Poverty, Social Exclusion and Neighbourhood: Studying the area bases of social exclusion

Are-based policies have become a significant part of the new Labour Government's approach to tackling social exclusion. This paper reviews the long-running debate about whether area-based policies can make a significant impact on poverty and social exclusion. There is a strong tradition of academic work that argues that this is a misguided strategy. The authors argue that recent work, both in the US and the UK, suggests that there may be causal factors at work which derive from area-based problems that suggest area-based solutions. However, too little is understood about what these factors are and how they might be addressed. Deeper local studies are required to tease out these effects. The paper then goes on to describe how the authors have gone about choosing twelve areas for particular study. In the course of doing so, much has been learned about the characteristics of the most deprived areas in the country and where they are.neighbourhoods, poverty, social exclusion

Black and minority ethnic access to higher education: a reassessment

This research revisits the contested issue of ethnic minority access to higher education. It is well established that candidates from black and minority ethnic groups go to university in good numbers, but we also know that candidates from some minority groups tend to be concentrated in less prestigious institutions. Access to high status institutions is important for several reasons, not least because it is likely to affect candidates’ subsequent destinations and their ability to access elite professions

Quality in higher education: an international perspective: the views of transnational corporations

The aim of this comparative study is to provide insight into the views of transnational corporations about higher education. Little appears to be known about how employers based in different countries perceive higher education in their countries, what skills and attributes they are seeking in their graduate recruits, what the aims of higher education should be and what changes are needed to the higher education system to meet the needs of employers. The increasingly globalised economy means that such a perspective can enhance our understanding of employers as a major stakeholder in higher education. This report provides the findings from a qualitative survey of transnational corporations and other major companies from different employment sectors in four countries – Australia, Malaysia, the UK and the USA

The experience of co-residence: young adults returning to the parental home after graduation in England

Finishing full-time higher education is one of the main reasons for returning home to live. Graduates who return to co-residence with their parents experience a delay in achieving full adult independence, which may pose problems for them and for their parents. In this article we use face-to-face interview data to explore the feelings and perceptions of 27 co-resident graduate 'returners' and one of their parents. We classify parent–returner dyads into groups according to whether the members of each dyad are positive, negative or ambivalent about co-residence and identify the salient issues for each group. We find that more parents are negative about co-residence than adult children and that almost half the sample is ambivalent. We also discuss the factors accounting for differences between groups of dyads and between parents and adult children

Paying for higher education in England: funding policy and families

Responsibility for meeting the costs of higher education in England has moved inexorably away from the government toward the family with the introduction of tuition fee and maintenance loans. Although an important public policy issue, there is limited research on how the policy impinges on the private sphere of the family. This paper focuses on financial support given by parents, including difficulties and constraints along with their perspectives of and responses to student loan debt, and students’ views of their financial independence. In-depth interviews with 28 parent-student dyads revealed different patterns of support. Some parents, contrary to policy assumptions, felt responsibility for their children’s student loan debt and acted to avoid, minimise or cushion the debt. There was evidence of financial stress for less affluent families. However, students with no parental support and high levels of government funding felt financially independent. The findings suggest that more affluent families were able to protect their children from student loan debt in different ways, whilst those with lower incomes were not able to do so, apparently creating a new form of inequality

Young adult graduates living in the parental home: expectations, negotiations and parental financial support

In the UK and the US significant numbers of university graduates live with their parents, but little is known about expectations regarding parental support. This article focuses on a sample of British middle-class families and their co-resident young adult children. It explores the extent to which parents and their graduate children have consistent expectations regarding co-residence and financial support, and how this is negotiated. Fifty-four in-depth interviews with parents and adult children were conducted. The findings reveal that expectations regarding co-residence were broadly consistent across parents and graduate children. Furthermore, within families there was broad consistency regarding expectations of financial support, although there was variation between families. The nature and ways in which financial arrangements were negotiated varied between families, between parents and between children. Expectations appear to be shaped by the child’s circumstances and norms, with negotiations of different types enabling a way forward to be agreed

Paying for higher education in England: funding policy and families

Responsibility for meeting the costs of higher education in England has moved inexorably away from the government toward the family with the introduction of tuition fee and maintenance loans. Although an important public policy issue, there is limited research on how the policy impinges on the private sphere of the family. This paper focuses on financial support given by parents, including difficulties and constraints along with their perspectives of and responses to student loan debt, and students’ views of their financial independence. In-depth interviews with 28 parent-student dyads revealed different patterns of support. Some parents, contrary to policy assumptions, felt responsibility for their children’s student loan debt and acted to avoid, minimise or cushion the debt. There was evidence of financial stress for less affluent families. However, students with no parental support and high levels of government funding felt financially independent. The findings suggest that more affluent families were able to protect their children from student loan debt in different ways, whilst those with lower incomes were not able to do so, apparently creating a new form of inequality

Living with the parents: the purpose of young graduates’ return to the parental home in England

Young graduates in England often return to the parental home after a period of living away during their university studies. Little is known, however, about why they return and how coresidence with parents fits within a life trajectory. This paper reports upon an in-depth cross-sectional qualitative study of young graduates’ coresidence with their parents. It identifies a five-part typology of the purpose of coresidence as perceived by the graduates: a base camp for exploration before settling into adulthood; a launch pad for careers; a savings bank, in particular for future property purchases; a refuge for respite and reflection; and a preferred residence, whether on account of comfort, cultural practice or to support parents. The paper further explores how far these purposes were associated in young adults’ accounts with social structures, individual agency or some combination of these. It concludes that the default understanding of graduates’ return and coresidence as a residual function when other options fail is insufficient. Such a generalisation obscures the different purposes which the return can enable; it overplays some notion of a broken biography rather than the positive contribution of coresidence to graduates’ trajectories towards adulthood and to their life experiences