Top girls navigating austere times: interrogating youth transitions since the ‘crisis’

Abstract

Attending to the biographical accounts of two participants occupying different class locations, I explore their transitions and perceptions of the uncertainties and risks characterising 'austere times'. I demonstrate how, despite similarities in their experiences of a stunted graduate labour market, social class shaped how they responded to and made sense of the pressures and predicaments they encountered.

Asinamali: Aspiration, debt and citizenship in South Africa's #FeesMustFall protests

“…Here Radcliffe proposes “bringing knowledges from different settings into juxtaposition with each other” (, p. 330). There is much to be gained then from bringing research on youth, debt and aspirations in the Global South into conversation with a large body of geographical scholarship on youth and austerity in the Global North (Allen, ; Cairns et al., ; Hall, ; Hughes et al., ; McDowell, , ; O'Hara, ; Standing, ). Doing so allows us to disrupt categorisations of youth in the Global South as simply “vulnerable” while youth in the global North are “precarious” or “millennials” experiencing “delayed transitions.” As Jeffrey and McDowell () have suggested, neoliberal social and economic changes have reconfigured experiences of youth in many parts of the world, generating both uncertainty about the future and, as the South African case reveals, new forms of political opposition.…”

“…Here Radcliffe proposes "bringing knowledges from different settings into juxtaposition with each other" (2017, p. 330). There is much to be gained then from bringing research on youth, debt and aspirations in the Global South into conversation with a large body of geographical scholarship on youth and austerity in the Global North (Allen, 2016;Cairns et al, 2014;Hall, 2015;Hughes et al, 2014;McDowell, 2011McDowell, , 2012O'Hara, 2014;Standing, 2011). Doing so allows us to disrupt categorisations of youth in the Global South as simply "vulnerable" while youth in the global North are "precarious" or "millennials" experiencing "delayed transitions."…”

School-to-work transitions support: ‘cruel optimism’ for young people in ‘the state of insecurity’

“…Insecurity is not equally distributed: young people, women and minorities have been hit disproportionately by the austerity measures and cuts to social welfare benefits made since 2010 (e.g. Allen, 2016) and are more likely to experience in-work poverty, low-paid work, zero-hours contracts and self-employment (Tinson et al., 2016). However, ‘the precariat’ refers to all those whose working and living conditions have become increasingly unstable under neoliberalism and refers to an increasingly large proportion of the population.…”

Higher education and aspiration

“…While 'aspiration' has become a ubiquitous term within educational policy in multiple contexts internationally (Gale & Parker, 2015;Harrison & Waller, 2018;Spohrer, 2011), it is often confined to discussions of school aged children and the perception that they need to raise their aspirations both in terms of future employment goals and, relatedly, their goals for participation in higher education (Abrahams, 2018;Allen, 2016;Grim, Moore-Vissing, & Mountford-Zimdars, 2019). The perceived locus of aspiration deficit is, therefore, primary and secondary education, while higher education is offered as the solution.…”