Copy the page URI to the clipboard
Fergusson, Ross
(2013).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13596748.2013.755806
Abstract
The discourse of disengagement has achieved ascendancy just as young people’s employment prospects have declined – in many countries to crisis levels. Conceptualising and interpreting young people’s non-particiapiton in dominant modes of education, training and employment has been a preoccupation of academics, policy-makers and journalists. This paper offers a critical analysis of the discourse of disengagement. It queries the primacy of particiapiton as the dominant policy response to mass youth unemployment, identifies some paradoxes of this policy priority, and locates them within a political-economic analysis of youth unemployment. It proposes a view of prevailing policy responses as a mode of governance of problematised populations of young ‘non-participants’. By juxtaposing two ostensibly incompatible analytical frameworks, the paper draws attention to some potentially illuminating tensions between materialist and governmentalist analyses of dominant policy responses to ‘disengagement’, and considers how these might be exploited in researching and re-conceptualising non-participation.
Viewing alternatives
Download history
Metrics
Public Attention
Altmetrics from AltmetricNumber of Citations
Citations from DimensionsItem Actions
Export
About
- Item ORO ID
- 35952
- Item Type
- Journal Item
- ISSN
- 1747-5112
- Extra Information
- Special Issue: Reclaiming the Disengaged: Critical Perspectives on Young People Not in Education, Employment or Training
- Keywords
- youth unemployment; disengagement; NEET; non-participation; labour market; governmentality
- Academic Unit or School
-
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) > Social Sciences and Global Studies > Social Policy and Criminology
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) > Social Sciences and Global Studies
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) - Research Group
-
International Centre for Comparative Criminological Research (ICCCR)
Harm and Evidence Research Collaborative (HERC) - Copyright Holders
- © 2013 Further Education Research Association
- Related URLs
- Depositing User
- Ross Fergusson