Pronunciamientos del Tribunal Constitucional

In a context of increased risk and interdependence (Blackmore 2002) structural reform in the post compulsory education sector, as in other sectors, is increasingly based on the concept of networks; this context has its source in globalisation. Globalisation is a term that conveys a number of intertwined phenomena (Giddens 1999a; Hutton and Giddens 2001). It involves the growth of supra-national political bodies including the United Nations and the OECD and the formation of global education policy communities (Henry, Lingard, Rizvi and Taylor 2001); its force and momentum is superior to that of individual nations (Hutton and Giddens 2001). Globalisation is strongly linked with the ‘deformed character’ of

contemporary capitalism (Hutton and Giddens 2001, p.6), the impact of communication and transport technology on the way economies interact and compete and on the shape and form of their labour markets (Strain 2000b). In particular, globalisation has resulted in a decline in manufacturing jobs, an

increased demand for so-called knowledge workers in certain areas – either local or global - and new industrial workers in others (Jarvis 2004; Thomson 1999). In other words, globalisation is political, technological, cultural and economic; it has been ‘influenced above all by developments in systems of communication dating back only to the 1960s’ that have enabled a flow of finance and capital that has no earlier parallel (Giddens 1999a, p.1); it has been reinforced by the collapse of Soviet communism and the perception that there is now no alternative (Bauman 1992). Globalisation also transforms our daily life through its influence on mobility and migration (Cope and Kalantzis 1997), family structures and gender roles, communication and entertainment and exposure to a new range of risk situations such as genetically modified foods (Hutton and Giddens 2001). Thus at the same time as globalisation fosters economic, technical and cultural integration it also fosters social and political fragmentation at a local level (Blackmore 2000; Strain 2000b).

According to Urry (2003, p.10) Castells’ (2000) analysis of the network society is important in breaking the notion of globalisation as ‘a finished and completed totality.’ For example, in advanced societies, downgraded labour is concentrated in low-skill, low-pay activities and temporary work commonly undertaken by women, ethnic minorities and young people. However, the resulting bifurcation of work and polarisation of the labour force is not the necessary result of technological progress or the evolution of the post-industrial society: it is ‘socially determined and

managerially designed in the process of the capitalist restructuring taking place’ (Castells 2000, p. 266-7). Thus Castells prefigures the complexity of globalisation (Urry 2003). Castells argues that we have now entered a new social ‘space of flows’, a space organised not so much to move things from one place to another – including information, people, money, products and so on - but more to keep them moving around. In contrast and conterminously much community life – including that which occurs within and around schools – is fundamentally based in a space of place. Thus Wittel (2001) has proposed that a new ‘network sociality’ must prevail, a sociality that will challenge existing networking practices and

assumptions – a networking in tune with the space of flows (Shacklock 2004). Within this globalised context new opportunities and new risks are unleashed. It is to a consideration of risk, and particularly the risk connected to young people, that I now turn.

Risk

The idea of risk is a relatively recent concept that has its roots in 16th and 17th century explorers’ ventures into uncharted water: risk is inseparable from questions of probability and uncertainty; it concerns ‘hazards that are actively assessed in relation to future possibilities’ (Giddens 1999b, p.1). In advanced capitalist societies the problems of the production and distribution of wealth are

systematically accompanied by the production, definition and distribution of risk (Beck 1992): a ‘positive embrace of risk is the . . . source of . . . energy which creates wealth in a modern economy’ (Giddens 1999b, p.1). An ability to positively embrace risk presumes access to resources, both social and material, including the ability to use insurance to redistribute risk. This has resulted in two paradigms of inequality – one concerned with the distribution of wealth, the other concerned with the distribution of risk - that follow different distributional logics (Giddens 1999b).

