In a period of rapid social and economic change, labour markets are undergoing major transformations. This book explores the changing fortunes of young people in Europe’s flexible and precarious labour markets and the range of policies that are being developed to help them deal with the problems they face.
The book draws on recent research carried out across Europe to highlight a number of key dilemmas for youth policy: what help is needed for young people and their parents in coping with lengthened transitions from school to work? What types of training and education are most effective? Is a switch from general to vocational education needed? Is workfare the right solution? The contributors, who are all leading authorities in the field, challenge the conventional wisdom in many of these areas.
The book will be of interest to those researching and studying labour markets and youth policy, and to policy-makers and practitioners in these fields.
Getting to know young people is a key skill of youth workers. However, a youth worker’s perception of a young person, or group of young people, may differ, for example, from that of government bodies and local agencies, youth program funders they work for, and managers and project organisers they work with. At some point a young person’s lived reality becomes translated into a statistic, a funding bid, a policy document that contains a generic description where they are frequently assigned a ‘label’. This was a key piece of personal learning that I faced in my
Sentencing young people Kerry Baker Introduction With those that like using custody, you can legislate till kingdom come and it wouldn’t make any difference. (Parker et al, 1989, p 118) The rise in the number of young people in custody in England and Wales is well documented (Bateman, 2005; Morgan and Newburn, 2007)1 and it is also recognised that trends in sentencing are one of the key determinants of the custodial population (YJB, 2005). In considering the sentencing of young people there are three key areas of concern, namely: the level of custodial
Mass youth unemployment is now endemic and almost ubiquitous in the global north and south alike. This book offers an original and challenging interpretation of the ways in which young people’s unemployment and general non-participation is becoming marginalised and criminalised. It re-examines the causes and consequences of non-participation from an unusually wide range of disciplines, using an innovative theorisation of the fast-changing relationships between extended studentship, welfare provision, labour market restructuring and crime. This approach offers an important contribution for understanding what it means for young people to be socially re-positioned and economically excluded in increasingly unequal societies, in and beyond the UK.
Over the last decade, the reformed youth justice system has seen increases in the numbers of children and young people in custody, a sharp rise in indeterminate sentences and the continuing deaths of young prisoners. The largest proportion of funding in youth justice at national level is spent on providing places for children and young people remanded and sentenced to custody.
The publication of the Youth Crime Action Plan during 2008 and the increasing emphasis on early intervention provides a framework to consider again the interface between local services and secure residential placements.
This report brings together contributions from leading experts on young people and criminal justice to critically examine current policy and practice. There are vital questions for both policy and practice on whether the use of custody reduces re-offending or whether other forms of residential placements are more effective long-term. The report looks at current approaches to the sentencing and custody of children and young people, prevention of re-offending and a range of alternative regimes.
This book asks how far and in what way social inclusion policies are meeting the needs and rights of children and young people. Leading authors write from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines including social policy, education, geography and sociology. The book critically examines the concepts of participation and social inclusion and their links with children and childhoods and considers the geography of social inclusion and exclusion. It explores young people’s own conceptualisations of social inclusion and exclusion; and examines how these concepts have been expressed in policy at various levels.
The book concludes with an agenda for progressing participation and social inclusion, both for and with children and young people.
“Children, young people and social inclusion” will be of interest to academics, students and policy makers, as well as to a wide range of practitioners including teachers, youth workers, participation workers and those working in interagency settings.
Young people’s participation is an urgent policy and practice concern, across countries and context. This book showcases original research evidence and analysis to consider how, under what conditions and for what purposes young people participate in different parts of Europe.
Focusing on the interplay between the concepts of youth, inequality and participation, this book explores how structural changes, including economic austerity, neoliberal policies and new patterns of migration, affect the conditions of young people’s participation and its aims.
With contributions from a range of subject experts, including young people themselves, the book challenges current policies and practices on young people’s participation. It asks how young people can be better supported to take part in social change and decision-making and what can be learnt from young people’s own initiatives.
The notion of ‘vulnerability’ is now a prominent motif in social policy in the UK and beyond, with important implications for those deemed ‘vulnerable’. Yet the effects of recalibrating welfare and criminal justice processes on the basis of vulnerability often escape attention. This distinctive book draws together lived experiences of vulnerability with academic and practical applications of the concept, exploring the repercussions of a ‘vulnerability zeitgeist’ in UK policy and practice. Through a focus on the voices and perspectives of ‘vulnerable’ young people and the professionals who support them, it questions how far the rise of vulnerability serves the interests of disadvantaged citizens. Illuminating where support shades into more controlling practices, the book is important reading for scholars, students and policy-makers interested in exclusion, precariousness, deviance and youth.
87 6Children and young people’s views Introduction This chapter focuses on 43 interviews with children and young people andthe analysis of 38 short questionnaires completed during these interviews.These data were collected during the same two periods of fieldwork as the staff interviews: autumn 2006 and 2007. Short questionnaires (two sides of A4 paper) were completed either by the young people or researchers during face- to-face interviews. This approach had the advantage of enabling the researchers to explain the questions and giving young people the
115 SEVEN Economic security of young people leaving care This chapter examines the economic security of young people with and without disabilities leaving state care as they reach adulthood. Chapter Four outlined the policies about transition to adulthood, which highlighted the policy gaps, including the age and conditions when the state might cease support to young people in state care. This chapter continues that analysis to examine the effect of the scarce policies, including the impact on the economic independence of the young people. It uses examples
