Emerging Multi-Professional Assemblages of Precision Guidance Producing the Resilient and Future-Oriented Citizen

Abstract

In this paper, we examined how EU-initiated 'integrated approach' to youth social exclusion is manifested in local contexts and in the ways in which youth problems and solutions come to be defined in particular schemes of thought. Inspired by assemblage theory we looked at local multi-professional youth guidance networks as assemblages consisting of multiple organisations, interests, steering, discourses, and knowledge formations. In this article we were especially interested in seeing which 'lines', understood as trajectories of assemblage components, produce both 'problems' and 'solutions' for seemingly complex life situations of young people considered at risk. This article is based on the analysis of interview data produced in the context of an ongoing Academy of Finland project Interrupting Youth Support Systems in the Ethos of Vulnerability (2017Vulnerability ( -2021 exploring cross-sectoral policies and practices of youth support systems in the ethos of vulnerability. Based on our analysis, the new assemblages framing multi-professional guidance and support have given rise to more precise neoliberal governing mechanisms that we have named precision guidance. Precision guidance focuses on young people's vulnerability, resilience and future potentiality while leaving societal and structural problems largely unaddressed.

”Siellä on ylimääräistä resurssia, jota mä voin tarvittaessa siirtää” - Talous ja päiväkodin johtajien työ

“…Näissä tutkimuksissa keskiössä ovat olleet erityisesti numeerisen ja määrällisen tiedon keräämisen tuottamat ei-toivotut seuraukset. Tämän tutkimuksen tuloksissa esiin noussut työhyvinvoinnin lokeroituminen työntekijän yksityiselämään ja työterveyshuoltoon liittyväksi asiaksi, on ollut esillä muita koulutussektoreita koskevissa tutkimuksissa, joissa teemaa on tarkasteltu esimerkiksi nuorten syrjäytymisen näkökulmasta (Ecclestone & Brunila, 2015;Toiviainen & Brunila, 2021). Näissä tutkimuksissa on tunnistettu kulttuurisia oletuksia, joiden mukaan yksilön tulee itse ratkaista pulmansa sen sijaan, että ratkaisuja etsittäisiin sosiaalisista tai rakenteellisista yhteiskunnallisista tekijöistä.…”

VET and the “Competency-Tetris”

“…In contrast, the guidance was undertaken as administrative control of the production-driven progress of CBT merely focuses on the achievement of outcomes guided by individualist-materialist neoliberal doctrines, regardless of the questions that uphold the meaning of subjectivity. The latter is described as behavioural governance when examined using the concept of precision guidance (Toivanen & Brunila, 2021).…”

“…Within counselling, we found that special educational needs in learning are related to the psychological trajectories of therapeutic habitation, viz. precision guidance (for conceptualisation, see Toivanen & Brunila, 2021). An example of this relationship was provided by two counsellors working with students with special educational needs:…”

“…The results showed that there was a perception among the practitioners that the Competency-Tetris does not adequately provide for the students in need of learning support. Instead, they are provided with a psychologically precise opportunity to qualify, which is materialised through precision guidance (gaining resonance in Toivanen & Brunila, 2021). Through the Competency-Tetris, the practitioners identified potential (human capital) value in every individual -but first, students must find out how to qualify.…”

Educating for the future? Mapping the emerging lines of precision education governance

“…The changes in both policy and knowledge production in education governance are connected to the careful and meticulous disseminating of behavioural and personalised governance throughout these international, national and local assemblages (see Savage, 2020; Toiviainen and Brunila, 2021; Williamson, 2016). For example, in our two on-going research projects’ results, we have shown how the knowledge concerning young people’s education is circulated through various organisations and IGO’s, and how that knowledge becomes self-evident ‘truths’ in both national policy-making and everyday practises in youth education, counselling and guidance (Brunila et al, 2018; Mertanen et al, 2020a, 2020b, forthcoming).…”