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Problems, But Whose Problems: The Social Construction of Black Youth Unemployment and State Policies John Solomos Journal of Social Policy / Volume 14 / Issue 04 / October 1985, pp 527 - 554 DOI: 10.1017/S0047279400015014, Published online: 20 January 2009

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Problems, But Whose Problems: The Social Construction of Black Youth Unemployment and State Policies* JOHN SOLOMOSt ABSTRACT The issue of black youth unemployment has become a central aspect of government race relations policies over the last few years, particularly in the aftermath of the 1981 street disturbances. This paper attempts to locate the various stages of response to this question, both at the level of ideology and of policy. It argues that although the policies pursued have been legitimized as helping young blacks, they have failed to mount an effective response to the employment crisis facing this group. In addition, it is argued that policies have tended to ignore the question of racism and to concentrate on the supposed cultural and personal handicaps which young blacks inherit from their cultural background. It concludes by questioning the ideology of equal opportunity, which is the core concept underlying government responses to racial discrimination, and argues for a more critical analysis of recent interventions premised on this notion.

They make it sound that the West Indian youths have a whole heap of problems. Which problems we have that they don't have? It's problems that they put on us (Race Today, April 1975, p.80).

The presentation of young blacks as a potential or real danger to political stability and law and order has become commonplace since the violent encounters on the streets of Brixton, Liverpool, London and other urban • This paper is based on research carried out during 1980-83 in the Race and Employment Programme of the ESRC Research Unit on Ethnic Relations, University of Aston (now the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations. University of Warwick). The views expressed, however, are not necessarily those of my colleagues at the Unit or of the ESRC. An earlier version was presented at the 1984 Conference of the Political Studies Association, University of Southampton, 3-5 April 1984 and the Conference on Race and Politics in Britain, St Hugh's College, Oxford, 28-30 September 1980. I am grateful for comments received at these conferences, from colleagues at RUER, and from the referees of this journal. t Research Fellow, Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations. University of Warwick.

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areas during the spring and summer of 1981. 1 One of the central images used to support this viewpoint is that of the young (male) unemployed black, hanging around street corners, and ' at risk' of drifting into crime and/or confrontations with the forces of law and order. The question of the relatively high levels of unemployment among young blacks has become a central theme in current debates about youth training policies, race relations policies, the role of policing, and inner-city policies.2 Moreover, it is commonly accepted both within and outside government that without some drastic change the issue of how the current crisis of unemployment will affect ethnic minority youth will remain one of the most taxing policy issues of the coming decade. In this paper I would like to (a) critically analyse the basic assumptions of each of these responses and (b) examine in more detail the specific issue of how current policy initiatives have been rationalized and implemented. I shall argue that we can best understand the current responses to black youth unemployment if they are located against the background of three previous stages of response. The first stage, which can be seen as covering the period from the late fifties to the late sixties, involved the construction of the 'second generation' of 'immigrants' as a specific social problem. This was exemplified by the emerging awareness that the problems faced by the 'first generation' in relation to racial discrimination were not necessarily going to disappear, and that they were likely to be accentuated by any crisis of employment in relation to the 'second generation'. The second stage involved the development of the image of the young black as linked to certain forms of subcultural criminality, encapsulated in the moral panic about mugging during the early seventies. The concern with mugging was connected, but not codeterminous, with the growing concern with the young black unemployed as a dangerous social category. This phenomenon took shape after 1975-76, when the Manpower Services Commission (MSC) and race relations agencies first began to articulate the ideology that unemployment among minority youth was a potential social danger. Finally, the fourth stage in official concern can be seen as linked with the riots of 1980-81 and their aftermath. In the concluding sections of this paper I shall attempt to show that these events are an important element in recent images of the young black as an 'enemy within' and as a 'social time-bomb'.3 These four stages will be analysed in some detail in the rest of this paper, but it is necessary to introduce two qualifications relating to absences in the paper. First, I will only deal with gender issues in a minimal fashion, though it is relatively clear that images of young black women are not


