Opportunity, equality and agency in England's new VET landscape: a longitudinal study of post-16 transitions
Lead Research Organisation:
King's College London
Department Name: Education,Communication & Society
Abstract
This 5-year study will investigate how England's vocational education and training (VET) system can better support the school-to-work transitions of the 50% of young people who do not go to university. Routes into further education, training and employment for these young people are often characterised by complexity, instability, uncertain prospects and drop-out. Around 13% of 18-24 year olds are not in any form of education, employment or training.
The research will focus on the 16-20 age group and will have a particular emphasis on engaging with the perspectives of young people themselves, including those who are marginalised and whose input is often not heard in policymaking. These young people are more likely to fall between gaps in the system and not be in education, employment or training, which is associated with a range of negative outcomes and lifetime costs.
The research will compare the opportunities for young people living in different places and the resources they are able to draw on to help them make and exercise meaningful career and employment choices. It will explore young people's values, how differently resourced young people experience their transitions and the implications for equality, policy and professional practice.
The research is guided by the principle that, to make transitions more equitable, we need to fully engage with: different dimensions of equality and the challenges of realising equality in practice; combinations of different kinds of advantages and disadvantages experienced by young people, including those often neglected in VET research, e.g. those associated with sexuality, gender identity, disability, academic attainment and place, alongside those of class, 'race' and gender; and how the range of possible opportunities interacts with young people's life experiences, values and agency.
The project will use national-level statistical analysis of student destinations and a longitudinal survey of c.17,000 young people to establish who is getting access to which opportunities and provide a large-scale mapping of young people's values, aspirations and trajectories. In-depth research consisting of 500 qualitative interviews with policymakers, practitioners, young people and their parents/carers across four contrasting local authorities will provide more detailed insights to elucidate the quantitative findings. Towards the end of the project we will convene international VET scholars to bring cross-national comparative insights to bear on our findings.
The research will be co-produced with key stakeholders. By helping policymakers develop greater insight into young people's lives and perspectives and supporting reflection on how the tensions involved in simultaneously addressing different kinds of inequality might best be managed, the research will help ensure that policy is more sensitive to the complexity of both young people's experiences and inequality; and hence more likely to be successful in creating more navigable and equitable transitions. The project will also help build capacity in the effective use of research to inform policy and practice development, help young people develop their advocacy skills and produce two major new datasets that will be of value for substantial future research by other teams.
The research addresses pressing national policy priorities as England is currently engaged in fundamental reforms to its VET system. These have been fuelled by linked concerns about equality and productivity, in particular the disparities in education and skill levels that can prevent those from disadvantaged regions, those categorised as black or minority ethnic, as well as women and disabled people from accessing high-skill employment. This project will provide new understandings of how these disparities are produced and how they might be reduced. In doing so, it will generate insights of critical relevance to the government's equality and productivity agendas.
The research will focus on the 16-20 age group and will have a particular emphasis on engaging with the perspectives of young people themselves, including those who are marginalised and whose input is often not heard in policymaking. These young people are more likely to fall between gaps in the system and not be in education, employment or training, which is associated with a range of negative outcomes and lifetime costs.
The research will compare the opportunities for young people living in different places and the resources they are able to draw on to help them make and exercise meaningful career and employment choices. It will explore young people's values, how differently resourced young people experience their transitions and the implications for equality, policy and professional practice.
The research is guided by the principle that, to make transitions more equitable, we need to fully engage with: different dimensions of equality and the challenges of realising equality in practice; combinations of different kinds of advantages and disadvantages experienced by young people, including those often neglected in VET research, e.g. those associated with sexuality, gender identity, disability, academic attainment and place, alongside those of class, 'race' and gender; and how the range of possible opportunities interacts with young people's life experiences, values and agency.
The project will use national-level statistical analysis of student destinations and a longitudinal survey of c.17,000 young people to establish who is getting access to which opportunities and provide a large-scale mapping of young people's values, aspirations and trajectories. In-depth research consisting of 500 qualitative interviews with policymakers, practitioners, young people and their parents/carers across four contrasting local authorities will provide more detailed insights to elucidate the quantitative findings. Towards the end of the project we will convene international VET scholars to bring cross-national comparative insights to bear on our findings.
