Captured Customers: people with learning difficulties in the social market

This article explores the experiences of education, training and employment services for people with learning difficulties, examining the operation of the social market across these different spheres. It begins by discussing some broad features of the market within the public policy arena and the particular models adopted in post‐school education, training and community care. Subsequently, drawing on the research project The Meaning of the Learning Society for Adults with Learning Difficulties the authors interrogate the accounts given by different professional groups of the way in which the market works in practice and juxtapose these with the experiences of people with learning difficulties whose lives were explored through ethnographic case studies. The authors conclude that the choices of those with the most significant learning difficulties are restricted because of their impairments, but some degree of choice is possible for all. For most people with learning difficulties, choices are restricted not so much by their impairments as by the ethos and structures of the services they use. It appears that potential or current economic activity is used as a gateway to consumer citizenship and those who are deemed to be of only marginal economic value have access to a restricted range of services which tend to be allocated rather than chosen.