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This paper addresses a gap in the literature on youth justice in England and Wales by examining disaggregated patterns of juvenile court processing (i.e. proven offences) and custody. It provides new evidence to show that gendered effects are best observed over time. Looking at juvenile justice data over time allows us to see the effects of policy that are obscured in the short-term. This is especially important when considering small and specific populations, such as girls. It is often assumed that policy impacts smaller groups in the justice system (in this case, girls) in the same way as the larger group (in this case, boys), with boys' experiences representing the norm. In this paper, we call into question that assumption by considering female and male proven offences and juvenile custody over time in England and Wales and show why gendered impacts should be given proper consideration. We also examine changes in the gender gap in proven offences and juvenile custody over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the risks to Early School Leaving (ESL) as perceived by young people who are Early Leavers or at-risk of Early Leaving, and their educators in one region in South England. It draws on 38 interviews and focuses groups with 39 young people and 53 adults working in various roles across 11 educational settings including mainstream and specialist schooling, alternative learning provision and vocational education and training, as well as the local authority. Guided by a holistic framework to examine risks to ESL [Brown et al. (2021. "A Conceptual Framework for Researching the Risks to Early Leaving." Journal of Education and Work 24 (7–8): 723–739. )], the paper analyses findings according to five different categories of risk: personal challenges; familial circumstances; social relationships; institutional features of school/work and structural factors of policy, economic disadvantage and the educational system. The findings highlight that while educators focused upon structural factors and personal challenges, young people themselves identified social relationships and institutional features of school as the most significant influencers on ESL risk. The contribution of this paper is two-fold; firstly, in presenting a comprehensive analysis of the multiple risk factors to Early Leaving; and secondly, in reflecting on the difference in emphases between young people's perspectives of the key constituents of risk and those of the educators who support them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the creative group and individual interviews with young people aged 11–18 years old in England and Wales in 2018, this paper assembles data that addresses the changing nature of intimacies in young people's digitally-networked lives. Informed by Lauren Berlant's work (2008, viii), it maps how platforms such as Instagram and YouTube circulate certain 'fantasies of the good life' that orient young people towards heteronormative future imaginaries. It argues that publicising intimate relationships on social media works to both reify and unsettle fantasies of monogamy, marriage and domesticity by highlighting their inherent precarity. It also illustrates how smart technologies such as the virtual personal assistants Alexa and Siri reconfigure the good life fantasy. Moving beyond simplistic moral panics that seek to discipline young people's digital intimacies, this paper aims to engage with the nuances of young people's digital sexual cultures. Overall, this paper argues that attending to this complexity can enable practitioners to better attune to and support young people to navigate contemporary digital relationships and sexuality issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At first glance, the physical design of a setting ostensibly seems routine and neutral. However, it tends to powerfully govern who goes where and who can access certain places. Much of the literature on exclusion within education settings often overlook this significance. This paper therefore seeks to rectify this by examining exclusion by design and allocation of physical space at The Site, a fictional name used for the large general further education (FE) college in England's East Region. Adopting a case study approach over two academic years (2013–2015), qualitative research was undertaken with seven tutors and twenty-six so-called NEET and disengaged youth. Drawing on Wacquant's theoretical concept of the ghetto, my key findings demonstrated territorial exclusion by design: this employability course was delivered in Q-Block, a temporary prefabricated building positioned out of sight and primarily used to deliver programmes for disabled, mature and disengaged youth on the fringes of education. This article concludes that, whilst existing research on policy and outcomes is useful in understanding the negative educational outcomes of stigmatised youth, a sharper focus is needed on wider social processes and exclusionary continuities in seeking to elucidate how governance processes contribute to their social and spatial marginalisation in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legal definitions of sexual consent emphasise 'freedom' as central to valid consent; however, power inequalities may complicate freedom. This paper discusses findings from a two-stage focus group study with young people (aged 13–23) in England exploring the implications of power inequalities for sexual consent. In Stage 1, 77 participants explored and ranked the types of power inequalities they felt were common within young people's sexual relationships, with age, gender and popularity being identified as the most common power inequalities. In Stage 2, 43 participants discussed power inequalities using scenarios based on the Stage 1 findings and considered their implications for sexual consent. Thematic analysis of the data produced two themes: powerless and powerful roles in consent communication and power inequalities implicitly constrain freedom to consent. Consent communication was constructed as a unidirectional process whereby those with more power initiate, and those with less, gatekeep. Such roles require deconstruction to position consent as mutual and actively negotiated by partners. Further, since power inequalities were seen to place implicit constraints on freedom to consent, we advocate for an explicit exploration of power and privilege within Relationships and Sex Education to equip young people to recognise, challenge and negotiate these constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper responds to the call for more research on the 'missing middle' by reporting the findings of a small-scale qualitative longitudinal study in the North of England exploring the labour market transitions of young people completing compulsory schooling with mid-level qualifications and seeking employment. It found that participants desired training which aligned with their skills, interests and future work intentions. Participants were drawn to seek apprenticeships because they offered 'earning and learning' in a real-life work environment. However, for the vast majority, apprenticeships were not available, so they turned