This timely book provides a thorough analysis of contemporary youth employment entry route schemes in the U.K.Drawing on a Post-Foucauldian approach, the book providesa critical interrogation of the policy contexts governing a range of youth employment training schemes in four diverse regional economies within England and Scotland, including employability training, enterprise training, internships and volunteering. Supplemented with new ethnographic case study research conducted by the authors, the book’s chaptersexplore each training scheme in turn through the eyes of regional policy makers, ... More

This timely book provides a thorough analysis of contemporary youth employment entry route schemes in the U.K.Drawing on a Post-Foucauldian approach, the book providesa critical interrogation of the policy contexts governing a range of youth employment training schemes in four diverse regional economies within England and Scotland, including employability training, enterprise training, internships and volunteering. Supplemented with new ethnographic case study research conducted by the authors, the book’s chaptersexplore each training scheme in turn through the eyes of regional policy makers, trainers, work experience providers and young people. The authors demonstrate how neoliberal beliefs and practices, such as individualisation, responsibilisation, flexibility and resilience to risk are thoroughly implicated in youth employment policy and training practice. The book also makes obvious how the constraints faced by, and opportunities permitted to, different young people are shaped by the broad and complex interplay of national and regional historical events, economic processes and social structures.These function not only to reproduce but often to further retrench social inequalities, positions of liminality and vulnerability to risk for young people trying to get in and get on in good quality work across the different regional economies of the U.K.