This paper engages with Hanson Thiem’s (2009) critique of geographies of education. Accepting the premise that education warrants fuller attention by geographers, the paper nonetheless argues that engaging with research on children, youth and families reshapes understanding of what has been, and might be, achieved. Foregrounding young people as the subjects rather than objects of education demands that attention be paid to their current and future life-worlds, in both inward and outward looking geographies of education. It also requires a broadening of our spatial lens, in terms of what ‘count’ as educational spaces, and the places where we study these.

Geographical research on children, youth, and families has done much to highlight the ways in which children's lives have changed over the last twenty-five years. A key strand of research concerns children's play and traces, in the Global North, a decline in children's independent access to, and mobility through, public space. This article shifts the terrain of that debate from an analysis of what has been lost to an exploration of what has replaced it. Specifically, it focuses on children's participation in enrichment activities, including both individual and collective extracurricular sporting, cultural, and leisure opportunities in England. The research reveals that middle-class children have much higher participation rates in enrichment activities than their working-class counterparts. Parents value enrichment activities in very similar ways across the class spectrum-seeing them as fun, healthy, and social opportunities. The ability to pay for enrichment, however, means that it is incorporated into, and transforms, middle-class family life in ways not open to working-class families. Nevertheless, support across the class spectrum for these instrumental forms of play that institutionalize childhood in school, community, and commercial spaces leads to calls for subsidized provision for low-income children through schools. The article thus traces the "enrichment" and "institutionalization" of childhood and draws out the implications of this for how we think about play, education, parenting, and class in geography.La investigación geográfica relacionada con niños, jóvenes y familias ha contribuido mucho en destacar las maneras como las vidas de los chicos han cambiado durante los pasados veinticinco años. Un cabo clave de la investigación a este respecto se relaciona con el juego de los niños e indica, en el Norte Global, una declinación en el acceso independiente de los niños al espacio público y a su movilidad a través del mismo. Este artículo cambia el escenario del debate, remplazando el análisis sobre lo que se ha perdido con una exploración de aquello que lo ha remplazado. Se enfoca específicamente en la participación de los niños en actividades enriquecedoras en Inglaterra, incluyendo a la vez oportunidades individuales y colectivas extracurriculares en aspectos deportivos, culturales y de esparcimiento. La investigación revela que los niños de clase media tienen tasas de participación mucho más altas en actividades de enriquecimiento que sus contrapartes de la clase obrera. Los padres valoran las actividades enriquecedoras de modo muy similar a través del espectro de clases-considerándolas como oportunidades divertidas, saludables y sociales. Sin embargo, la capacidad de pagar por el enriquecimiento significa su incorporación en la vida de la familia de clase media, transformándola, en términos no accesibles para las familias de clase obrera. No obstante, el apoyo que se presta a través del espectro de clase para estas formas

International student mobility from East to West has grown rapidly as the middleclasses have sought to reproduce their advantage in the context of changing socioeconomic circumstances. Existing research shows that middle-class students and their parents are increasingly using overseas educational qualifications -an institutionalised form of cultural capital -to ensure they stand out in the competition for lucrative employment. This paper makes two unique contributions to these debates. Firstly, it broadens the spatial frame away from East Asia to the emerging educational markets in post-Soviet Central Asia, and specifically Kazakhstan. This shift allows examination of similarities in students' accrual of cultural capital between regions, but also highlights spatial specificity in these flows. Secondly, it moves beyond narrowly class-based approaches to spotlight the importance of gender, sexuality and religion in geographies of cultural capital. Middle-class social reproduction helps drive international student mobility, but class is experienced differently by young men and women in the context of locally-specific forms of heterosexuality, which in this case-study reflect the cultural importance of Islam. Class matters, but to fully understand its importance in student mobility we must trace its intersections with other axes of social difference.1 All authors made an equally valuable contribution to this research.2

Abstract:Debate about neoliberalism has been a defining drama of twenty-first century geography.Appreciation of the contingent nature of neoliberalization has promoted interest in the localization of policy, and this paper furthers debate in three ways. Firstly, it highlights the importance of the peopling of the state and more specifically the importance of everyday public sector workers in the localized production of roll-out neoliberalization. Secondly, it illustrates the significance of these actors' ideas about idealised policy subjects --and the ways they relate these to their own client groups in different socio-economic neighbourhoods --in the localised emergence of policy. Thirdly, it explores the consequences of this for geographically and socially uneven service provision under neoliberalization.These arguments are illustrated through a case study focus on educational restructuring under New Labour. Our focus is on the Extended Service initiative which combines workfare and family policy agenda by giving primary schools a duty provide/signpost: wraparound childcare; enrichment activities for children; and parenting support. The case study explores how headteachers' understandings of idealised neoliberal parenting subject positions, and their notions of ideal childhoods, shape their attitudes to the implementation of this programme in schools serving different socio-economic communities. This process not only involves the reproduction of classed, (de)gendered, and heterosexed discourses seen in national policy, but also moments where local actors draw on alternative models of parenting and/or childhood to influence school-based policy, with the result that what is perceived to be 'good' for families of one social class is not seen to be so for others. There is a complex politics at play here. Academics must both expose the class biases inherent in neoliberal policies, at the same time as they work as 'critical friends' in improving public service provision which impacts positively on some individuals' lives. 1 Both authors have made an equally valuable contribution to this paper. 2 I IntroductionDebate about neoliberalism has been a defining drama of twenty-first century geography.Over the past decade scholars have engaged with the changing manifestations of, and crises in, this political-economic ideology in diverse parts of the globe, and its importance in spheres as varied as changing state formations, urban policy, and the management of nature (Bailey and Maresh 2009; Breathnach 2010; Goldfrank and Schrank 2009; Peck et al. 2009). The seeming ubiquity of neoliberalism, however, has prompted concern that geographers must recognise spatial diversity in its form if we are to avoid casting it as a monolithic, inevitable and logical response to wider economic conditions (Larner 2003). A key response to this conceptual appreciation of the contingent nature of neoliberalization has been a research into the hybridisation of policy in diverse fields and at different scales (McCarthy 2005; Peck and Theo...