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necessarily the same as those which are held about young black men (Amos and Parmar, 1981). Second, the primary concern will be with official responses to youth of West Indian origin, rather than those whose origins are from the Asian subcontinent. Though it can be argued that many of the actual problems they face are similar, as evidenced by rising levels of youth unemployment in Asian communities, the images which policy-makers use to deal with their situation seem to be sufficiently different to warrant separate analysis (John, 1981). On both these counts there is a need for more detailed research to be done, though I would argue that the basic arguments in this paper do apply to a limited extent to the position of young black girls and Asian youth (see Lawrence, 1982; and Parmar, 1981). Bearing these two provisos in mind, I will attempt in this paper to cover the basic transformations in official thinking over the last fifteen years, and show how these have led to the construction of images of the young unemployed black as potentially violent, criminalized and a threat to social stability and order. It will be argued that policy intervention has failed to mount an effective response to the racism which produces black unemployment, and interpreted high levels of unemployment among ethnic minorities as evidence of cultural handicaps or personal deficiencies. By failing to tackle the central issue of racism, policy-makers may have thus contributed to the development of popular ideas which see ' race' as a handicap, while ignoring the role of racist ideologies and practices in the production and reproduction of racial inequality. Before embarking on this analysis, however, I would like to introduce some of the broader historical and political determinants of the position of black communities in the post-war period. These are an important starting point for any attempt to situate the specific question of young blacks as a 'social problem' for the state and the official agencies. HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL BACKGROUND

Much has been written on the role of 'race' and 'racism' in post-war British society, and particularly about their role in political debate and policy formation.4 Within the space of three decades, race has moved from the margins of dominant political discourse to the core, leading to what has been called the racialization of political discourse. This politicization has been accompanied by the arousal of fears about the impact of immigration on various facets of British society and the mobilization of race as an important element in political debates (Reeves, 1983). Within the broader context of the social and economic changes that took place during the sixties and seventies, the question of race and


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race-related 'problems' was to play a role in fashioning policy responses in a number of areas, e.g. urban policy, welfare policy, employment policy, and law and order strategies. Apart from its specific impact on policy, however, the most important development in relation to race during the 1960s and 1970s is that it became a political issue around which political parties could mobilize at both a local and national level. The Smethwick election campaign, along with a number of other local contexts, signalled the vote-catching potential of racist political platforms, and set the parameters for the broader debate on race that was taking place at all levels of British society (Ben-Tovim and Gabriel, 1979). In broad outline, the terms of this debate were set by the official definition of racial issues as intimately related to immigration, and the problems to which it was supposed to give rise. A related set of assumptions held that many of the ' disadvantages' faced by blacks in British society were related to limitations arising from their particular cultural backgrounds, family structures and failure to accommodate to the values of the majority society. This twin set of assumptions produced within the space of the early sixties and early seventies the two basic responses by government to the race question: controls on immigration and actions aimed at improving domestic race relations (Lea, 1980; Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, 1982). Both types of intervention were legitimized in relation to a broader objective: that of producing and maintaining the conditions of 'good race relations'. This was the logic adopted by the Home Office from the mid-sixties onwards and is encapsulated in Roy Hattersley's famous argument that: 'Integration without control is impossible. Control without integration is indefensible.' The search for ' good race relations' was thus seen largely in terms of combining a policy of control on black immigration with a strategy of ameliorating the position of blacks in British society by introducing measures supposed to reduce disadvantages. By 'integration' successive governments have meant rather different things, but there has been a broad consensus on the need to legislate against discrimination in such areas as housing, employment, education and public services. From the early days of race relations' legislation in the mid-sixties to the Commission of Racial Equality, such actions have been interpreted largely in terms of the broad objective of ensuring that individuals have an equal opportunity to participate in employment and other key market situations regardless of racial or ethnic differences. It is in this sense that the espousal of equality of opportunity became the key objective of successive governments since the sixties.


