Listening to ‘the thick bunch’: (mis)understanding and (mis)representation of young people in jobs without training in the South West of England

Re-engagement to where? Low SES students in alternative-education programmes on the path to low-status destinations?

“…He spoke of his desire to further that experience by gaining more film roles; however, his acting career was put 'on hold' because 'I got more parts but I dropped off because life got in the way'. We concur with Lawy, Quinn, and Diment (2009) that listening to the 'thick bunch', as they are disparagingly termed, enables us to see how they are being shaped for 'empty and meaningless work lives', but at the same time it enables us to get up close and obtain quite a different inflection through 'a deeper understanding of their interests and enthusiasms' (741), as we are seeking to do in this paper. Lareau (2003) helps us to make sense of this by invoking the notion of 'concerted cultivation' (2; emphasis in original) in which middle-class parents subject their children to an array of organised activities.…”

Formerly NEET Young People's Pathways to Work: A Case-Study Approach

“…Recent research into the experiences of young workers focuses on apprenticeships (Fuller & Unwin, 2010), jobs without training (Lawy et al, 2009;Maguire, 2010) and specific sectors -for example, Callaghan and Thompson (2002) on call centres and Lloyd (2008) on fitness instructors. There is also some research on advice and guidance for marginalised young people (Russell et al, 2010), and on employability programmes (Russell et al, 2011;Higgins, 2013;Smyth et al, 2013).…”

“…(Jobcentre Plus staff, interview, 13 December 2012) It is becoming increasingly important to understand the ways in which young people, especially those with lower-level qualifications, enter and experience the workplace. Young people who have low-skilled, low-paid occupations are ever present in the employment landscape of the United Kingdom, yet largely they remain hidden (Lawy et al, 2009). The recession has had a disproportionate effect on the young, and in the United Kingdom over one million people under the age of 25 are unemployed.…”

Learning journeys: student teacher stories of professional formation

“…This is the kind of approach that has informed research in further education over recent decades (see, for example , Bloomer 1997;Bloomer & Hodkinson 1999;James & Biesta 2007;Lawy, Quinn, & Diment 2009). To meet this aspiration, we adopted a largely qualitative approach making use of semi-structured interviews with managers (9), tutors (9) and student teachers (10) to afford insight into the experiences of the participants who were located in the South West of England.…”