Based on up to date qualitative and ethnographic research, this book examines youth education-to-work transitions in the UK. Using the theoretical lens of a Foucauldian governmentality approach, the authors consider the 'why' and 'how' of youth employability training and demonstrate how different employability schemes planned and operationalised in diverse geographical and economic landscapes work in practice. The book examines and compares a range of employment entry route programmes and reveals the tension between employability and good quality employment, and the ways in which young people from varying social and regional backgrounds are positioned very differently within this.

Pauline Leonard is Professor of Sociology, University of Southampton. She has longstanding research interests in diversity and work, and how gender, race, class and age impact careers and opportunities.

Rachel J. Wilde is a social anthropologist, lecturer in education at University College London and researches on work, organizations and young people.