Abstract:
The aim of this study was to find out more about the lives of young people in the category ‘not in
education, employment or training’ (NEET). We worked intensively with 26 young people in four
smaller groups, spending three days with each group. During our time with them we engaged in a
variety of creative and artistic activities designed to help them to construct accounts of their lives for
us with the purpose of gaining an understanding of what it was like to be NEET. Three significant
issues that emerged from these life stories are discussed in this paper. These are the problematic
nature of the discourse of NEET sub-groups; the challenges of school-exclusion policies and
practices; and the myth of low aspirations.
