographic slices to expose the experiences of the 24 young people interviewed who together with mentors shared personal insights whilst attending a re-engagement programme in Australia in the year 2010. Their responses unearth a 'wickedness' and a preoccupation during their schooling with performance and school improvement. In response, we privilege student interpretations of their own marginalisation as an activist form of 'speaking back' to the social and economic conditions and limitations dominating their lives.
‘Sent out’ andStepping Back In: stories from young people ‘placed at risk’
Ethnography and Education, 2015
This paper invokes the voices of young people who had been separated from mainstream schooling because they were positioned as 'disengaged and 'at risk of failing'. The authors argue that streaming students out of schooling needs serious questioning as an escalating number of young people are framed as nonperformers within a globally competitive educational market. Throughout the paper we use critical ethnographic slices to expose the experiences of the 24 young people interviewed who together with mentors shared personal insights whilst attending a re-engagement program in Australia in the year 2010. Their responses unearth a 'wickedness' and a preoccupation during their schooling with performance and school improvement. In response, we privilege student interpretations of their own marginalisation as an activist form of 'speaking back' to the social and economic conditions and limitations dominating their lives.
2014
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British Journal of Sociology of Education
Contemporary global economic contexts are shaped by a neoliberal paradigm of hyper-individualism and meritocratic frameworks that are increasingly guiding national policies in education and welfare. Schools are expected to focus on the production of human capital and student achievements are internationally benchmarked for competitive advantage. As social safety nets diminish, citizens are expected to be more personally accountable. This has created challenges for the poor and marginalised who are positionally disadvantaged in highly competitive neo-capitalist economies. Young people from social categories that sit below the traditional working class due to the precariousness of employment and living conditions are among the most vulnerable people in any society. Resource poor, many struggle to connect with schools and find meaning in a world that has relegated them to the margins. Such young people make up the apparently growing numbers of 'disengaged', 'at risk' and sometimes 'dangerous' and 'sick' youth who have become a focal point for official interventions that may be punitive and/or therapeutic or medical. Drawing upon the contrasting perspectives of teaching staff and youth workers in one Australian state, this paper argues for a change in the way schooling authorities construct and respond to the phenomenon of schooling 'disengagement'.
‘The world is out to get me, bruv’: life after school ‘exclusion’
Safer Communities, 2010
Increasingly, punitive policies on 'problematic' pupils are implemented in poor-performing UK urban state schools. While some are permanently excluded and referred to local authority educational alternatives, others are unofficially 'excluded' and referred to other forms of off-site educational centres, where pupils receive a significantly reduced timetable, undertake unchallenging courses and are unlikely to return to school. Based on an ethnographic research project with 20 excluded young people in one south London borough, this paper will discuss what happens to these young people after their 'exclusion' from school. I will suggest that this form of unofficial 'exclusion' has significant life implications for these young people, contributing not only to their social exclusion, but also to their increased exposure to crime and victimisation. Moreover, their life options are truncated despite the efforts that they may make otherwise.
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Journal of Education and Work, 2010
Not having clear pathways, or the social means and personal capacities to make a productive transition from schooling can inhibit young people"s participation in social and economic life thereafter. This paper advances an analysis of how policy documents associated with senior schooling from across Australian states address the needs of students who are most at risk of not securing productive transitions. The review identifies that many of the goals emphasised the autonomy of students in taking control of their own transitions. However, such individualistic views downplay the importance of the mediating role that access to cultural, social and economic capital is likely to play in the negotiations involved in making a productive transition. Thus, the needs of 'at-risk' students who may have limited access to the forms of capital offering the best support for these negotiations are not well acknowledged in the policies.