Search Results

This chapter outlines the key aims of the book: first, to explore what it is like for young people to undergo employability training as a pathway into work in the UK; second, to investigate the strategies and motivations of local policymakers and training providers, whose mission it is to achieve employability skills development indifferent regions of the UK; and third, through the lens of a Post-Foucauldian governmentality approach, to contribute theoretically to understanding of both policy and practice of youth employability training in the UK context. Each of these aims is introduced and the structure of the book’s chapters is presented.

This chapter provides an overview of the book by drawing out four key themes which emerged through the chapters as of key significance for understanding youth employability in the United Kingdom: regionality, social inequality, liminality and risk. Taking each of these in turn, the chapter demonstrates how the pervasive force of neoliberalism shapes youth employment policy and youth labour markets in the diverse regions of the UK. In order to ‘get in’ and then to ‘get on’, Britain’s young people must demonstrate neoliberal qualities such as individualisation, responsibilisation and resilience to risk. At the same time, the ability to perform this version of the self is powerfully shaped by social structure.

Chapter 6 considers how different work places and labour practices are captured in amateur footage. Recreational filming of other people at work highlights the elite nature of early cine usage and provides visual records of specific working conditions in rural and urban areas. Footage evidences gender roles, the use or absence of specialised working clothes and aspects of local and regional employment that may have been transformed or no longer exist. Mills, mines, factories, farming, foundries and fishing feature as do traditional crafts and rural-based industries. Some films resemble promotional and industrial films and reflect the cine interests of employers or their friends. Later films attest to widening cine usage and record varied forms of employment including school canteens and public transport. Motives varied for making and showing people at work as did different filmmakers’ aesthetic interests and their use of light, shadow, tone and composition. Factory-gate shots, topicals, documentaries and regional television news reporting influence changing amateur practice and filmmakers’ interests. Clues to strikes, unemployment, closures and automation link to wider social, economic and cultural change and footage of workers’ outings, social clubs, nurseries and overseas trading partners point to past patterns of patronage, privilege and local/global connections.