Youth transitions, place and history with Professor Robert MacDonald.

This paper summarises the thematic findings from 25+ years of our Teesside Studies of Youth Transitions and Social Exclusion. In doing so it charts how young people make transitions to adulthood in times of socio-economic change, under inauspicious social, economic, political and policy conditions and in a place (Teesside, North East England) that has high levels of multiple deprivation. The analysis shows the ineptitude of ‘the voodoo sociology’ and weak versions of ‘social exclusion’ that infect much policy thinking (e.g. that insists the answer lies with ‘raising aspirations’ or the fragmented, degraded work of the ‘gig economy’). Instead, the paper insists on the necessity of a developed analysis of history and geography, the uneven development of late Capitalism and the active processes and decisions that result in the economic marginality of places and populations.

About Robert and his work
Robert MacDonald is a Professor of Education and Social Justice at the University of Huddersfield, and Visiting Professor the Department of Sociology and Social Policy, Nottingham University. He has researched and written widely about young people, youth, unemployment, work, poverty, crime, class, inequality and the significance of place. He is currently working on research about: young adults and the ‘gig economy’; about precarity, generation and class; and on comparative studies of youth in the UK and the MENA (Middle East and North African) countries.

This lecture will take place at 5-6.30pm on Wednesday 15 May in B63 Law and Social Sciences, University Park.

This event is free to attend and all are welcome. For more information, and to book your place, please visit the event page.