Young People and Uncertain Futures?: A Genealogy of Young People’s Enterprise and Aspiration, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and Education for Sust

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 policy makers, governments, NGOs, educators, and undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in young people and the crises of capitalism, earth systems and the biosphere.

James Goring is a Lecturer in Education in the School of Education at Deakin University. His research interests lie at the intersection of the critical sociologies of education and youth studies. He seeks to better understand the relationships between young people’s health and wellbeing, their education, training and employment pathways, and ecological crisis.

Peter Kelly is Professor of Education in the School of Education at Deakin University. His research focuses on young people’s education, employment and well-being in times of crisis at the convergence of the sixth mass extinction and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. His books include: Young People and Thinking Technologies of/for the Anthropocene (2022), COVID-19 and the (Broken) Promise of Education for Sustainable Development: A Case Study from Post-Colonial Pakistan (2023), Informal Workers and a Political Economy of Life Long Learning: Provocations from the Margins of Global Capitalism (2024), and On the Problem of Foundation Skills and the Futures of Work (2025).