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POLICY PARADOXES: THE DISEMPOWERMENT OF YOUNG PEOPLE UNDER THE LABOR GOVERNMENT, 1983–91
Author(s) -
Bessant Judith
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
australian journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.417
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1839-4655
pISSN - 0157-6321
DOI - 10.1002/j.1839-4655.1993.tb00919.x
Subject(s) - restructuring , punitive damages , government (linguistics) , unemployment , youth unemployment , project commissioning , publishing , sociology , political science , economic growth , economics , law , philosophy , linguistics
This paper explores the restructuring of the experience of young people's lives. It examines Federal Labor Government youth and education policy apparently developed as a response to the high levels of youth unemployment in place since 1976–77. It argues that these policies have dramatically altered the experience of being young by creating greater dependence and further disempowerment. It argues that young people have become the objects of punitive exercises that deny them their basic rights, disenfranchise them and extend the socially constructed features of adolescence into early ‘adulthood’.