Description
The homogenisation of young people who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) is widely recognised. While Current estimates place the number of NEET young people at 946,000. Labour’s response, the trailblazer programme, set out in their post-16 education and skills white paper emphasises the evolving nature of UK industry and the current skills gap, but underplays barriers specifically to NEET young people. This paper / presentation argues that the prevailing nature of homogenisation through the concept of NEET persist within the current policy agenda. Therefore, documenting NEET young peoples’ voice remains important to capturing their idiosyncratic experiences of being NEET. To achieve this, the methodological approach of my PhD is to enhance those voices of NEET young people of a Post-industrial town in the North of England. Unstructured interviews and observations will capture the voices of NEET young people by incorporating creative methods with the use of photo elicitation and the creation of a visual story board. The nature of photo elicitation within research suggests that power can be distributed in favour of the young people, detailing their lived experiences of being NEET. The PhD will provide context to young people who not only experience NEET but position the state of being NEET within deindustrialised locales that relied on manufacturing. Employment in this region has migrated towards more service-based industries transforming the local labour market, and exacerbated transitions into employment due to the sociocultural context of such communities.| Period | 25 Mar 2026 |
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| Event title | Marginalised Youth: Power, Precarity & Possibilities: Journal of Youth Studies Day Conference at University of Durham |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Durham, United KingdomShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | National |