ABSTRACT
The quote that opens this concluding chapter comes from Fred, who was reflecting on the opportunities that two decades of work in the urban music economy had afforded him. Fred has resisted full participation in the formal economy. For twenty years he has eked out a living on pirate radio and in clubs as a DJ, enjoying a somewhat precarious autonomy. While Fred is a veteran in this sector, it is also an arena for younger participants. I began this book by looking at the achievements of Dizzee Rascal, an 18-year-old man who, at the time he won the Mercury Music Prize, asserted that he ‘came from nothing’ (BBC News Channel 2003). In fact, his ‘nothing’ was a location in London, one of the richest cities in the world. Dizzee Rascal hails from Tower Hamlets, a district, little more than two miles from London’s financial heart, that still contains areas of deep poverty. His other ‘nothing’ was the experience of regular exclusions from secondary school and then leaving with few qualifications. In inner-city east London, which was my entry point to this study, at different levels on the scale, there are many more young people like him without the necessary accreditations for transition into adult life. Despite being host boroughs for the London 2012 Olympics, Newham, Hackney and Tower Hamlets were, until relatively recently, the three most deprived boroughs in London (HM Government 2007). Although wealthier residents have moved into these areas, a recent study indicates that 40 per cent of households earned less that 60 per cent of the national median income1 (Hanna and Bosetti 2015). Over the last two decades, there has been regeneration and redevelopment on a significant scale, including the extension of the Jubilee Line to Stratford in 1999 and the opening of Westfield, the third largest shopping centre in the UK. However, urban east London still has as many betting shops as banks, and social, economic and financial exclusion remains entrenched. London, as a city, remains divided according to money and wealth. While Dizzee Rascal has gone on to achieve critical acclaim and financial
success as a grime MC, there are other untold stories, narratives of resistance and resilience where self-confessed ‘troubled kids’ like my informant Adam claim a space in which they can also become successful on their own terms. Because educational achievement, particularly the acquisition of qualifications, is deemed to be so important for personal and national success, underachievement is a problem that cannot be left unfixed. A Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) report in 1999 highlighted a clear link between low attainment, truancy, school exclusion and crime (Sparkes 1999). More recent research shows that this connection still exists (Children’s Commissioner 2013). Therefore educating and training young people to the highest levels will enable them to face an uncertain globalised future, particularly because workers with low qualifications have a reduced chance of permanent, stable employment (du Bois-Reymond 2004, p. 7; Leitch 2006; Communities and Local Government 2007; Sergeant 2009b). Entrepreneurship is seen as a significant factor for economic growth and all the more important as the developed world endeavours to pull itself out of an acute global recession. It is almost a given that individuals with entrepreneurial behaviours are vital for economic success. This focus on enterprise as a key tenet for economic recovery is manifest through the UK policy to develop entrepreneurship skills and attributes among young people through the implementation of enterprise education in primary and secondary schools and the mandatory work experience for those aged fifteen and sixteen (Schoof 2006; Ofsted 2011). Enterprise education, which aims to increase employability and encourage young people to become entrepreneurs, suggests that those who receive enterprise education acquire a more entrepreneurial outlook and are more likely to think about running their own business (Department for Children, Schools and Families 2010; Wicks 2013). The Start Up loan scheme (Start Up Loans 2013), created in 2012 by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to support young people who have a feasible business idea, and the Prince’s Trust, who offer low-interest loans and mentoring (Prince’s Trust Enterprise Programme 2014), are examples of initiatives to support business start-up by young people. The Future Jobs Fund (FJF ), another policy response to rising levels of youth unemployment and increased numbers of NEETs formed part of the Young Persons Guarantee, a Labour government action started in 2009 and shelved by the coalition government in 2010 (Directgov 2011). FJF mandated those who had been in receipt of Jobseekers Allowance for six months or more to take a job on at least the national minimum wage, with sanctions such as the removal of benefit if they refused. The wages for those on the FJF programme were paid by the state. The coalition government replaced the FJF scheme with the Youth Contract as a new response to rising youth unemployment. These measures included
160,000 Government-subsidised jobs; an extra 250,000 work experience places; extra financial incentives for employers to take on apprentices;
additional support for young unemployed people through Jobcentre Plus; and a new payment-by-results initiative focused on 16-17 year olds with no qualifications.