The research will be co-produced with key stakeholders. By helping policymakers develop greater insight into young people's lives and perspectives and supporting reflection on how the tensions involved in simultaneously addressing different kinds of inequality might best be managed, the research will help ensure that policy is more sensitive to the complexity of both young people's experiences and inequality; and hence more likely to be successful in creating more navigable and equitable transitions. The project will also help build capacity in the effective use of research to inform policy and practice development, help young people develop their advocacy skills and produce two major new datasets that will be of value for substantial future research by other teams.
The research addresses pressing national policy priorities as England is currently engaged in fundamental reforms to its VET system. These have been fuelled by linked concerns about equality and productivity, in particular the disparities in education and skill levels that can prevent those from disadvantaged regions, those categorised as black or minority ethnic, as well as women and disabled people from accessing high-skill employment. This project will provide new understandings of how these disparities are produced and how they might be reduced. In doing so, it will generate insights of critical relevance to the government's equality and productivity agendas.
Planned Impact
We will collaborate with 4 groups of stakeholders throughout the project to optimise policy and practice relevance:
1. Policymakers: This group includes policymakers in the Departments for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Education, and Work and Pensions, MPs, the Institute for Apprenticeships, the Careers and Enterprise Company, employers and representative organisations (e.g. the Association of Colleges, Association of Employment and Learning Providers, the CBI), Local Enterprise Partnerships, combined and local authorities and Multi Academy Trusts. A key concern for the young people and organisations involved in the co-design of the research is that interventions are often insufficiently responsive to the specificities of the barriers facing differently resourced young people or to their diverse values and aspirations. Through a range of project outputs and ongoing dialogue with policymakers, the research will help build insight into young people's lives and perspectives and the tensions of simultaneously addressing different dimensions of inequality. This, in turn, will help make policy more sensitive to the complexity both of young people's experiences and of inequality and hence more likely to facilitate more navigable and equitable transitions. Specific policy areas the findings will illuminate include T-Levels, A-Levels, careers guidance, apprenticeships and participation and support for those classified as 'NEET', particularly in disadvantaged regions, all of which are core to the UK's Industrial Strategy.
2. Practitioners and leaders working in VET and in supporting young people: The research has been designed to generate practice-oriented insights for those organising and delivering VET (teachers, trainers, careers advisers and related organisations) and for organisations who support young people's transitions (e.g. AccessUK, Disability Rights UK, National Youth Agency, Stonewall, the TUC). Through close engagement with these organisations and a series of reports and CPD materials co-produced with them, the research will contribute to: enhanced learner support in schools and colleges; improved employer practice in supporting the career development and learning of young workers; better careers guidance and transitions support for those not in formal education or, for other reasons, unlikely to engage with school or college-based advice; and building capacity in the effective use of research to inform policy and practice development.
3. Grant-making organisations: Charitable grant makers, such as Big Lottery, City Bridge, Esmée Fairbairn and Paul Hamlyn, are keen to target their investments in evidence-based ways. We will provide them with evidence on the kinds of initiatives young people experience as most effective.
4. Young people: Young people who do not go to university will be the main beneficiaries of the research through improved policy, practice and funding arrangements, in particular, those who are marginalised through their experience of intersecting inequalities and whose input is less often heard in policy making. These young people are more likely to fall between the gaps in the system and be classified as 'NEET' which is associated with a range of negative outcomes and lifetime costs. As well as these primary benefits for a wide constituency of young people, the c.17,000 young people directly involved in the research will benefit through the chance to reflect on their transitions. In addition, impact activities will be designed to reach a wider group of young people to increase their awareness of effective strategies for navigating transitions and support the development of their advocacy skills.
The research will also contribute to public understanding of the experiences and perspectives of the 50% of young people who don't go to university, the challenges of addressing disparities of access to high quality education, training and employment and potential policy solutions.
1. Policymakers: This group includes policymakers in the Departments for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Education, and Work and Pensions, MPs, the Institute for Apprenticeships, the Careers and Enterprise Company, employers and representative organisations (e.g. the Association of Colleges, Association of Employment and Learning Providers, the CBI), Local Enterprise Partnerships, combined and local authorities and Multi Academy Trusts. A key concern for the young people and organisations involved in the co-design of the research is that interventions are often insufficiently responsive to the specificities of the barriers facing differently resourced young people or to their diverse values and aspirations. Through a range of project outputs and ongoing dialogue with policymakers, the research will help build insight into young people's lives and perspectives and the tensions of simultaneously addressing different dimensions of inequality. This, in turn, will help make policy more sensitive to the complexity both of young people's experiences and of inequality and hence more likely to facilitate more navigable and equitable transitions. Specific policy areas the findings will illuminate include T-Levels, A-Levels, careers guidance, apprenticeships and participation and support for those classified as 'NEET', particularly in disadvantaged regions, all of which are core to the UK's Industrial Strategy.
