ABSTRACT
In 1977 Paul Willis published his seminal text Learning to Labour, describing how the cultures of machismo, manualism and anti-mentalism in working class ‘lads’ in fact served to prepare those young people for their place in the labour market. In 1976, a more empirical study of transitions from school to work drew attention to the ‘careerless’. The mid-1970s witnessed the zenith of ideas concerning non-intervention in young people’s lives. Prior to the mid-1970s and the dramatic collapse of the youth labour market, minimum age school leavers adopted an ‘easy come, easy go’ approach to work opportunities. Youth consultation forums are usually packed with literate, motivated and articulate individuals. ‘Policy questions’ are too often included almost as afterthoughts in many academic texts of youth. Too often, policy initiatives have been predicated upon assumptions about what is ‘good’ or ‘relevant’ for young people, failing to acknowledge why young people make the decisions they do.
