ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 focused on the experiences of young people at New Beginnings who resisted the intrusion of employment-related goals into their relationships with their mentors, and who did not adapt their dispositions adequately in line with ‘employability’. By contrast, Chapter 5 revealed how mentors’ dispositions adapted to covert pressures on them to role-model idealized identities. They conformed to moralized notions of ‘employability’, as well as to dominant social norms. Even in the case of Keith and Neil, who had established one of the most positive relationships I witnessed, this interrupted Keith’s empathy for Neil. For Karen and Rachel, both female and younger mentors, it resulted in a breakdown of their respective relationships with Sharon that bore damaging consequences for them.