2. Practitioners and leaders working in VET and in supporting young people: The research has been designed to generate practice-oriented insights for those organising and delivering VET (teachers, trainers, careers advisers and related organisations) and for organisations who support young people's transitions (e.g. AccessUK, Disability Rights UK, National Youth Agency, Stonewall, the TUC). Through close engagement with these organisations and a series of reports and CPD materials co-produced with them, the research will contribute to: enhanced learner support in schools and colleges; improved employer practice in supporting the career development and learning of young workers; better careers guidance and transitions support for those not in formal education or, for other reasons, unlikely to engage with school or college-based advice; and building capacity in the effective use of research to inform policy and practice development.
3. Grant-making organisations: Charitable grant makers, such as Big Lottery, City Bridge, Esmée Fairbairn and Paul Hamlyn, are keen to target their investments in evidence-based ways. We will provide them with evidence on the kinds of initiatives young people experience as most effective.
4. Young people: Young people who do not go to university will be the main beneficiaries of the research through improved policy, practice and funding arrangements, in particular, those who are marginalised through their experience of intersecting inequalities and whose input is less often heard in policy making. These young people are more likely to fall between the gaps in the system and be classified as 'NEET' which is associated with a range of negative outcomes and lifetime costs. As well as these primary benefits for a wide constituency of young people, the c.17,000 young people directly involved in the research will benefit through the chance to reflect on their transitions. In addition, impact activities will be designed to reach a wider group of young people to increase their awareness of effective strategies for navigating transitions and support the development of their advocacy skills.
The research will also contribute to public understanding of the experiences and perspectives of the 50% of young people who don't go to university, the challenges of addressing disparities of access to high quality education, training and employment and potential policy solutions.
Publications
Charlotte McPherson
(2023)
Changing VET landscape, familiar challenges
in InTuition
Gewirtz S
(2022)
Thinking with Stephen J. Ball - Lines of Flight in Education
Weavers, A.
(2021)
Education Maintenance Allowance
| Description | Key findings from our most recent report 'Schools for all?' are based on data from a nationally representative survey of over 10,000 15-16 year old young people conducted in the summer of 2021 and qualitative interviews with over 100 young people aged 15-18 carried out between 2020 and 2022. They include the following: - For nearly 1 in 2 young people aged 15-16, secondary school is not an enjoyable or meaningful experience, but is rather something they feel they need to 'get through' because of its bearing on their futures. - Many secondary schools have adopted teaching methods that many young people experience as alienating and stressful, particularly those with creative and practical interests and those who have special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). - Many young people feel unsupported by their teachers at school. This is most common among young people with SEND or from backgrounds of socioeconomic disadvantage. These are groups of young people who often require more support at school. Yet pressure on teachers to get students through exams, in a context of cuts to school budgets, is limiting the pastoral and additional educational support these young people can access. - Young people from low-income and minority ethnic backgrounds, those who identify as LGBT and/or nonbinary, young people with SEND and those who report lower levels of mental health and wellbeing are less likely to feel noticed or listened to by their teachers and are less likely to feel that their schools respect and value diversity. - 45% of young people identifying with minority sexuality categories and 39% of those identifying as trans reported unfair treatment or bullying by peers based on their sexual orientation and trans status respectively. - Almost one in every four young people reported being treated unfairly by their peers because of their size or style (including how they look). - Young people who had left mainstream school for alternative education provision or vocational education and training were mostly thriving in these different educational settings, often for the first time. In these settings, young people described having more meaningful and supportive relationships with teachers and a feeling of greater autonomy and choice over what and how they learned. Our key interim findings summarised below are based on a preliminary analysis of our first tranche of 70 qualitative interviews with young people, policy makers and practitioners who are involved in supporting young people's transitions into further education and work in our four case-study local authority areas. • The coronavirus pandemic has significantly impacted young people's lives and post-16 transitions. Most of the young people we spoke with in our first tranche of interviews found the shift to remote learning difficult, whether due to a lack of sufficient resources to participate in their studies effectively, and/or because they found it difficult to concentrate on, or 'keep up' with, their lessons online. This was a particular problem for young people on vocational courses who had been attracted by the more practical, hands-on nature of these courses, but who were instead confined to classroom-style learning. Many participants also expressed concern about the impact of the pandemic on young people's mental health, and the difficulties of accessing support while in lockdown. At a time when young people needed more support, many of our participants' testimonies suggest they were largely left to navigate these challenges on their own, drawing from their own resources and social networks. While there are heroic stories of schools and colleges going 'above and beyond' to develop creative approaches to