Complex pathways for young mothers outside employment, education and training

Abstract

This article explores young mothers’ experiences of turbulent pathways in and out of education and work in Northern England. Data are drawn from an ethnography conducted between 2010 and 2013 that incorporated participant observation, life-story maps, photographs and interviews carried out in young mothers’ homes, parenting classes and employment-based education and training programmes. These particular young women were sometimes directed into inappropriate education and training courses based on their ‘young unemployed mother’ status rather than encouraged to embark upon an individualised pathway relevant to their particular needs and career aspirations. Pathways are explored using Bourdieu's concept of capital to expose how these women expressed agency and navigated their own way through the different and sometimes competing fields of education, family and work.

Keywords:

• NEET
• capital
• motherhood
• exclusion
• education
• employment

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Leverhulme Trust for funding the project that explored the experiences of NEET young people. I am indebted to the young people, their families and the professionals who freely gave their time and shared their experiences and intimacies of their lives.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.