Introducción

The interaction between young people and education is fundamentally based in institutions (schools, universities etc), though we may not think of these often amorphous community spaces as such, that is fundamentally what they are. There are two types of institution, the manipulative institution and the convivial institution according to Illich (1971:53).

101 In the UK today these two elements co-exist but the latter only exists at the behest of the former, the fundamental organs of control remain very much under the auspices of manipulative institutions. Hern (2003) presents a passionate argument for these convivial institutions by showing that local communities are in the best position to create new forms of education and teaching, yet despite this community narratives have often been co-opted by the political right as a means of pushing through further austerity (Lowndes & Pratchett, 2012).

Manipulative in this sense should not be understood as inherently a negative thing, simply as an overt and directed form of control, often towards an explicit or implicit end. This argument regarding the creation of knowledge as a manipulated process is elucidated by Meyer & Rowan (1977:341) who state that knowledge is ‘legitimated through the educational systems, by social prestige, by the laws, and the courts’. In this sense we can understand the role of educational institutions as interlocutors between power and young people. In order for reform of work to take place it is all important that so too these institutions are reformed. The penetration of manipulative institutions is so much however that it is these institutions which characterise our understanding of education almost entirely (Olssen & Peters, 2005). This understanding leads to an education system which is dependent on results and the meeting of targets, rather than fostering independent thought.

This is the desired culmination of what Durkheim (2005:4) saw as the purpose of education itself, to create the perfect ‘social beings’. Social beings in this sense can be understood as obedient beings. The nature of classrooms as competitive arenas to foster these social beings has become both socially and physically detrimental (Abouserie, 1994) leading to environments in which young working class children are less adapted to, often lacking the same narrative of career based trajectories from their home lives that middle class children enjoy.

The shrinking of classrooms as ‘imaginative spaces ‘ (Gallas, 2003:10) has also required us to question whether such spaces are truly educating young people or simply enabling them for a lifetime in the employment of the fluctuating market economy. This dynamic reproduces inequality and in turn leads to a sense of hostility towards the person who does not find themselves naturally adept in such scenarios. These institutions are also usually our first interaction with the need for and development of interpersonal skills and networks with those outside of our immediate family. Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) discuss this in terms of social capital, the notion that our connections within a networked society heavily determine our place within that society. Young people are by definition deprived of social capital, particularly in the working world, due to their inexperience and perceived immaturity and it is the role of the educational institution to rebalance this. Morrow (1999) sees young people’s social capital rather as a set of processes and practices that are integral to the acquisition of other forms of capital in the long run. In this event many

102 young people feel that the only groups where they can enforce a platform of belonging is amongst other young people, specifically at school and other educational institutions, if they are not able to do so due to a perceived lack of economic standing then this can set them on a difficult course throughout their lives. As Wilson (1996) states, a defining feature of being poor is that an individual can be actively excluded from certain social networks and institutions which could be used to secure good jobs and decent housing.

In the event that a young person does develop adequate social capital within this sphere it can be difficult to maintain it afterwards without the reward of a job or continued education (Freitag & Kirchner, 2011). It is from this consideration that the idea of consensus building and increased participation (or tools for conviviality) can be seen as a way of harnessing and increasing our social capital (Putnam, 2000) outwith these institutions. It is understandable why institutions do not do this as they themselves have a vast number of external financial pressures which lead to the prioritising of marketable traits (Hargreaves, 2003) rather than prioritising the advancement of social capital. This relates directly to Illich’s (1973:75) concern regarding the rigidity of our education systems ‘In a society caught up in the race for the better, limits on change are experienced as a threat. The commitment to the better at any cost makes the good impossible at all costs.’

Creativity and the pursuit of knowledge, which is not immediately profitable, has become diluted in this process thereby leading to a deskilling of the workforce making the transferability of their knowledge and experience greatly diminished (Sennett, 2009). This is inextricably connected to the problem of the future of work and the coming of the automation age discussed in Section 3.3. A concept which does potentially provide creativity and knowledge that is not distinctly for profit is that of lifelong learning which has received greater attention in recent years. Lifelong learning can be described as the informal learning practices many of us engage in with a view towards developing skills, knowledge, or indeed for career progression (Longworth & Davies, 1996). Though largely concerned with the continuing education of older adults it is a concept which requires consideration also regarding the learning lives of young people, particularly those who leave school at 16/17 as the participants in the second stage of this study did (Osborne et al, 2007).

As Coffield (2000) notes, it is very common for policy makers, researchers, and practitioners to understand the importance of informal learning only to then develop policy, theory, and practice without any further reference to it. Unfortunately many interventions in favour of lifelong learning have been with the goal of increasing economic competitiveness in mind (Edwards, 1997) a trend that has become ever more apparent in many educational reforms in the age of austerity. Jarvis (2004:5) however contends that lifelong learning should be a means of getting around the market reasoning of contemporary education when he says ‘we are nearly all aware of the way in which education, even state supported education, has

103 become a commodity to be sold on the learning market rather than a state provision for the good of its population’. Despite this the continuous focus of lifelong, or informal, learning practices are not young people but instead adults well into the process of their working life. What potential then for a lifelong learning practice for the young, and how could this feed into the conviviality approach considered above?

The identity of young working class men in particular is neglected in debates regarding lifelong learning, leading to a further sense of exclusion (Quinn et al, 2013). These young men often struggle to fit the accepted fluid paradigm of the new lifelong learner and are constantly being fixed in place by structural inequality and institutional practices. Their tendency to drop‐out is shaped by masculinity, but need not be viewed pejoratively (ibid). Theirs can be a frustrated search for lifelong learning, often inspired by a love of informal learning that goes unnoticed by most as it may not be within the conventional mode of what constitutes worthwhile learning. A notable example of such schemes are the Workers Educational Association (WEA), which in particular during the industrial era found great success in bringing those who had left formal education towards new understandings and indeed class based theoretical discourse (Rose, 1989). Indeed it was this form of interaction between workers and educators that gave rise to both the adult education edifice we now have in the UK and to some extent the broader range of higher education opportunities available to all, a fact diminished since the introduction of considerable fees and economic barriers to attendance for those from disadvantaged backgrounds (Lee, 2018).

Hegel argued that societies are cognitive and moral projects, of which education is a key constitutive part (Eagleton, 1989). If this is the case then any project which seems to exclude a key section of the most disadvantaged sections of itself from education, or at least does not actively give full opportunity to that group, is by definition failing in this moral project. The labour movement has in recent centuries been able to act as a social movement, an education in democracy, and a struggle for a democratic education (Merrill & Schurman, 2016). Recapturing that essence for non-workers, in particular young people, through the prism of lifelong learning is potentially a key part of creating a working class pedagogy that utilises all of the tools for conviviality that are available to us.