A common theme within the literature on higher education is the congested nature of the graduate labour market. Researchers have highlighted the lengths to which many students now go, in response to this congestion, to ‘distinguish themselves’ from other graduates: paying increased attention to university status; engaging in a range of extra‐curricular activities; and pursuing postgraduate qualifications. Studies that have focused on the strategies of Asian students, specifically, have pointed to the important place of studying abroad as a further strategy in this pursuit of distinction. Given that there is now some evidence that the number of UK students enrolling on a degree programme overseas is increasing, this article explores the extent to which an overseas education can be seen as part of a broader strategy on the part of British students to seek distinction within the labour market and whether such an education does indeed offer tangible employment benefits.

In response to record levels of youth worklessness and socio‐economic inequalities, the UK Coalition Government has sought to scale back public spending through welfare cuts, emphasising self‐reliance for financial provision. Education, as a tool for both personal progression and national economic competitiveness, has risen up the political agenda, as the Government champions an ‘aspiration nation’ that rewards ‘hard‐working’ people. Young people are increasingly tasked with looking toward the future, taking responsibility and ‘raising’ their aspirations in order to contribute through economic production as active citizen‐workers. The power to achieve is placed firmly at the feet of individuals; yet broader inequalities that characterise the contemporary climate and powerfully shape the life chances of young people are overlooked. This paper explores the hopes and expectations of young people living in the north west of England as they think about their own future school‐to‐employment ambitions. The paper reflects on the structural changes that have occurred within the local economy over the last generation before examining how the task of responding to changing labour market conditions is internalised by the young people, with ‘success’ (or lack thereof) framed as an individual enterprise. Young people are negotiating a set of contradictory beliefs. They acknowledge their own responsibility as future adult citizens while also reflecting on the role of government in addressing inequalities, as contemporary economic restructuring and fiscal policies are reducing opportunities. The paper makes visible the emotional burdens young people anticipate as they endeavour to achieve a successful future in the context of economic uncertainty and an individualising political milieu of aspiration.

This paper draws upon the findings of a recent project examining the motivations of UK students seeking higher education overseas, to argue that notions of fun, enjoyment and the pursuit of happiness abroad featured strongly in young people's stories. Several students wanted to escape the UK, particularly the rigidity of British higher education; the perceived flexibility of a liberal arts education in North America was extremely appealing. Others saw education overseas as a chance for personal reinvention. In contrast to recent media, academic and policy accounts, which have forcefully stressed the negative effects of education-related pressures upon young people, in this paper, we argue that it is possible to see 'education' as offering up new possibilities for fun and excitement. Our research shows that, for many British students, the strategic accumulation of cultural capital was not a primary concern. Rather, perceptions of an international education were closely tied to the anticipation of excitement, fun, adventure, and escape. 2Youthful escapes: British students, overseas education and the pursuit of happiness

Children's outdoor play is declining, despite clear links between play, learning and development. Alternative learning initiatives which provide children with a diversity of play opportunities, including the chance to play outdoors, are therefore needed. One such programme, Forest School, is increasing in popularity in the UK and internationally, yet little is understood about its impact on children's learning, or how alternative approaches are informing learning in mainstream settings. This novel study examined primary school children's experiences of engaging in a Forest School programme in relation to this intersection between formal and informal approaches to learning. It explored how children interpret their experiences when faced with a fusion of learning environments and critically evaluates the benefits children realise, when asked to reflect on their learning engagement in both classroom and outdoor settings. Interviews were conducted with 33 children from two mainstream primary schools in England who had recently completed a 6‐week Forest School programme. A rigorous phenomenological thematic analysis revealed three inter‐related themes: a break from routine; learning through play; collaboration and teamwork. The findings suggest that the blending of Forest School with mainstream settings contributes to children's social, cognitive, emotional and physical skill development through experiential learning using play. These findings are significant because they not only emphasise the values of social constructivist play‐pedagogy which underpin Forest School practice, but also highlight the need for primary schools to consider learning outside of the classroom as an effective pedagogy.