ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the aspiration-raising agenda in the United Kingdom (UK) is grounded in a neoliberal notion of meritocracy, which has three defining elements: the free movement of capital; individual choice and responsibility for outcomes; and the primacy of effort and ability in governing young people’s transitions from school to work. It draws on the findings of empirical research exploring the occupational aspirations of boys living in a deprived, outer urban neighborhood of a large UK city, Manchester. The chapter demonstrates how the imperative for these boys to raise their aspirations in line with the requirements of the neoliberal meritocracy over-rides their place-based identities and the aspirations that rest on them. It shows that the policy agenda to “raise aspirations” has weak or little basis in the existing empirical research base. The field work yielded little evidence of the phenomenon of “low aspirations” claimed in policy circles to be particularly rife among white working-class boys in deprived, outer urban areas.
