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This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: PIMLOTT-WILSON, H., 2016. Individualising the future: the emotional geographies of neoliberal governance in young peoples' aspirations. Area, 49 (3), pp. 288–295, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/area.12222. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving. ; In response to record levels of youth worklessness and socio-economic inequalities, the UK Coalition government has sought to scale back public spending through welfare cuts, emphasising self-reliance for financial provision. Education, as a tool for both personal progression and national economic competitiveness has risen up the political agenda, as the Government champions an 'aspiration nation' which rewards 'hard-working' people. Young people are increasingly tasked with looking toward the future, taking responsibility and 'raising' their aspirations in order to contribute through economic production as active citizen-workers. The power to achieve is placed firmly at the feet of individuals; yet broader inequalities which characterise the contemporary climate and powerfully shape the life chances of young people are overlooked. This paper explores the hopes and expectations of young people living in the north west of England as they think about their own future school-to-employment ambitions. Firstly, the paper reflects on the structural changes which have occurred within the local economy over the last generation before secondly, examining how the task of responding to changing labour market conditions is internalised by the young people, with 'success' (or lack thereof) framed as an individual enterprise. Young people are negotiating a set of contradictory beliefs. They acknowledge their own responsibility as future adult citizens whilst also reflecting on the role of government in addressing inequalities, as contemporary economic restructuring and fiscal policies are reducing opportunities. The paper makes visible the emotional burdens young people anticipate as they endeavour to achieve a successful future in the context of economic uncertainty and an individualising political milieu of aspiration.

This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Environment and Planning A and the definitive published version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0308518X15597145 ; Over the last forty years, the labour market has undergone considerable change in the shift from an industrial to post-industrial economy. Profound economic, social and political developments have resulted in the feminisation of the labour force. Employment for parents, and increasingly mothers, is positioned by government policy as a remedy to child poverty at a time when individual responsibility for financial provision intensifies under austerity measures. Geographers have explored the unequal burdens of care borne by women and the gendered moral rationalities which shape labour market attachment from the perspective of adults. This paper shifts this focus to take account of children's understandings of the gendered responsibilities of parents in middle and working class families in relation to employment and social reproduction. Firstly, it considers the persistence of the male breadwinning role in middle class households, resulting in mothers' paid work being viewed as supplementary by children. Secondly, the paper explores how children understand labour market insecurity for working class fathers and how this impacts upon their mothers, compelling women into employment to bolster the family income. Thirdly, the paper gives consideration to the experiences of those children who live with the everyday reality of low-paid, insecure parental employment, as the negative effects of insecure work permeate the family. In conclusion, the paper highlights the importance of considering children's perceptions of gendered parenting roles both in the here and now, but also as young people look towards their own family and labour market futures.

This paper is closed access until 12 June 2021. ; A nation's education system plays a key role in future economic competitiveness. Political attention to education has fuelled geographical interest in the role of formal education and informal learning environments in the cultivation of future citizen-workers. To date, formal and informal learning have largely been considered separately, but this paper responds by critically evaluating the intersections between the two spheres. This agenda is pursued through in-depth analysis of two state-funded, mainstream primary schools in the Midlands, UK, which adopt a Forest School programme. Qualitative in nature, the research involved 37 semi-structured interviews with teachers and children in the Foundation class and Year 4 (ages 4-5 and 8-9 respectively). The findings demonstrate that children understand classroom learning to contribute to their future pathways in a credentialised labour market, yet some struggle to frame Forest School activities as educational. Although presented as an antidote to the regimen of the school day, Forest School can thus be justified by some participants in relation to curriculum alignment and the future efficacy of the skills and knowledge acquired. In conclusion, this paper contributes to debates on the intersections of formal and informal education to examine how alternative education can function to counteract the institutionalisation of mainstream settings, whilst paradoxically developing skills in children that are valued by neoliberal states. More broadly, this furthers debates in Geographies of Education about what constitutes valuable learning in the primary school setting, and draws attention to the ways innovations might further exclude children currently disadvantaged in the education system.

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: PIMLOTT-WILSON, H. and HALL, S.M., 2017. Everyday experiences of economic change: repositioning geographies of children, youth and families. Area, 49 (3), pp. 258–265, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12348. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. ; In this paper, we argue for repositioning geographies of children, youth and families at the centre rather than at the periphery of discussions about the economy. This not only reveals what contemporary and lived experiences of economic change feel and look like, but also exposes deeper problematics about the geographically and socially uneven nature of neoliberalism and the austere state. This editorial also introduces a collection which, when taken together, explores intersections between everyday life and austerity, with children, youth and families as the focus of inquiry. Adopting a multi-scalar approach, the collected papers 'zoom in' to explore the everyday realities of austere life in the UK in order to refract our understanding of the broader condition of economic change and concomitant austerity measures. Simultaneously, and speaking to a wider political agenda, the collection can be scaled up, or the framing 'zoomed out', to question and actively address the injustices of austerity and neoliberal retrenchment.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ; Contemporary economic, political and social shifts in the Global North are reconfiguring the resolution of productive and reproductive labour. This paper explores how the emergence of the New Economy, the rolling out of the neoliberal state, and the professionalization of parenting are transforming: (i) the landscape in which mothers with primary-school-aged children make decisions about how to secure a living and care for their children; and (ii) what role they think the state should play in facilitating the provision of childcare to support working parenthood. The paper makes two innovation contributions to knowledge. Firstly, it pinpoints strongly class-differentiated changes in women's reconciliation of paid employment and caring work in contemporary Britain. The academically dominant one-and-a-half breadwinner model is commonly reflected in middle-class lifestyles, but has little analytical purchase for working-class women in this study, as they are more likely to mother full-time in state-dependent family households. It is vital that we understand these differences in women's labour-force participation and their implications for class inequality. Secondly, the paper concentrates academic attention on the sweeping expansion in the state's role in social reproduction through the provision of wraparound childcare (breakfast and afterschool clubs) in primary schools. Novel insights into parental attitudes reveal that middle-class women demand choice and feel entitled to state-sponsored childcare provision which underpins the feminisation of the labour force. Working class women value provision for others, but fear being coerced into using childcare instead of mothering in the home. Their responses reveal competing understandings of what counts as equality for women, and stark variations in different women's abilities to achieve this.