supporting young people during the pandemic, existing research suggests that the conditions created by chronic underfunding, coupled with the narrow skills-based lens through which vocational education and training (VET) is understood by government, may be limiting what it is possible for schools and colleges to provide in the way of meaningful social and emotional support for young people on VET pathways (FETL, 2020). This is an area we hope to be able to explore further in subsequent waves of data collection. • Young people's post-16 transitions through VET are often non-linear and disjointed. While many practitioners involved in supporting young people's transitions attributed this to a lack of direction and agency among young people, the young people we spoke with exhibited a marked sense of personal agency and were strongly future oriented. What practitioners often negatively characterised as protracted and/or disjointed VET transitions were framed more positively by young people as the result of them 'testing the waters' of post-16 VET options they often felt rushed to enrol in, and many expressed a desire for more opportunities to sample a range of these options while still in school. • Young people taking non-university routes into employment face a range of distinctive barriers and challenges in their post-16 transitions. Some practitioners and policy makers expressed concern about young people's 'readiness' for further education, employment or training, suggesting deficits in 'soft' and 'hard' skills and a lack of work experience and understanding. Others placed greater emphasis on structural barriers. In addition to a lack of good quality job opportunities available locally and expensive and/or poor quality public transport networks that prevented young people from accessing jobs outside of their immediate localities, these structural barriers included challenging environments for young people relating to chronic problems of violence, public spending cuts and poverty. • A core challenge continues to be the low status of vocational pathways into employment compared to more traditional academic routes. Despite a sustained policy emphasis on achieving greater 'parity of esteem' between vocational education and academic pathways in England, many policy makers and practitioners expressed concern that vocational routes are still commonly viewed as inferior 'back up' options to more prestigious academic routes through sixth form and university. Some believed that this was attributable to a lack of knowledge among school teachers, and some careers advisors, about post-16 transitions that do not involve university. • There is widespread concern about current provision of careers information, advice and guidance in England, with many young people being denied access to impartial advice from professionally trained careers advisors. While some participants could identify examples of good practice or welcomed recent policy initiatives intended to enhance the quality of careers information, advice and guidance (e.g. the Gatsby benchmarks), the consensus was that the quality and consistency of careers support needs to improve for young people who do not go to university. There were particular concerns expressed by some education practitioners that the careers information, advice and guidance young people receive in school typically reinforces traditional choices by not presenting young people with adequate or full information about the advantages and logistics of vocational options. This perception was echoed in the experiences of many of the young people we spoke with, who felt they had not been presented with a full range of post-16 options by careers advisors and teachers, and that advice was overwhelmingly weighted towards promoting traditional academic routes through sixth forms and university. • Young people who have migrated from other countries face additional challenges relating to their transitions. These include: - their non-UK skills and qualifications not always being recognised, in some cases resulting in them being enrolled for qualifications at a lower level than they are capable of studying. While we have not yet had the opportunity to investigate tutors' motivations for placing students from migrant backgrounds in lower level courses than they are qualified for, it may be that the use of student performance as a measure of institutional performance in England's VET system is acting as a perverse incentive for colleges to prioritise ease of passing a qualification over students' educational needs and interests when enrolling them in classes. This is another issue we hope to further investigate in future waves of data collection. -young migrants having to rely on advice from parents who themselves are not familiar with the English education system because they cannot access professional careers guidance; - a lack of access to sufficient English as an Additional Language support in schools and colleges; and - having to navigate online learning, settle into schools and communities, establish friendships, learn English and make decisions about their futures while contending with pandemic containment measures that have made all of these things even more difficult. Reference: FETL (Further Education Trust for Leadership) (2020) Leadership, further education and social justice. FETL. |
| Exploitation Route | Taken together, our findings so far suggest that the most significant priorities for policymakers to address are the need for: -The development of new approaches to the design of school curricula and accountability processes that are based on a broader conception of the purposes of - and what it means to be successful in - education and that are more responsive to the diversity of young people's experiences and perspectives. These new approaches will require the participation - alongside teachers and other key stakeholders - of young people, whose voices have for far too long been ignored in decision-making at all levels of the education system. - The creation of more resources, space and time for teachers to develop meaningful and supportive relationships with their students. Such relationships would be rooted in whole school practices that reflect the diverse identities and concerns of learners and help tackle, rather than side-line, the social and cultural injustices that can make