Scott Yates

Not so NEET? A Critique of the Use of ‘NEET’ in Setting Targets for Interventions with Young People

There is a widespread current perception that being ‘NEET’ (not in employment, education or training) presents a major risk for young people of becoming socially excluded. One of the key foci for combating social exclusion thus aims at reducing the numbers of young people who are NEET. This is reflected in the ‘programme theories’ of the Connexions service, whose effectiveness is measured in relation to targets for reducing the numbers of NEET young people. This paper argues, however, that ‘NEET’ is a problematic concept that defines young people by what they are not, and subsumes under a negatively-perceived label a heterogeneous mix of young people whose varied situations and difficulties are not conceptualised. Additionally, research evidence suggests that adherence to NEET-reduction targets encourages a ‘fire-fighting’ approach to working with young people rather than focusing support and intervention on areas where they may be most productive.

Early Occupational Aspirations and Fractured Transitions: A Study of Entry into ‘NEET’ Status in the UK

There has been significant recent research and policy interest in issues of young peoples occupational aspirations, transitions to employment and the antecedents of NEET (not in employment, education or training) status.Many have argued that changes to the youth labour market over the past 30 years have led to transitions to work becoming more individualised, complex and troublesome for many, particularly those from poorer backgrounds. However, little research has examined the connection between early uncertainty or misalignment in occupational aspirations and entry into NEET status. This paper draws on the British Cohort Study to investigate these issues, and finds that young people with uncertain occupational aspirations or ones misaligned with their educational expectations are considerably more likely to become NEET by age 18. Uncertainty and misalignment are both more widespread andmore detrimental for those from poorer backgrounds. These findings are discussed in the context of recent research and debates on emerging adulthood and the youth labour market. Introduction

Beyond normalization and impairment: theorizing subjectivity in learning difficulties – theory and practice

Normalization and social role valorization continue to play a central role in shaping debates and practice relating to learning difficulties. In the context of recent arguments this paper draws on the work of Foucault to deconstruct these theories. Foucault’s work alerts us to a conceptual confusion at their heart which reproduces a common but problematic individual–society dualism. There is an implicit, and problematic, presence in the theories of a pre‐social individual conceived as having essential impairments and who is passive in the face of negative socialization. We propose that Foucault’s ‘ethical’ domain of inquiry, with its concern for how people actively understand themselves and govern their conduct in relation to specific values and a ‘truth’ that they are obliged to recognize in themselves, provides the basis for returning the individual‐as‐subject to theories in an active, critical manner.

Towards a critical ontology of ourselves? Foucault, subjectivity and discourse analysis,

Applications of Foucault’s work in psychology have been criticized for using an under-theorized notion of discourse. This has recently been addressed by Hook, who provides a timely and detailed consideration of the implications of Foucault’s theoretical and methodological writings on genealogy. Hook’s work also hints at but leaves unaddressed the challenge for critical psychology of accounting for Foucault’s concerns with the constitution and experience of forms of subjectivity. In relation to this challenge, we contend that Foucault’s work can productively be understood as a series of analyses comprising a tripartite critical ontology with significant concerns for subjectivity and individual conduct. We set out this reading and briefly explore Foucault’s intellectual debt to Heidegger. We argue that this suggests the possibility of a form of discourse analysis conceptualized along similar lines to Foucault’s “critical ontology of ourselves.” This is illustrated with some examples from recent research.

Social policy and transitions to training and work for disabled young people in the United Kingdom: neo-liberalism for better and for worse?

Although New Labour distanced itself from the neo-liberal ‘underclass’ discourses of its predecessors, its approach to disabled young people maintained key aspects of neo-liberalism, particularly an emphasis on individuals’ human capital, aspirations and self-investments as causes of and solutions to disabled young people’s unemployment. This is also apparent in early Coalition government statements. Since the 1990s, policies have focused on providing individually-tailored advice, developing individuals’ skills, and motivating appropriate self-investment. We examine recent evidence that highlights a number of problems with this focus. Notably, it entails a simplistic and individualised notion of ‘barriers’ to employment that cannot account for the complex impacts of disablement and inequality; moves towards open-market models of training and work support create perverse incentives that divert support away from those most in need; employment success is dependent on unpredictable local opportunity structures; and the focus on paid employment undermines other social contributions made by disabled young people.

