Young People and Uncertain Futures?: A Genealogy of Young People's Enterprise and Aspiration, The Fourth Industrial Revolution, and Education for Sustainable Development

Drawing on Foucault’s ‘genealogical ethos’ and his work on power/knowledge/subjects, this book analyses the ways in which neo-liberal education apparatuses in Australia and other high-income economies frame the problem of young people and uncertain futures. The book critically examines the character of the presents and futures of education, training, and work, and of the planet that have been produced in globalising neo-liberal capitalism during the last four decades, and which see in the development of young people’s enterprise and aspiration, the solutions to multiple crises and uncertainties. It analyses how and why young people’s behaviours and dispositions have been made knowable in these ways, and the limits and possibilities that they produce for understanding what young people must be and become. The book draws on post-humanist, feminist studies of techno-science and futures studies to explore the promise of more socially just and sustainable futures for young people. A thought-provoking study for scholars and students of the sociology of education and of youth and society, it will be invaluable for policymakers, governments, NGOs, educators, and undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in young people and the crises of capitalism, earth systems, and the biosphere.