Young people on the margins: in need of more choices and more chances in twenty-first century Scotland

Abstract

The aim of this study was to find out more about the lives of young people in the category ‘not in education, employment or training’ (NEET). We worked intensively with 26 young people in four smaller groups, spending three days with each group. During our time with them we engaged in a variety of creative and artistic activities designed to help them to construct accounts of their lives for us with the purpose of gaining an understanding of what it was like to be NEET. Three significant issues that emerged from these life stories are discussed in this paper. These are the problematic nature of the discourse of NEET sub-groups; the challenges of school-exclusion policies and practices; and the myth of low aspirations.