The recession as the site of the exceptional: young people, self-determination and social mobility

Abstract

This paper examines the importance of ‘self-determination’ and ‘hard work’ found within interviews with a group of young people in Manchester, England. The author suggests that moments of apparent contradiction within the interviews have much to offer, particularly when analysed in relation to discussions of inequality and political economy. Data from this paper show that while the young people mostly spoke about work choices in primarily individualistic ways, they used the recession as a means to acknowledge that acquiring jobs simply cannot just be about ‘choice’ or working hard, but is also configured by the market and structural inequality.

Keywords:

• globalization
• recession
• meritocracy
• class
• young people

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Institute for Social Change at the University of Manchester as part of a project whose principal investigators were Fiona Devine and Kathryn Edin. Ideas expressed in this paper are the author’s own, and are not necessarily shared by the principal investigators. Sincere thanks to Fiona Devine, Kathryn Edin, Julia Paulson, William Roberts, Maria Balarin and Helene Snee who offered comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Thanks also to early feedback from the Harvard Manchester Buckley Inequality workshop and to two anonymous reviewers.

Notes

1. It is important to note that this paper draws on policy examples from New Labour before the Cameron ministry (i.e. before the coalition of 2010). More research remains to be done on education policy rhetoric from the coalition, as compared with New Labour policy before 2010 and when this research was conducted.

2. For an important historical and political overview of the shift in England from the public policy framings and discussions of inequality to social exclusion, see Roberts (2012).

3. These data are part of a larger study by Fiona Devine, focusing on questions of aspirations and mobility among white, working-class and intermediate-class young people and their parents in the United States and the United Kingdom. This paper draws on the first leg of Devine’s study, and on qualitative research collected between November 2009 and April 2010.

4. These data include the combined population of three wards in the 2011 Census, and combined white populations including Irish and Other.

5. 2011 Census data.

6. All names in this paper have been changed, including the name of this school, and to protect the privacy of the school, the government website on which the data were collected has been changed as well.

7. The fact that the sample was self-selected and with young people who were in school was a potential constraint of the study.

8. One theme that was not in the original interview schedule was the theme of immigration. It came up quite a lot in the parent’s interviews as a factor that influences employment prospects, but very rarely in the young people’s sample.

9. It does seem likely that this lack of focus on structural injustice also had to do with their status of having white privilege. While their agency and insights about lack of barriers seems somewhat hopeful, it possibly also reflects their status as white, young people.

10. Although out of the scope of this paper, this same dichotomy of those who work hard and those who do not was quite tied to a discussion by the young people about ‘the dole’ and social assistance. Negative associations such as being a ‘benefit thief’ and ‘chavs’ came through in some of interviews, and certainly in my informal conversations with the young people, as examples of people who do not work hard.