schools such alienating places for so many young people. This needs to be a priority for policy, given the serious implications of an absence of supportive relationships with teachers and inclusive school cultures for young people's experiences of school, their engagement with education more broadly and their longer term physical and mental health and wellbeing. • High quality independent careers advice that is better tailored for young people on vocational education pathways. • An increased availability of high quality employment opportunities for young people on non-university vocational education pathways. • Improvements to public transport (especially in rural and semi-rural areas) and travel subsidies to enable young people to access employment opportunities beyond their immediate locality. • Improved access to specialist English as an Additional Language support for young people from migrant backgrounds. Our interim findings also suggest that there is a need for further research on: • What needs to be done at different levels of policy and practice intervention to improve the provision of meaningful social and emotional support for young people on VET pathways. • Whether and how far performance-based accountability mechanisms in post-16 education are resulting in a systematic downgrading of young migrants' prior learning and hence their being systematically disadvantaged through being placed in lower level courses than they are capable of studying. We hope to include a focus on both of these topics in future rounds of data collection and analysis. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Education,Government, Democracy and Justice,Transport |
| URL | https://www.ylyf.co.uk/_files/ugd/9522d5_38b60f9cbce84974a7264eaf12e4a811.pdf |
| Description | Centre for Education and Youth and Gatsby Foundation roundtable |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to new or Improved professional practice |
| Description | Centre for Youth Impact focus group |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to new or Improved professional practice |
| Description | Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport-led review of youth services |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| URL | https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/youth-review-summary-findings-and-government-response |
| Description | The Civic Journey evidence review workshop |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
| URL | https://icstudies.org.uk/civic-journey |
| Title | Your Life, Your Future Wave 1 Questionnaire |
| Description | Your life, your future is a major longitudinal survey which is exploring the opportunities and support available to young people living in different places and their aspirations, attitudes and experiences as they move through and beyond their final years of compulsory education. This survey, which is following over 4,000 young people across England over three years, starting when they are aged 15-16, will help us understand how young people can be better supported to make meaningful choices about their future lives. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | None yet. |
| Description | Annual Advisory Panel Meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The advisory panel meets annually. It consists of a young people's advisory group and a panel of policy makers, practitioners and academic experts. It is an opportunity for the research team to elicit feedback on our research instruments and interim findings and to increase awareness of the project and its findings. At the 2022 meeting where preliminary findings were shared, participants expressed an interest in using the findings in their organisations, including for example the representative from the Children and Young People's Mental Health Coalition. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019,2021,2022 |
| Description | Centre for Education and Youth (CfEY), Young Expert Citizens steering group (November 2022 and January 2023) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | This is a steering group to inform a new project, Young Expert Citizens, to improve youth representation in local policymaking. The project involves young people working on projects to influence policymaking in two local areas. The steering group helps to shape the project and Alice Weavers contributed ideas about young people recruitment methods based on YLYF research experiences. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Civic Journey symposium (December 2022) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The Civic Journey is a project led by the Institute for Community Studies to understand how research, policy and practice can support young people in civic life in different stages of their transitions to adulthood. The symposium was attended by researchers, youth organisations and policymakers and Alice Weavers joined in discussions with insights from the YLYF project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | DCMS Youth Policy team youth voice workshop (October 2022) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | 27 civil servants attended a workshop on how to involve young people in government policymaking. This helped them to think about their projects and the different ways they could bring youth voice into their work. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Edge Foundation 'Rethinking Education' podcast (March 2023) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The topic for this podcast episode was youth voice in education and it involved a discussion between representatives from Edge and Youth Employment UK about the importance of youth voice and the challenges of involving young people in policy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.edge.co.uk/news-and-events/podcasts-and-videos/ |
