Joining the big society: am I bothered?

Geoff HaywardProfessor of Education

University of Leedsg.f.hayward@leeds.ox.ac.uk

The phenomenon of interestDavid 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

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?

NEET Rate

NEET Rate, England, 1985 – 2010

19851986

19871988

19891990

19911992

19931994

19951996

19961998

19992000

20012002

20032004

20052006

20072008

20092010

0.0%

5.0%

10.0%

15.0%

20.0%

25.0%

16 year olds17 year olds18 year olds

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 20100%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

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)

Year

Participation of 16 year olds in education and training, England, 1994 to 2010

Participation of 18 year olds in education and training, England, 1994 to 2010

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 20100%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

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)

Year

Young Offenders

The Engaging Youth Enquiry

Apprenticeship

College and School based VET

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)

A Tory view on Education

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)

A Condem view?

Aspiration, aspiration, aspiration

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

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?