Family, Community and Welfare

Abstract

As we have seen earlier in this book, young people’s participation in education, training or employment is related in complex ways to their individual circumstances and their location within broader social structures. Whilst educational achievement is a central factor in intergenerational patterns of advantage and disadvantage, young people’s experiences of education and the labour market are themselves influenced by these patterns. Rather than acting independently, educational and social achievement form part of a network of factors involved in social reproduction and, more specifically, in processes of marginalization and social exclusion. Burchardt et al. (1999) identify a range of such factors, including individual characteristics such as health and educational qualifications; life events such as job losses or partnership breakdown; characteristics of the neighbourhood in which an individual lives; and institutional factors such as welfare and benefit systems. Before discussing the remaining case studies, this chapter considers more closely the social and cultural matrix in which the experiences of marginalized young people are formed, with particular attention to the ways in which family life, local neighbourhoods and welfare systems interact with and influence educational achievement and prospects for employment.