Risk is a ‘systematic way of dealing with hazards and insecurities induced and introduced by modernization itself’ (Giddens 1999b, p.21). Questions of risk and identity are two structurally defining aspects of late modern society and have fostered a new role for governments: an obligation to convey a sense of security by assuming responsibility for the identification and redistribution of risk (Strain 2000a). It is important to recognise that, in this process, government creates risk and identity discourses. For example, discourses of youth at risk often derive from concerns about globalisation. The uncertainty of youth transitions in the globalised context of deindustrialisation and consequent demand for changing skills and credentials has created a context where various experts are called on to assist in calculating and measuring risk thereby attempting to better understand, intervene in and control youth transitions (Kelly 1999). The process of watching and

monitoring youth in and of itself results in their transitions being understood in increasingly complex and uncertain ways that escalate anxiety about youth

transitions (Kelly 1999). Thus, risk brings the non-political into the political realm; the potential for catastrophe has extended the sphere of concern of governments and focused it on certain groups within a society such as the poor who attract an

unfortunate abundance of risk’ while the rich can purchase ‘safety’ (Beck 1992, p.35). Giddens (1999b) argues that the welfare state itself is a risk management system. At the same time, risk fosters a new significance for knowledge: risks cannot be possessed in the same way that wealth can; but knowledge of and ability to manage risk can be possessed and used for economic and political benefit as well as personal safety.

Not only is risk a social concern, it is also an individual concern. The labour market is the motor of individualised risk (Beck 1992). The labour market creates

dependence on wages and consumption whilst separating the individual from traditional forms of support. Individualisation ‘manifests itself in the acquisition, proffering, and application of a variety of work skills’ (Beck 1992, p.93). Steady employment becomes the main source of security at a point where traditional full employment policies have become unworkable (Strain 2000b). Beck (1992) argues that individualisation is brought about by the interaction of three labour market

dimensions: education, mobility and competition21. Firstly, those with formal education create their own situation in the labour market and, by consequence, their social biography; the greater the duration of education the greater the opportunity for self discovery and acquisition of credentials to enable upward mobility or prevent downward mobility. Secondly, the point of entry to the labour market fosters mobility as individuals become independent of earlier ties and are forced to draw on their resources of social and cultural capital to take charge of their lives. Thirdly, the increasing competition for limited opportunities in the labour market leads to what Beck refers to as ‘individualization among equals’; any shared background dissolves in the need to establish the individuality and uniqueness of one’s ability to contribute. Those who leave school early significantly lessen the resources they bring to manage their mobility into and through the labour market, they become the ‘miner’s canaries’ of ‘our society in crisis,’ highly vulnerable to the risk society (Bessant 2002, p.33). It is important to note however that these changes are not absolute: structures such as family, class, gender, race and locality remain significant, albeit in changed ways, for both young people (Ball, Maguire and Macrae 2000) and older people (Wyn and Dwyer 1999).

At the same time, individuals are held responsible for managing risk

notwithstanding that the risks have been produced by institutions and society: risks are positioned as ‘consequences of the decisions [individuals] themselves have made’ (Beck 1992, p.136, original emphasis). Ball, Maguire and Macrae note that the young people in their research did not see their decisions as being structurally constrained but rather the product of individual choice (2000, p.2). Such decisions include a decision to leave school at a point beyond the duration legislated as

compulsory but now identified as ‘early’ within discourses of globalisation and risk. Thus te Riele (2006) argues that the term ‘at risk’ should be replaced with the term ‘marginalised,’ a term that would better reflect that some students are marginalised in their connection to school rather than inherently ‘at risk.’

While the category ‘youth-at-risk’ has at times come to function as a generalised deficit category (Bessant 2002; Dwyer and Wyn 2001; te Riele 2006), the notion of

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These dimensions do not interact in a vacuum. They reinforce each other and act in conjunction with other contextual developments including a collective increase in standard of living that is coupled with greater differentiation between rich and poor as well as increasing access to recourse through judicial process (Beck 1992).

manufactured risk can be used to explore how knowledge about youth is transferred into ‘obvious’ post compulsory education policy and the implementation of

responses that do not necessarily align with the experiences of young people living in a variety of social landscapes (Ball et al. 2000; Bessant 2002; te Riele 2004; Vaughan 2005). Both post compulsory education policy and youth are constructed within a capitalist discourse which assumes a context of social cohesion exists and that economic competitiveness can deliver social justice and enhanced well-being for all (Avis 1997). Policy objectives developed in response to globalisation increasingly deal with ‘intangible’ issues, for example, with learning rather than with education. They also involve a broad and diverse range of actors acting in a context where the nature of government itself is changing (Edwards and Boreham 2003; Kickert et al. 1997; Pierre 2000; Rhodes 1997) and where implementation is subject to tension between competing discourses at the local level (Edwards and Boreham 2003). It is to this changing form of governance that I now turn.