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Within the logic of state responses to race and immigration, however, a number of authors have identified the tendency to see these issues essentially as problems or as related to wider social problems (Hall et ah, 1978; Rex and Tomlinson, 1979; Reeves, 1983). Moreover, substantial evidence exists to suggest that this tendency to see race issues as problems had the consequence that ideologies which blamed blacks (as individuals or as communities) as a cause of 'social problems' exerted an undue influence on the kind of policies emanating from both central and local government on race questions. A good example of this 'blaming the victim' approach to race is the tendency to see urban problems in terms of the numbers of blacks in an area, either because of the demands they make on already scarce resources or because of their family patterns and communal life (Clarke et ah, 1974). Another example, which is of some relevance to this paper, is the tendency to interpret black children's under-achievement at school as related to differential patterns of childrearing, language problems, or differential cultural values attached to education (Carby, 1982). The meanings attached to these perceptions by policy-makers have been varied and often contradictory. It would be misleading to see all responses to race issues as based on notions of cultural deficiency, however ineffective some of the interventions aimed at' improving' race relations have been. Policies on housing, employment and education, however, were and are deeply influenced by the view that there are identifiable deficiencies and limitations arising from the cultural backgrounds of minority communities.5 The role of policies has then been interpreted largely as one of compensating for these deficiencies, either through ameliorative actions aimed at 'special problems' (e.g. language) or actions aimed at enhancing equal opportunity and social justice. In addition the linkage of immigration controls and domestic race policies meant that 'the conflicting principles of integration and control were built into the machinery for racial integration itself, transforming it into a machinery for social control' (Lea, 1980, p. 148). To summarize the argument so far. Developments in race policy during the sixties and early seventies played an important role in defining the parameters of the ideology within which official responses to racial and race-related matters have been operating subsequently. The basic features of this ideology are the notion that government actions should balance immigration controls with programmes to promote greater integration of minorities, and the view that blacks as a social group are a source of ' special problems' which require ameliorative actions. What is also clear, however, is that the definition of these ' problems' is by no means neutral 18


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or linear. As with other areas of social policy the process of problem definition is heavily influenced by the distribution of power in society and by professional ideologies (Edelman, 1977). In the rest of this paper I will look specifically at how the question of black youth unemployment has been interpreted and managed, and how the commonsense association between black youth and deviant forms of social and political behaviour has tended to construct them into a problem category from the point of view of the state. This process has in turn tended to minimize actions against racism and limit the effectiveness of existing policies in challenging basic inequalities encountered by young blacks. THE 'SECOND GENERATION' AND THE FUTURE

The impulse for the first government initiatives towards the 'problems' faced by young blacks can be seen as the outcome of a number of pressures which grew apace during the sixties and early seventies. Apart from the politicization of race at both local and national levels, which has been briefly discussed above, these factors were: (i) a fear that the 'second generation' would become alienated from the dominant institutions and pose a political threat; (ii) a perception that relatively high levels of unemployment among young blacks were related to their different attitudes to the labour market; (iii) a view of the 'second generation' as caught between two (sometimes) conflicting realities and in need of 'special' help in order to adjust to the realities of their life in contemporary Britain. The fear that' second generation' represented a kind of social time-bomb which needed to be defused through positive action can be located as a theme in government thinking from the sixties onwards, although it gained popular currency in the aftermath of the mugging scare of the early seventies. A combination of fears about increasing youth violence in inner-city areas and the example of race riots in American cities during the mid-sixties provided the impetus for both policy-makers and social scientists to single out second generation blacks as a potential destabilizing factor. In addition the stereotype of the young black as enmeshed in a cycle of poverty, cultural conflict and homelessness/unemployment was beginning to take shape and exercise a certain influence on political debate and the presentation of the ' second generation' issue in the mass media. As early as 1967, Roy Jenkins, the Home Secretary, warned that: The next generation ... will expect full opportunities to deploy their skills. If we frustrate those expectations we shall not only be subjecting our own economy to the most grievous self-inflicted wound, but we shall irreparably damage the quality of life in our own society by creating an American type situation in which


