Fortress Education

Abstract

Caernarfon Castle in North Wales is forbidding. Everything about it is designed to keep intruders out. There are no windows on the outside of those massive walls; the windows look inwards so that the insiders gaze only at one another in their enclosure. The only openings in the walls are slits so that the insiders can shoot at the outsiders without risk to themselves; and the gates are massively strong, reinforced by portcullises. It would take overwhelming force and immense determination to get inside-and that was the design specification. Edward I, who had the castle built, was frightened of the locals more than he was of powerful rivals. Caernarfon is thus a nice This article addresses NEET ... as an ideological and discursive formation, lodging the discussion within its socioeconomic context-one of increasing insecurity and precariousness. It argues that frequently quasi-political and ideological constructions of NEET can readily fold over into and articulate with discourses of the underclass and the broken society, as well as, paradoxically, HEATHER PIPER is a Professorial Research Fellow in the Education and Social Research Institute at Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom. Heather's interests and work are social justice-oriented, eclectic and often contrarian. They focus on qualitative inquiry and methodology, education and citizenship, and particularly on concerns about touching, risk and moral panics about child abuse.