ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on Amartya Sen’s notion of multidimensional poverty to understand the structural contexts in which VET students agentially act. The chapter shows that a large proportion of the students who participated in the study were either core/unambiguously poor or vulnerable to poverty. It finds that poverty exists across at least six dimensions, as highlighted in the chapter. The first two dimensions deal with household income and individual income. These are separated as the findings show that household income is not necessarily an indicator of individual income as household income is not equally distributed within the household. Other dimensions of poverty include single parent households, the highest qualifications of parents, drugs and gangsterism in their community, and the challenge of finding decent and safe housing. These findings inform the following chapters through highlighting the importance of understanding these structural properties as shaping the contexts and conditions in which students agentially act, rather than defining in a deterministic manner their future possibilities.