‘You can’t’ but ‘I do’: Rules, ethics and the significance of shifts in pronominal forms for self-positioning in talk

Mulhaüsler and Harré contend that pronoun systems set out fields of expression ‘within which people can be . . . presented as agents of one kind or another’. Despite interest in pronominal forms by various discourse researchers, analysis of pronouns-in-use from this perspective remains underdeveloped. This article undertakes such an analysis, drawing on Rees’s theories about the ‘distance from the self ’ encoded in different pronouns. Our data, from interviews analysed as talk-in-interaction, show participants shifting between pronominal registers as a way of presenting their social world and positioning themselves as agents within it. ‘Fourth-person’ pronouns allow the distancing of reports of lack of agency from the deictic centre of self and express a ‘deontic modality’ through which one can position oneself in relation to moral imperatives. Along with shifts into and out of the first-person register, this is notably used to maintain an agentive self-positioning in talk about situations of relative powerlessness.

Children and young people in hospitals: doing youth work in medical settings

Young people in hospitals face a range of challenging issues. Many have chronic conditions and experience stigmatisation, anxiety and family conflict. They may also experience social isolation in hospitals, separation from local peer groups and sources of support, and separation from trusted carers during transition to adult care. These issues can require careful handling. However, there is evidence that clinical staff often do not communicate effectively with young patients, that relationships can become contested, especially around ‘adherence’ to treatment regimens, and that important underlying difficulties that young people face are not addressed, leading to resistance and disengagement from care. This paper explores this range of challenges, and presents some research evidence to argue that youth work is particularly well placed to engage with such issues. Although youth work in UK hospitals is currently very rare and under-researched, we contend that what evidence is available suggests that it can be effective in addressing the challenges of young peoples experience, and may have important health and wider-ranging general benefits for young people, health staff and hospitals.

Living with Sickle Cell Disease and Depression in Lagos, Nigeria: A Mixed Methods Study

Sickle cell disorders (SCD) and depression are both chronic illnesses of global significance. Past research on SCD and depression struggles to make sense of statistical associations, essentializes depression within the person with SCD, and treats stigma as an automatic correlate of chronic illness. A mixed methods study (March 2012-April 2014) was undertaken with people living with SCD and depression in Lagos, Nigeria, examining depression-as disease (questionnaires); depression-as-illness-experience (individual depth interviews), and depression-as-societal-sickness (focus groups). 103 people with SCD attending an outpatients clinic were administered the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, and 82 self-identified with some level of depression. Fifteen were subsequently interviewed about their illness experience. Their lives were characterized by being extensively subjected to vicious discriminatory remarks, including from significant others, negative experiences they felt contributed to their depression and even to suicidal thoughts and actions. Contrary to misconceptions of the relational nature of stigma, respondents recognized that stigma resulted not from their SCD but from assumed broken social norms and expectations, norms to do with educability, employability and parenthood. They recounted either that they successfully met such expectations in their own lives, or that they could conceivably do so with reasonable societal adjustments. Ten respondents with SCD and depression further took part in two series of three focus groups with five people in each series of groups. In groups people living with SCD were able to challenge negative assumptions about themselves; to begin to recognize collective social interests as a group, and to rehearse backstage, in discussions between themselves, social actions that they might engage in frontstage, out in wider society, to challenge discriminatory societal arrangements they held to contribute to their depression. To the extent that depression in SCD has social origins, then social interventions, such as anti-discrimination laws and policies, are key resources in improving mental health.

Enhancing Family Communication in Families Where a Parent has a Mental Illness

Introduction Parental mental illness (PMI) can impact the lives of all members of a family. Being a parent can be both motivational as well as stressful, especially in the context of life stressors around family, work, and social supports. When parents living with mental illness do not have adequate supports, their illness can negatively affect family life. Challenges for children specifically related to PMI may include: