Beyond NEET's : Precariousness, Ideology and Social Justice

The paper addresses NEETs (Not in Education, Employment or Training) as an ideological and discursive formation, lodging the discussion within its socio-economic context - one of increasing insecurity and precariousness. It argues that frequently quasi-political and ideological constructions of NEET can readily fold over into and articulate with discourses of the underclass, the broken society as well as, paradoxically, that of social recession. Consequently, such arguments divert attention from processes of 'othering', the secular changes facing society as well as the spectre of a return to a form of nineteenth century liberalism