to college to articulate their choices and gain work-related training. Qualifications were gained in order to gain leverage in the job market and help them achieve 'getting on' work. However, often a period of 'pinballing' between their ambitions and the reality of the labour market ensued due to the lack of desirable quality work available. The majority of participants were still resisting 'going nowhere' work and making efforts to achieve 'getting on' work when interviewed, however, some had stopped making the effort and resigned themselves to on-going poor quality work. The process of biographicity was, for them, a reconciliation with on-going low-quality work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand why young women engage in the (sub)culture of badness whilst 'on road', as opposed to more conventional employment pathways, it's imperative to consider their access (or lack of) to legitimate opportunities. Living in deprived urban areas creates a set of conditions which can impact on life chances, thus demonstrating the continued importance of intersecting factors class, gender, race and place in their lives as they navigate precarious transitions against a backdrop of neo-liberalism and racial disadvantage. The Teesside transitions literature, based on white young people from a deindustrialised area of the north-east of England, is considered in terms of its usefulness of thinking about young women 'on road' in London, given that the interest in capturing and analysing their experiences has been notably absent in the British criminological literature. Consequentlyvery little is known about those who are entrenched in road culture as the majority of what we know around crime and violence is focused on the experiences of young men, so experiences of young women of colour are even more limited. This paper has begun to make some headway in terms of addressing these gaps so they are more visible in marginalised urban spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little attention has been given to young workers' uses of private employment agencies as part of their job search and this paper seeks to rectify this omission. It does so by presenting a critique of recent interventions into the sociological debate about young people's agency, especially as this applies to the transition from education to employment. By drawing upon recent realist sociology, the argument is developed that recent debate presents either an over-socialised or individualistic account of young people's agency unable to establish meaningful accounts of young people's decision-making and action. In contrast, the social realist emphasis on the reflective and deliberative human agent is used to construct an alternative understanding of young people's decisions to use employment agencies by emphasising the importance of reflective deliberation, subjective intentionality and opposition. These themes are then explored by drawing on a large qualitative research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and providing unique and original data of the experiences of 134 young people making transitions into precarious employment in three cities in the Midlands of England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young adults who provide unpaid care for older relatives have poorer outcomes than their peers in education, employment, health and wellbeing. Services that can potentially have a positive impact on their lives include services provided to the person they care for. However, survey research in England has indicated that receipt of such services is not necessarily linked to fewer negative consequences for young adult carers. We conducted in-depth interviews with fourteen young adult carers who had responded to the original survey. We explored their experiences with services for the care recipient and what factors limit or enhance the usefulness of those services. We found three interrelated themes. First, difficulties accessing services can add to stress, and make problems harder to address when services are implemented; second, lack of continuity of services, and practitioners, undermines relationships and future trust in services, whereas consistent relationships are beneficial. Third, young adult carers described the benefits that resulted from their being involved in discussions and decisions about services, and the problems when this does not happen. The wellbeing of the young adult carer and the person receiving care are shown to be inextricably interrelated; we draw out implications for efforts to improve services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International research reveals underrepresentation and problems of retention, amongst care leavers in higher education, are universal. Drawing upon qualitative research in England, we highlight legacy as an under-explored and double-edged feature of care leavers' motivations to enter and persist in university study. While restricting access to the propulsive power of material resources, in the context of a widening participation policy mandate, our interviewees' care experiences also shaped an 'orientation framework' providing a strong desire to 'prove people wrong' through study. Supporting this orientation were examples of significant other relations; but interviewees' linked lives also meant the past could resurface in the present, resulting in strong emotional reactions. These could threaten orientation to university study by undermining self-reliance and fragile mental health. As the problem of care leavers' retention occurs across different higher education systems with varied structural and cultural specifics, it appears to transcend such issues. We conclude further study of the nuanced issue of legacy may help better elucidate the problem of retention and we advocate for 'corporate parenting' moving beyond an objective list approach to well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large proportion of long-term care for people with disabilities and/or long-term health conditions is provided by unpaid carers, including young people, with potential impacts on their education, employment and health. Supporting carers is a focus of long-term care practice and policy in many countries. A key part of this support in England is through provision of services to the person with care needs (often called 'replacement' care). We aimed to explore the role of replacement care services in supporting young adult carers' health, education, and employment. We used a mixed-methods approach: self-completed questionnaires and in-depth follow-on interviews. We found ways in which services supported young adult carers but, contrary to previous research, receipt of services by the person with care needs was not associated with better reported carer outcomes in our survey. One key reason for this finding was that not enough services were received to meet care needs and alleviate unpaid caring to a level or type compatible with better outcomes. The wider economic and political context of our study, during fiscal austerity and cuts to social care budgets, and the particular circumstances of young adult carers may offer further explanations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]