In an age when the next generation have worse prospects than those of their parents, this book appraises the challenges young people face resulting from the instability of their lives.Based on youth experience of education, employment and political participation in England and Germany, the book examines the impact of digitalisation in the context of rising inequality, accelerating technological transformation, fragile European institutions, growing nationalism and mental and econom...

First published in 1997, this study of 9,000 people born in the same week in 1970, who have been followed up since birth, has produced a unique picture of life for those in their mid 20s – a year before the new Labour Government took office. The new survey shows a fractured society with clear evidence of an increasing gulf between those ‘getting on’ with their careers and blooming and those who are being left behind.The polarisation between those ‘getting on’ and those ‘getting now...

The 2007–8 financial crisis and subsequent 'Great Recession' particularly affected young people trying to make their way from education into the labour market at a time of economic uncertainty and upheaval. This is the first volume to examine the impact of the Great Recession on the developmental stage of young adulthood, a critical phase of the life course that has great significance in the foundations of adult identity. Using evidence from longitudinal data sets spanning three major OECD...

Published in 1997, this text is built around themes agreed upon for a conference which aimed to set the agenda for youth research over the next decade. These themes are: the shaping of trajectories and biographies - individualization, agency, structure; vulnerable groups excluded and included youth, polarization, marginalization; social construction of identity - identity, culture, gender, ethnicity; political and social participation and citizenship. The book brings together the work of B...

How do education and learning really impact on people's lives?The Benefits of Learning is a detailed, systematic and vivid account of the impact of formal and informal education on people's lives. Based on extended interviews with adults of all ages, it shows how learning affects their health, family lives and participation in civic life, revealing the downsides of education as well as the benefits. At a time when education is in danger of being narrowly regarded as an inst...

Understanding the origins of poor literacy and numeracy skills in adulthood and how to improve them is of major importance when society places a high premium on proficiency in these basic skills. This edited collection brings together the results of recent longitudinal studies that greatly extend our knowledge of what works in raising skill levels, as well as the social and economic returns to improvement.Many fundamental research questions in adult education involve change over ti...

Since the end of the Second World War, society has been characterised by rapid and extensive political, economic, scientific, and technological change. Opportunities for education, employment, human relations, and good health, have all been greatly affected by those changes, as have all aspects of life. Consequently, each post-war generation has been like no other before or since.Britain, uniquely, has five large-scale life course studies that began at intervals throughout that per...

With social and community services coming under increasing pressure as austerity continues, Unfinished Business examines how social policy has operated in Ireland and how it has been affected by consistent government cutbacks. It examines a wide range of issues important to social care students, such as poverty, homelessness, disability, immigrants, mental health and many other issues pertinent to Irish society today. This book: Is the first Irish social po...

Education is threatened on a global scale by forces of neoliberalism, through high stakes accountability, privatization and a destructive language of learning. In all respects, a GERM (Global Education Reform Movement) has erupted from international benchmark rankings such as PISA, TIMMS and PIRL, causing inequity, narrowing of the curriculum and teacher deprofessionalization on a truly global scale.In this book, teachers from around the world and other educational experts such as ...

This is an open access book.This book offers the first overview of the ‘wicked problems’ literature, often seen as complex, open-ended, and intractable, with both the nature of the ‘problem’ and the preferred ‘solution’ being strongly contested. It contextualises the debate using a wide range of relevant policy examples, explaining why these issues attract so much attention.There is an increasing interest in the conceptual and practical aspects of how ‘wicked problems’ are ...

Drawing on lessons from the recent history of social work to identify how and why it has lost its privilege and influence, this book challenges social work students to understand why social work has failed to maintain its position as a driver of social reform. Bamford looks forward to a new model of practice that places a commitment to put social justice back at the heart of professional practice.The book contributes to the topical debates about social work education and the identi...

The strategies adopted by governments and public officials can have dramatic effects on peoples' lives. The best ones can transform economic laggards into trailblazers, eliminate diseases, or sharply cut crime. Strategic failures can result in highly visible disasters, like the shrinking of the Russian economy in the 1990s, or the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005. This book is about how strategies take shape, and how money, people, technologies, and public commitment c...