Edufare for the future precariat: the moral agenda in Australia’s ‘earning or learning’ policy

Abstract

Abstract:This paper considers the educational experience constructed under Australia's policy decision to extend compulsory education by requiring that students must be 'earning or learning' till 17 years of age (Council of Australian Governments, 2009). The discussion draws on an empirical project that explored the moral order operating in classrooms for students retained under this policy in non-academic pathways in high schools and Technical and Further Education (TAFE) colleges across three towns experiencing youth employment stress. It asks how the policy regulating these students' prolonged engagement with formal education plays out in classroom interactions, to what end and to whose benefit. A theoretical lens informed by work by Standing and Wacquant is used to understand the contemporary moment, and work by Durkheim and Bernstein unpacks the moral work implicated in classroom interactions. The analysis describes the light curriculum and the heavy compliance demanded in these 'edufare' programs then argues that in essence the policy seeks to manage the social risk posed by the future precariat. The conclusion reflects on whether this is an adequate policy response to broad generational changes in fortunes and prospects to which education may not have the answers.

A Durkheimian Theorization of Scottish Suicide Rates, 2011–2017

“…Durkheim believed that work and employment was advantageous to wellbeing and social integration (Khattab and Fenton 2009). Doherty (2017), however, describes the growth of a 'precariat', a new stratum of people loosely connected with the world of work through insecure, zero-hours employment, for whom the workplace no longer offers the moral integration that Durkheim imputed to earlier industrial forms of employment. Beck (2000) argued income-generating work is a core value and mode of integration in modern societies, a view echoing Durkheim, but on the other hand, it is at odds with some alienating forms of employment that cause individual vulnerability and opportunism (Standing 2014).…”

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