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The role of the education sector has expanded into areas of social welfare. A key influence, relates to the disintegration of public-funded organisations responsible for mental health and social welfare provision. This article considers the policy drive for a broadened welfare mandate within education settings. Drawing on illustrations of welfare-orientated teaching, the article explores the extent to which a welfare agenda influenced teaching practise and education provision for marginalised youth enrolled on an employability course in an FE college. During academic years 2013 to 2015, empirical research was conducted with seven tutors and 26 students enrolled on a Level 1 employability course at a large FE college in South East England. Key findings discovered that there was a disproportionate focus on welfare duties when teaching youth with complex backgrounds. Fieldwork data mainly highlighted complications, contradictions and the counter-productive nature of welfare-orientated teaching: it gave rise to 'social welfare tutors'; they have a diminished academic focus and were wholly engaged in welfare duties, reducing the course to something akin to therapy and welfare practise. Despite good intentions, generally, such practise directly reinforced disadvantage and marginalised participants from essential provision that granted access to a range of further study and training opportunities within the setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RPA (Raising of Participation Age) legislation re-positioned all youth in England to participate in post-16 education and training, the ultimate aim to develop ‘human capital’. However, how does RPA play out in practice with previously NEET (not in education, employment or training) and so-called disengaged youth engaged on a Level 1 pre-vocational course? Empirical research was conducted at a large general further education (FE) college in south-east England, named The Site with seven tutors and twenty-six students from the 2013-14 and 2014-15 cohorts. Key findings revealed ‘warehousing’ appeared to be the main purpose of education for these students. Whilst student conduct was observably loud and disruptive, it arguably overshadowed concerns over pedagogical activities and teaching practices, reproducing negative classroom conditions which consolidated stereotypical beliefs that with these particular students, there was a reluctance to learn - in effect, legitimising warehousing practice. This study brings into focus a counter discourse: structurally, the system is producing the kind of provision reflected on this course. Hence, creating and consolidating NEET identities rather than providing conditions in which new learner identities can emerge and benefit individuals themselves and (to use the neo-liberal line of reasoning) to the ‘economy’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Raising of Participation Age (RPA) legislation mandates English youth to participate in post-16 education, employment or training. However, how does this particular college accommodate youth that were so-called disaffected learners and previously not in education, employment and training (NEET)? The aim was to investigate the educational experiences of 26 Skills to Succeed (S2S) students to discover their trajectory and the extent to which they could access various provisions that facilitate higher academic and employment outcomes as per RPA discourse. Hence, classroom observations, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions were conducted alongside documentation analysis. Key findings revealed that S2S students find themselves in a very competitive college environment that institutionalises a system of success and failure, and also brings them in direct competition with better qualified young people for access to desirable and limited provision. What’s more, embodied policies and practices used GCSE capital to construct an intellectual divide, segregating those with low GCSEs from those deemed more academic. Consequently, S2S students faced exclusion from a range of educational opportunities, placing higher levels of vocational courses, apprenticeship training and the opportunity to re-take GCSEs out of reach. S2S provision fundamentally contributed to exclusionary discourses and practices that constructed great ambiguity as to whether higher academic and employment goals could be accomplished in such a milieu. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]