| Description | Edge Foundation Research Review Group |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The Edge Foundation convenes the Research Review Group which brings together around 50 researchers and research and policy organisations working in the field of vocational education and young people's education and preparation for the labour market (with around 30 attending each meeting). We presented an update on the project and initial key findings to a virtual meeting of the group in July 2022, which was well received and they were keen to stay in touch to find out more and help to disseminate key messages from the project. We have an open invitation to go back to the group at key points in the research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Education & Training Foundation Staff Seminar |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Research team colleagues presented findings on schools as hostile environments for many young people and their more positive experiences of learning in alternative and college settings to a 'learning hour' seminar for staff at the Education & Training Foundation. Nine staff members attending representing a range of roles in the organisation including the National Heads of Initial Teacher Education, Maths, Inclusion, Safeguarding, ESOL and English, Leadership Development and two Quality Auditors. The presentation generated a lively debate about the shortcomings of school education including its harmful effects on many young people and the attendees expressed an interest in ongoing dialogue about the findings emerging from our research. The National Head of ITE reported that the findings validated their decision to make relationships central to the recently launched Diploma in Teaching (FE and Skills) and that the findings would inform their discussions with the Department for Education. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Official project launch |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | To mark the official project launch of the project we hosted an online young person-led panel discussion exploring young people's experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic and how they would like to see education change in the future. 240 people registered for the event and over 150 attended. The YouTube video of the event has been watched 170 times. The meeting was followed up with a conversation with the panel to see how we could use the event to start to support the different youth-led movements represented to begin to work even more closely together and amplify their voices. This resulted in the formation of the Youth Voice Champions Network which has grown to about 15 members, all of them young people aiming to make a difference to the education system. Colleagues at the Edge Foundation have been meeting them regularly to take their views and amplify their work. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa7tTzhIUH0&t=12s |
| Description | Project website |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The project website is designed to provide information about the project to potential collaborators, study participants, other researchers, policymakers and other project stakeholders and the general public. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019,2020,2021,2022 |
| URL | https://www.ylyf.co.uk |
| Description | Structural Economic Injustice Podcast |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | In this podcast, Young Lives, Young Futures research, Charlotte McPherson explains how economic injustice affects young people, how young people are culturally and economically devalued as a group, and the light that Covid-19 shone on these issues. She also explores potential policy solutions including a living wage and greater political representation for young people. A summary of the key points (relating to the gig economy and precarity, in work poverty, political marginalisation of young people and the history of economic injustice) can be found here: https://economicinjustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Charlotte_McPherson_Explainer_Factsheet.pdf. The podcast is designed to be used in schools, universities and other settings to educate students and the wider public about how young people are affected by economic injustice and galvanise them to take action to address the economic injustices faced by young people. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://economicinjustice.org.uk/structural-economic-injustice/ |
| Description | Structural Economic Injustice Video |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Part of a series of videos focused on economic injustice produced by the charity, Journey to Justice, this video, features project researcher, Charlotte McPherson explaining the power of rhetoric that blames people for their own poverty and structural injustices. She focuses on the links between low wages, insecure work and food poverty experienced by young people. The video is designed to be used as a resource in schools, universities and other settings to educate and inspire people to take action for social and economic justice. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://economicinjustice.org.uk/structural-economic-injustice/ |
| Description | Symposium on the role of place in shaping youth transitions |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presentations at a symposium of the British Education Research Association entitled 'Exploring Place in English Post-16 Transitions: Evidence, theory and policy'. The purpose was to share insights from our research with an academic audience, explore synergies between our own project and a Nuffield Foundation study of the transitions of young people who don't achieve the critical benchmark of English and Maths GCSEs at grade 4/C at age 16, and spark discussion and debate. There was a lively discussion and the symposium increased awareness of our study. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Youth Voice Research Showcase Webinar |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The session reviewed, compared and debated the findings from four recent research studies which have listened to and shared young people's views. This included a presentation on the Schools for All? report that was launched on the day of the session. The presentation sparked a lively debate and garnered interest in social media. The theme that was picked up most strongly is that of young people's alienation with school, which particularly resonated with the community of organisations supporting young people who have struggled to 'fit into' mainstream schooling or are home educated including Phoenix Education, Autistic Girls Network and Square Peg. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.edge.co.uk/news-and-events/events/are-we-listening-youth-voice-research-showcase/ |