ABSTRACT
One of the sub-themes which runs through our analysis of the local market in post-16 education and training in Northwark is that of space (Ball et al., 1998). Spatial issues underpin both the 'choice' behaviours of young people and the market behaviours and tactics of providers (Ball et al.5 1997). In relation to the young people the 'use' of space is a key differentiator. Space and scale (Skelton and Valentine 1998) can constrain or open up new opportunities. As Harvey (1973, p. 82) argues, those with the capacity to 'transcend space . . . command it as a resource. Those who lack such a skill are likely to be trapped by space' (Harvey, 1973, p. 82). Spatial practices and meanings are 'raced' and classed and gendered. Spatial meanings 'get "used up" or "worked over" in the course of social action' (Harvey, 1989, p. 223). The 'friction of distance' and personal space are both mentally and materially constructed as a social physics of possibilities, limitations and worth. What de Certeau (1984) calls the 'space of enunciation', literally 'footsteps in the city', is a collection of 'innumerable singularities' which 'weave places together' and keeps other places apart. For some of the young people in our study, their footsteps are set within tightly defined spatial horizons and imaginary spaces (locals); others range more widely in both respects (cosmopolitans). These are the different 'socioscapes'.
