School-to-Work in the 1990s: Modelling Transitions with Large-Scale Datasets

(2009) - Vernon Gayle, Paul Lambert, Susan Murray

Journal: Transitions from Education to Work
Link:: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/9780230235403_2
DOI:: 10.1057/9780230235403_2
Links::
Tags:: #paper #school-to-work #Transition #SocialClass
Cite Key:: [@Gayle2009]

Abstract

In this chapter we explore school to work transitions by documenting the activities of young people who reached the minimum school leaving age in the 1990s. Our starting position is that changes in the economy, education and training lead us to suspect that the landscape of social and economic conditions under which young people grew up during the 1990s were sufficiently different from those a decade before to justify exploration. Through the analysis of data from cohorts of young people who reached minimum school leaving age in the 1990s we evaluate the ‘detraditionalisation’ thesis.

Notes

“In the decades following the war the vast majority of young people in the UK left education at the first opportunity” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 1)

“recent decades this situation has reversed and official data illustrate that an increasing proportion of young people have remained in education” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 1)

“Banks et al. (1992) note that there was always a minority of young people who remained in education for long periods before entering the labour market but only a minority made an early transition straight from school-to-work by the late 1980s.” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 1)

“background against which young people grew up in the closing decades of the twentieth century was transformed, and is now radically different from earlier decades. We label this the ‘changing times consensus’.” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 1)

“‘changing times consensus’, authors agree that the transformation was driven by a series of interrelated social and economic changes” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 1)

“was the virtual collapse of the youth labour market in the early 1980s.” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 2)

“We argue that the transformations in the structural social and economic conditions that are identified above as key changes in the climate in which young people grew up largely took place in the 1980s.” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 2)

“The Education Reform Act 1988, is sometimes regarded as the most important single piece of post-war education legislation” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 2)

“‘Modern Apprenticeships’ was established in order to enhance the technical 2” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 2)

“and vocational skills of young workers” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 3)

“New Labour also introduced the minimum wage” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 3)

“Throughout the 1980s and 1990s numerous writers have described how young people, differentiated by social class, gender and ethnicity, follow different paths during the teenage years after they leave school (MacDonald 1999).” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 4)

“sociological ideas of mainstream theorists, notably Giddens (1990; 1991) and Beck (1992), have been influential within youth sociology. The central argument being that social life has undergone a profound change,” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 4)

“contemporary (often termed as ‘risk’) societies are typified by greater opportunities for individual action and decision-making, however this involves increasing risks.” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 4)

“individualisation thesis is the concept of ‘detraditionalization’. In essence the idea that structural factors such as social class, gender and ethnicity cease to be determinants for the individual who is pursuing the imperative of living a life of one’s own (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002).” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 4)

“the choice biography takes over from the standard biography’ (2002 p.515)” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 4)

“‘In the place of these collective guides and traditional institutions are much more individualized identities and biographies where individuals have a greater scope beyond traditional markers of class, race and gender to create complex subjective lifestyles’ (Cieslik and Pollock 2002, p.3).” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 5)

“If a process of detraditionalisation is taking place we would expect that the influence that individual level factors (e.g. social class, ethnicity and gender) have on young people’s transitions (i.e. participation in education, employment and training) would be in decline.” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 5)

“Qualifications remain a powerful dynamo, and in general young people with high levels of educational attainment tend to remain in education.” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 7)

“We note that only a small minority of young people with 5+ passes at grades A* - C did not remain in education (see Table 3).” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 7)

“over half of the young people who failed to obtain 5+ passes in 1990 left education, but in subsequent cohorts there was a small increase in the portion of this group who remained in education after they reached the minimum school leaving age.” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 7)

“The ‘pathways’ or traditional routes that young people followed in the immediate post-war decades have altered” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 25)

“In the cohorts since then only a minority of young people made the early transition out of education” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 25)

“It is undisputable that transitions to work have lengthened, because fewer young people make an early transition from education.” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 26)

“our overall theoretical conclusion is that there is little empirical evidence supporting ‘detraditionalisation’. The 1990s data on early transitions, analyzed above, show clear patterns of structure along gender, ethnicity and social class lines.” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 26)

“with temporally comparative data such theoretical claims should be empirically testable however. It may be that individual young people feel that the choice biography is taking over from the standard biography, or that their individual choices are becoming more import” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 26)

“Roberts et al. (1984), have suggested a more nuanced theoretical conception and have deployed the label ‘structured individualisation’. Under these conditions young people believe that their choices and decisions are individualised, but in reality they are still heavily mediated by social structures.” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 26)

“These points illustrate that at a macro level social change within certain contexts might seem more evident but at a micro, or individual, level the experience of social stability can dominate” (Gayle et al., 2009, p. 27)