Opportunity structures and educational marginality: the post-16 transitions of young people outside education and employment

Abstract

This paper reports on findings from a three-year ethnographic study of twenty-four young people in northern England who were classified as not in education, employment or training (NEET), or at risk of becoming so. Drawing on conceptions of opportunity structure and educational marginality, the paper discusses the processes leading to young people becoming NEET after leaving school. It presents findings concerning the family backgrounds, school experiences and educational attainment of participants, and traces their initial post-16 destinations and their pathways to NEET status. Although most participants did not become NEET immediately after leaving school, restricted labour market opportunities and a lack of high-quality education and training for middle-and low-attaining young people exacerbated social and educational disadvantage. Over time, participants became increasingly restricted to marginal forms of learning. The paper argues that a focus on opportunity structures provides a powerful way of understanding these processes, and that alongside sustained NEET status, educational marginality should be of equal concern to policy makers.

Marginal youth: mapping spatial capability exclusion in Bogota

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A Call for the Conceptual Integration of Opportunity Structures Within School Safety Research

“…In education, the concept of opportunity structures includes patterns, options, supports, and access to resources that shape the opportunities of K-12 and college students to achieve good outcomes (Weis et al, 2015). The robust literature on opportunity structures has also documented the vast inequities in opportunity for traditionally oppressed groups across academic areas (Thompson, 2017). Restricted educational opportunity structures are often linked to structural racism, sexism, global migration and xenophobia, and other forms of societal discrimination.…”

“…The theory has been expanded to many divergent areas beyond employment, such as legal opportunity structures for LGBT individuals in Costa Rica and Colombia, the social mobility of women in Central Asia, and political opportunities of migrants in Portugal (i.e., Oliveira & Carvalhais, 2017;Urbaeva, 2019;Wilson & Gianella-Malca, 2019).In education, the concept of opportunity structures includes patterns, options, supports, and access to resources that shape the opportunities of K-12 and college students to achieve good outcomes (Weis et al, 2015). The robust literature on opportunity structures has also documented the vast inequities in opportunity for traditionally oppressed groups across academic areas (Thompson, 2017). Restricted educational opportunity structures are often linked to structural racism, sexism, global migration and xenophobia, and other forms of societal discrimination.…”

The PPR, Systemic Transformation, and New Poland. Opportunity Structures in the Biographical Experience of Senior Social Reformers

“…It can be assumed that every individual biography is uniquely marked with its own specific configuration of opportunity structures ingrained in dynamically changing reality (along with the course of life, historical processes, and structural factors) (Roberts 2009;Staunton 2015;Thompson 2017).…”