ERIC Number: EJ816004
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2007-Dec
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0962-0214
EISSN: N/A
Post-School Horizons: New Zealand's Neo-Liberal Generation in Transition
Nairn, Karen; Higgins, Jane; Ormond, Adreanne
International Studies in Sociology of Education, v17 n4 p349-366 Dec 2007
Dominant conceptions of the world infuse educational experiences for young people in implicit rather than explicit ways--through becoming, as Stuart Hall argues, "the horizon of the taken-for-granted". In this article we explore these horizons as experienced by New Zealand's neo-liberal generation, currently "in transition" from high school to further education, training and/or employment. As in Britain, further education has become a taken-for-granted feature of post-school horizons for young New Zealanders but it is not a meaningful destination for all of them. The 93 young New Zealanders in our study have grown up during a period of intensive neo-liberal reform, the speed and scope of which were unprecedented in Western economies. We interviewed these young people in their last year of high school and again once they were well embarked on their post-school lives. We explore how the landscapes of choice of these young people have been restructured in neo-liberal times: for some, the influences of parents, teachers, schools, universities and educational policy have come together to construct apparently wide-open horizons in which university is a taken-for-granted destination. For others, however, these influences have remained subject to assumptions about "race" and class that have a long history in New Zealand and the result has been a narrowing of future possibilities for participants. In all cases, we are concerned to explore the costs that are borne by these young people in this new environment. (Contains 9 notes.)
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Young Adults, Adolescents, Age Differences, Cohort Analysis, World Views, Academic Aspiration, Postsecondary Education, Education Work Relationship, Student Educational Objectives, Socioeconomic Status, Teacher Expectations of Students, Educational Experience, Educational Policy
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: New Zealand
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A