Closing Commentary,Opening Conversations: Liminal Reflections on Decent Work,Emerging Adulthood,and Social Justice

Abstract

This paper engages with and reacts to the five papers authored by the UNITWIN research teams responsible for this special issue. It highlights some of the key concepts, themes, and analyses in regard to prolonged transitions and decent work, weaving them together while offering a series of reflections about them. In so doing, this paper adopts a social justice lens and deploys critical social science perspectives in order to make sense of the trials and tribulations faced by low qualified, emerging adults under the long shadow of neoliberalism. Such an approach enables a contrapuntal reading of the papers under consideration, with a view to generating fresh insights on contemporary transitions in both developed and developing country contexts. These reflections seek to further enrich a powerful and compelling set of papers by adding complementary layers of analyses, providing pointers to renewed policy and practice.

Keywords

unqualified young adults vulnerabilization social justice decent work career guidance neo-liberalism yo-yo transitions liminality

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Annan

(2001) The nobel peace prize speech. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2001/annan/lecture/

Arnett

J. J.

(2015). Emerging adulthood: The winding road from the late teens through the twenties. Oxford University Press.

Bauman

(2012). Times of interregnum. Ethics and Global Politics, 5(1), 49–56. https://doi.org/10.3402/egp.v5i1.17200

Bhabha

H. K.

(2004). The location of culture. Routledge.

Blustein

D. L.

(Ed.). (2013). The Oxford handbook of the psychology of working. Oxford University Press.

Blustein

D. L.

(2019). The importance of work in an age of uncertainty: the eroding work experience in America. Oxford University Press.

Brown

Souto-Otero

(2020). The end of the credential society? An analysis of the relationship between education and the labour market using big data. Journal of Education Policy, 35(1), 95–118. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2018.1549752

Cappelli

P. H.

(2015). Skill gaps, skill shortages, and skill mismatches: Evidence and arguments for the United States. ILR Review, 68(2), 251–290. https://doi.org/10.1177/2F0019793914564961

Cuconato

Walther

(2015). Doing transitions in education. International Journal for Qualitative Studies in Education, 28(3), 283–296. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2014.987851

10.

Deranty

J.-P.

MacMillan

(2012). The ILO’s decent work initiative: Suggestions for an extension of the notion of ‘decent work. Journal of Social Philosophy, 43(4), 386–405. https://doi.org/10.1111/josp.12003

11.

Eurofound (2017). Work poverty in the EU. Publications Office of the European Union.

12.

Hauf

(2015). The paradoxes of decent work in context: A cultural political economy perspective. Global Labour Journal, 6(2), 138-155. https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v6i2.2327.

13.

Hooley

Sultna

Thomsen

(Eds.). (2017). Career guidance for social justice: Contesting neoliberalism. Routledge.

14.

Hooley

Sultna

Thomsen

(Eds.). (2018a). Career guidance for emancipation: Reclaiming justice for the multitude. Routledge.

15.

Hooley

Sultana

Thomsen

(2018b). Towards an emancipatory career guidance: What is to be done? In Hooley

Sultna

Thomsen

(Eds.), Career guidance for emancipation: Reclaiming justice for the multitude (pp. 247-257). Routledge.

16.

International Labor Organization . (2016). World employment and social outlook: Trends 2016. International Labor Organization.

17.

Keep

(2020). Employers, the ghost at the feast. Journal of Education and Work, 33(7–8), 500–506. https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2020.1852501

18.

Lacan

(2001). Écrits: A selection. Routledge.

19.

Land

Meyer

J. H. F.

Baillie

(Eds.). (2010). Threshold concepts and transformational learning. Sense Publishers.

20.

Nussbaum

M. C.

(2001). Adaptive preferences and women’s options. Economic and Philosophy, 17(1), 67–88. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0266267101000153

21.

OECD . (2000). From Initial Education to Working Life: Making Transitions Work. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264181816-en.

22.

Oxfam (2016). An economy for the 1%: How privilege and power in the economy drive extreme inequality and how this can be stopped. https://oi-files-d8-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/file_attachments/bp210-economy-one-percent-tax-havens-180116-en_0.pdf

23.

Piketty

(2014). Capital in the twenty-first century. Belknap Press.

24.

Previtali

F. S.

Fagiani

C. C.

(2015). Deskilling and degradation of labour in contemporary capitalism: the continuing relevance of braverman. Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation, 9(1), 76–91. https://doi.org/10.13169/workorgalaboglob.9.1.0076

25.

Schwartz

S. J.

(2016). Turning point for a turning point: Advancing emerging adulthood theory and research. Emerging Adulthood, 4(5), 307–317. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F2167696815624640

26.

Sennett

(1998). The corrosion of character: The personal consequences of work in the new capitalism. W. W. Norton.

27.

Standing

(2011). The precariat: The new dangerous class. Bloomsbury Academic.

28.

Sultana

G. (2022) (In press). Four ‘dirty words’ in career guidance: From common sense to good sense. International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance.

29.

Sultana

R. G.

Watts

A. G.

(2006). Career guidance in public employment services across Europe. International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance, 6(1), 29–46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10775-006-0001-5

30.

Sultana

R. G.

(2012). Learning career management skills in Europe: A critical review. Journal of Education and Work, 25(2), 225–248. https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2010.547846

31.

Sultana

R. G.

(Ed.). (2017). Career guidance and livelihood planning across the mediterranean: Challenging transitions in South Europe and the MENA region. Sense Publishers.

32.

Sultana

R. G.

Watts

A. G.

(2008). Career guidance in the Middle East and North Africa. International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance, 8(1), 19-34.

33.

Tax Justice Network, Public Services International & the Global Alliance for Tax Justice (2020). The state of tax justice: Tax justice in the time of COVID-19. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, NORAD.

34.

Walther

(2002). Misleading trajectories: Integration policies for young people in Europe? Springer.

35.

Walther

(2006). Regimes of youth transitions. Choice, flexibility and security in young people’s experiences across different European contexts. YOUNG, 14(2), 119–139. https://doi.org/10.1177/1103308806062737