Youth Differentiation, Training and the World of Work

Abstract

In Part I, I have consciously emphasised the more immediate cultural experiences and responses of working-class youth on training schemes. In doing so, I have demonstrated that all young people are facing a new set of structures which have fundamentally altered the old school to work transition. Yet even here it is clear that subsections of the young working class vary substantially in how they deal with ‘life on the scheme’. In order to come to terms with the more specific transitions formed under the new vocationalism, it is crucial to move beyond the confines of the scheme itself and explore the impact wider cultural forms, social relations and other institutional sites have on training identities.