Education has betrayed its promises to deliver upward social mobility and a brighter future.Young people study harder but learn less, running up a down-escalator of devalued qualifications to become overqualified but underemployed, unable to move forward with their lives.From primary to post-graduate schools – funny phonics through endless testing to phoney apprenticeships and the world’s most costly university fees – Patrick Ainley explains how English education is now dri...

Tabloid headlines such as ‘Anti-social Feral Youth,’ ‘Vile Products of Welfare in the UK’ and ‘One in Four Adolescents is a Criminal’ have in recent years obscured understanding of what social justice means for young people and how they experience it. Youth marginality in Britain offers a new perspective by promoting young people’s voices and understanding the agency behind their actions. It explores different forms of social marginalisation within media, culture and society, focusing on h...

In the light of changes the government has launched as part of its welfare to work initiatives, this text explores apprenticeship. The authors set the historical context and discuss the theoretical and practical aspects of acquiring the necessary knowledge and skills for competence.