Geographers have shown considerable interest in neoliberal educational restructuring as states across the Global North have sought to respond to the challenges of economic change through the development of a skilled population. Existing research provides a wide-ranging analysis of the ways neoliberal states seek to shape individual citizens through their own learning. Greater attention now needs to be paid to new and developing ways in which they seek to influence the context in which future citizen-workers are raised. This paper focuses on parenting education which is growing across OECD countries. Social science critiques suggest that parenting classes are part of a professionalisation of parenting which has sought to impose middle-class mores on working-class parents, at the same time as parenting has been unwarrantedly cast as a context-free skill. This paper uses quantitative and qualitative data to explore the attitudes of parents of different social class positions to parenting education, tracing the ways these emerge in and through particular sociospatial contexts. The paper reveals the importance of local class-based cultures of mothering in influencing both the attitudes of individual mothers to parenting classes, and the success of neoliberal policy implementation in diverse socioeconomic neighbourhoods. In conclusion the paper emphasises: The importance of geographical research into newly emerging forms of education; the value of engaging with the subjects of neoliberal education policy because their attitudes influence its implementation in practice; and the need to set educational provision in its wider geographical context, as this can shape the success of policies delivered in and through educational institutions.

"Drawing together multidisciplinary research exploring everyday life in Europe during times of economic crisis, this book explores the ways in which austerity policies are lived and experienced - often alongside other significant social, political and personal change. With attention to the inequalities produced by these processes and the measures used by individuals, families and communities to help them 'get by', it also envisages hopeful, affirmative socio-political futures. Arranged around the themes of intergenerational relations and exchanges, ways of coping through crises, and community, civic and state infrastructures, Austerity Across Europe will appeal to social scientists with interests in everyday life, family practices, neoliberal state policy, poverty and socio-economic inequalities"--

Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of figures -- List of tables -- List of contributors -- 1 Introduction: austerity across Europe: lived experiences of economic crises -- Part I Intergenerational relations and exchanges -- 2 Eating out, sharing food and social exclusion: young people in low-income families in the UK and Norway -- 3 'I feel like it's just going to get worse': young people, marginality and neoliberal personhoods in austere times -- 4 Austerity, youth and the city: experiences of austerity and place by disadvantaged urban youth in Ireland -- 5 Children and families coping with austerity in Catalonia -- Part II Ways of coping through crises -- 6 An informal welfare? Urban resilience and spontaneous solidarity in Naples, Italy, after the Great Recession -- 7 Austerity and men's hidden family participation in low-income families in the UK -- 8 Austerity, economic crisis and children: the case of Cyprus -- 9 Beyond coping: families and young people's journeys through austerity, relational poverty and stigma -- 10 Escaping from capitalism: the enactment of alternative lifeworlds in France's mountain regions -- Part III Community, civic and state infrastructures -- 11 E-government and digital by default: normalising austerity as the new norm -- 12 Requesting labour activation without addressing inequalities: a move towards racialised workfare in Slovakia -- 13 How to keep control? Everyday practices of governing urban marginality in a time of massive outmigration in Hungary -- 14 Care, austerity and citizenship: story-telling as protest in anti-austerity activism in the UK -- Index.

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the nature of effective schools serving socially disadvantaged communities, and to point to an overlooked feature in the literature on school effectiveness in relation to social inclusion.Design/methodology/approachAs part of a trans‐European project, three English schools are investigated. A qualitative case study approach is utilised. The schools selected have high proportions of ethnic minority students with low socio‐economic status backgrounds, yet demonstrate successful results.FindingsThe data show the importance of high expectations, and the development of classroom and school‐wide systems to translate these into practice. This reflects areas highlighted by earlier research on schools in disadvantaged communities. The data also point to important conclusions about school ethos.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings are based on a sample of three schools. Though purposively selected (as successful in challenging circumstances), further research is needed into the role of an inclusive ethos in school effectiveness.Practical implicationsAs Scheerens and Bosker argue, schools are most important for underprivileged and/or initially low‐achieving students. Improving the effectiveness of schools in disadvantaged communities is therefore vital, and an ethos of inclusion is an essential dimension in this.Originality/valueThe conclusions mirror in many respects the findings of earlier research on effective schools in socio‐economically deprived communities. However, the paper also draws attention to the importance of developing and sustaining an ethos of inclusion in schools serving disadvantaged communities.