The document discusses issues related to youth unemployment and education in the UK. It provides statistics on the rates of youths who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) from 1985 to 2010. It also examines participation rates of 16-18 year olds in various types of education and training programs over the same time period. The document raises questions about why many young people do not attain levels of education needed to enter well-paying jobs and whether this is correlated with their socioeconomic backgrounds. It queries what the explanations are for these trends and how research can best influence policy and practice.

1. Joining the big society: am I
bothered?
Geoff Hayward
Professor of Education
University of Leeds
g.f.hayward@leeds.ox.ac.uk

2. The phenomenon of interest
David Cameron drew the attentions of a
hoodie-wearing teenager yesterday who
pretended to shoot the Conservative leader
while he toured a crime-ridden council estate
campaigning on gun crime.
The electronically tagged youth, Ryan Florence,
17, apparently made the gesture to impress
other members of his gang who live on the
Manchester estate, according to the Sun.
The newspaper reported that Florence thought
it would be "fun to showboat for the lads"
watching him and so ran up behind Cameron
and mimicked firing a gun.
He had been tagged after spending four
months in a young offenders' institute for
burglary and street robbery.
Daily Telegraph, 23rd February 2007

3. Some descriptive questions
• How is the problem construed and constructed?
• What is the prevalence of this ‘problem’?
• How does this change over time and across age
groups?
• Who is involved? How can we characterize these
young people?
• How does the phenomenon emerge over the life
course – ontogeny?
• What are its impacts?

4. NEET Rate

5. NEET Rate, England,
1985 – 2010
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
25.0%
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1996
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
16 year olds
17 year olds
18 year olds

6. Participation of 16 year olds in
education and training, England, 1994
to 2010
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Year
Full-time education Work Based Learning (WBL) less WBL in full time education
Employer Funded Training (EFT) Other Education and Training (OET)
Not in any education or training - in employment Not in any education, employment or training (NEET)

7. Participation of 18 year olds in education
and training, England, 1994 to 2010
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Year
Full-time education Work Based Learning (WBL) less WBL in full time education
Employer Funded Training (EFT) Other Education and Training (OET)
Not in any education or training - in employment Not in any education, employment or training (NEET)

8. Young Offenders

9. The Engaging Youth
Enquiry

10. Apprenticeship

11. College and School
based VET

12. A Tory view on Education
However specious in theory the project might be of giving education to the
labouring classes of the poor, it would, in effect, be found to be prejudicial to their
morals and happiness; it would teach them to despise their lot in life, instead of
making them good servants in agriculture and other laborious employments to
which their rank in society had destined them; instead of teaching them the virtue
of subordination, it would render them factious and refractory, as is evident in the
manufacturing counties; it would enable them to read seditious pamphlets, vicious
books and publications against Christianity; it would render them insolent to their
superiors; and, in a few years, the result would be that the legislature would find it
necessary to direct the strong arm of power towards them and to furnish the
executive magistrates with more vigorous powers than are now in force. Besides, if
this Bill were to pass into law, it would go to burthen the country with a most
enormous and incalculable expense, and to load the industrious orders with still
heavier imposts. (Derek Gillard MP, Hansard, House of Commons, Vol. 9, Col. 798, 13
July 1807, quoted in Chitty 2007:15-16)

13. The New Labour
View
What all this means is not that the role of
Government, of the collective, of the services
of the State is redundant; but changed. The
rule now is not to interfere with the necessary
flexibility an employer requires to operate
successfully in a highly fluid changing
economic market. It is to equip the employee
to survive, prosper and develop in such a
market, to give them the flexibility to be able
to choose a wide range of jobs and to fit family
and work/life together. ( Tony Blair, 2007)

14. A Condem view?

15. Aspiration, aspiration,
aspiration
‘Bell and his associates maintained that if a
high degree of equality of opportunity could
be established, and especially of educational
opportunity, and if social selection became
based primarily on educational
attainment, then a wide range of inequalities
of outcome, in incomes, wealth and
status etc., could be defended. These
inequalities of outcome would reflect the
differing levels of reward that individuals
obtained - and indeed deserved or
‘merited’ - in return for their efforts in securing
educational qualifications and
applying these productively in their working
lives’ (Bukodi & Goldthorpe, 2008)

16. Where do we go next?
• Why do so many young people not do well in school
and attain at the level they need to in order to enter
jobs that will pay a family sustaining wage?
• Such school failure is highly correlated with socio-economic
status: children from poorer backgrounds do
consistently less well than those from richer
backgrounds. Why?
• WHAT IS/ARE THE EXPLANATION(S)?
• Are these the right questions? How do we research this
issue so the findings have impact on policy and
practice?