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an indigenous minority which is no longer an immigrant group feels itself discriminated against on the grounds of colour alone. One of the most striking lessons we can draw from experience in the United States is that once this has been allowed to happen even the most enlightened and determined government and voluntary action cannot arrest outbreaks of racial violence... what we must ask ourselves, therefore, is whether the action we have so far taken is sufficient to avoid these possible dangers (Jenkins, 1967, p.216). This was a theme that was also followed up in the influential report on Colour and Citizenship published by the Institute of Race Relations in 1969, and by the Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration report on The Problems of Coloured School Leavers published in the same year. It

was also a theme that recurred in political debate over this period and received some coverage in the media (Solomos, 1983a). The Select Committee report, apart from reaffirming the analysis offered by Jenkins, also warned that' the second generation may be less patient in surmounting difficulties that confront them than their parents have been' (1969, p.6). Given this climate of opinion, it is not surprising that a prominent social scientist was moved to argue that: 'The most obvious question to ask about the Black British is: will they revolt?' (Halsey, 1970, p.472). The warning by the Select Committee that' the second generation may be less patient' was related to another commonly-held view that the aspirations of black school-leavers were too high, particularly in relation to jobs. An early study by Beetham (1967) argued that West Indian and Asian boys had rather higher aims and expectations than white schoolleavers, and a limited number of specific jobs (e.g. engineering and work as an electrician) were mentioned by them as desired jobs. Beetham concluded that their aspirations were 'unrealistic'. This view of young blacks as suffering from ' unrealistic aspirations' exercised some influence on the opinions of policy-makers and in the practices of the agencies directly concerned with minority youth as a client group, e.g. the careers service, the youth service, educationalists. Indirectly it also came to serve the function of providing a rationalization as to why young blacks were more likely to be unemployed. The aforementioned Select Committee report accepted the implication of this argument about the 'second generation', by saying that 'so long as they are unwilling to consider other jobs, they are likely to miss opportunities of suitable employment and remain unemployed'. The contradictions of this argument, and its possible dangers, were pointed out by a number of authors (Allen, 1969; Nandy, 1969). In particular, as Allen (1969) warned, such a formulation could easily be transformed into a legitimation for ignoring the discrimination and 18-2


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racism which stopped young blacks from entering the labour market on an equal basis. In addition there is actually little research-based evidence to support the unrealistic aspirations theory (Gaskell and Smith, 1981; DES, 1983). More importantly, however, as Nandy (1969) points out, any assessment of what constitutes ' unrealistic aspirations' cannot be seen as value-free or free of racist stereotypes about what is good for young blacks to aspire to. Despite these warnings, however, the 'unrealistic aspirations' argument remains part of the commonsense view of young blacks. The third influence on early responses to the black youth question was the view that the essence of the problem was a disjunction between minority cultures and British culture, which was seen as resulting in either the devaluation of the basis of minority cultures or their modification by Western influences. This in turn has led to the application of commonsense notions of'culture conflict' and 'identity crisis' to describe the everyday experiences of being young and black in contemporary Britain (Community Relations Council, 1976; Lawrence, 1982). In part these views help explain why there has been an identifiable concern to remedy the 'identity problems' of specific groups of young blacks, e.g. Rastafarians, homeless youngsters and young Asian girls. Miles (1978), among others, has persuasively criticized the tenability of any notion of 'cultural conflict' which assumes that minority cultures are somehow inferior to the majority culture. The ubiquitous usage of such notions in policy documents testifies to their broad influence, although there are indications that there is a growing awareness that such ideas can in fact help undermine the self-concepts of minority youth rather than strengthen them. The Campaign for Racial Equality's (CRE) document on Youth in Multi-Racial Society, for example, argued that: It is sometimes easy for those in authority to regard young people as 'the problem'. To do so is to confuse cause and effect. The real 'problem' lies in the inadequaces of society and the inability to respond to the needs and challenges of new generations of young people — especially those with different ethnic backgrounds, colour and/or culture (1980, p.10). Warnings such as this one apart, the influence exercised by notions of 'cultural conflict' has remained strong. As will be argued later in this paper, such notions remain influential partly because of their ambiguity and the use they make of commonsense images of young blacks as a 'problem' to be remedied by ameliorative and social control measures. Recent research has also pointed to the ambiguous nature of conceptions of'alienation' and 'identity crisis' (Gaskell and Smith, 1982), but such


