ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the role of the Careers Service in the processes leading to the opening and closing of 'gates' to employment and training for ethnic minority school leavers. It draws on research on racial inequality and the youth labour market carried out in the mid-late 1980s, with particular reference to youth training, the Careers Service and racial discrimination by employers. In any consideration of the desirability, appropriateness and effectiveness of equal opportunity and anti-racist measures for careers services there must be an awareness of certain external and historical constraints on the actions of careers officers. There exists an imbalance of power in the youth labour market between the buyers and sellers of labour power — or, in the case of the careers service, those involved in advising and assisting the sellers. Thus there are contradictions in the role of the careers service in a decade of enterprise.
