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The Changing Context of Further and Higher Education and Youth Employment

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Youth Identities, Education and Employment

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Abstract

This chapter begins with a discussion of neoliberalism to highlight how this concept has increasingly underpinned and influenced the social context throughout the United Kingdom and globally since the end of World War II (Jones 2015). I then discuss two key policy changes, arising, in part, from neoliberal discourses and ideology: first, the impact of cuts to the EMA; second, the impact of the increase in university top-up fees for tuition. I will be comparing the university fees top-up policy in England to the higher education fee situation in Greece and Spain to explore the parallels of these countries with the English context. Then finally, the chapter considers the current youth un/employment context facing young people in England and compares and contrasts this with youth un/employment in Greece and Spain (Nölke 2016; McCann 2010).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In England, older, (pre-1992) universities are more prestigious and selective than newer (post-1992) universities, which were formally called Polytechnics or Colleges of Higher Education, and were granted university status by the Conservative Government in 1992.

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Hoskins, K. (2017). The Changing Context of Further and Higher Education and Youth Employment. In: Youth Identities, Education and Employment. Policy and Practice in the Classroom. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-35292-7_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-35292-7_2

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