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notions continue to exercise an important influence on the course of policy intervention. Whatever the contradictions apparent in the ideology of the second generation as a social problem, its component elements exercised a major influence on how the public and policy debates on the fate of young blacks were structured. Much as general policy initiatives on race were infused with some notion that either immigration or race relations were a social problem, the early concerns with the' second generation' were preoccupied by the need to define the problems with which they were associated. Mythological pictures were formed around these problem situations, which in turn informed policy indirectly, and which were then amplified further by the public debates which followed such initiatives. A good example of how this process worked was the focusing of public concern in the early seventies around the supposed links between certain forms of street crime, particularly mugging, and sections of black youth in inner-city areas. Later on in the seventies, a similar development took place in relation to black youth unemployment, but it is to the mugging issue that we first turn. THE EARLY SEVENTIES: THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF MUGGING

The history of the moral panic about black youth and mugging has been the focus of an important study by Hall et al. (1978). In this study the authors have shown quite clearly how the construction of black communities as problems was the ideological bedrock on which the black youth/urban deprivation/crime model of mugging was constructed during the seventies. The image of the urban ghetto as the breeding ground for a culture of poverty, unemployment and crime came to dominate media coverage of race and youth. Mugging as a political phenomenon, according to Hall et al., thus became associated with black youth, even when it took place in areas where they were a small minority of the total youth population: the three themes, subtly intertwined in the earlier treatment of' mugging' were now fused into a single theme: crime, race and the ghetto. Accordingly, from this point onwards, the explanatory paradigms shift, bringing out more explicitly than before the social, economic and structural preconditions of the black crime problem — and thus contributing the final link in the chain which fused crime and racism with the crisis (Hall et al., 1978, p.329). The institutional response from the police in areas like Notting Hill, Brixton, Handsworth and Moss Side further accentuated the stereotype that all black youth had a tendency to become street criminals because they were part of a criminal subculture (Hebdige, 1976). This in turn


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helped give further support to the notion that the source of the problem lay in culture and attitude, with racism and discrimination seen as playing only a subsidiary role (Clarke et ah, 1974). This emphasis was partly the outcome of the earlier concern with the second generation, but it was also linked with the increasing confrontation between the police and groups of young blacks in many urban areas (Howe, 1973). Gus John (1981) has demonstrated how this process fitted in with successive stages of institutional response to young blacks in British society, which have mobilized images which imply that they are both victims and a danger to social order that should be contained and ghettoized: The state, the police, the media and race relations experts ascribe to young blacks certain collective qualities, e.g. alienated, vicious little criminals, muggers, disenchanted, unemployed, unmarried mothers, truants, classroom wreckers, etc. The youth workers, community workers, counsellors and the rest, start with these objective qualities as given, and intervene on the basis that through their operations they could render young blacks subjectively different, and make them people to whom those objective qualifications could no longer be applied. When this is done in collaboration with control agents themselves, as in policecommunity liaison schemes, or instances in which professional blacks collaborate with schools in blaming black kids for their 'failure', it is interpreted as progress towards 'good community relations' (p. 155). Although it could be argued that other images of young blacks have been used by various agencies, apart from those identified by John, there are two important elements of his account which help make sense of how the various responses to ' problems' faced by young blacks have become part of the process of discrimination against them, however wellintentioned they may have been. The first, and perhaps most important, element is the ascription to young blacks of certain immutable collective qualities, which are then transformed into taken-for-granted commonsense notions by policymakers and officials working in control agencies. A good example of this type of ascription is represented by the way in which the 'second generation' theme developed during the 1960s out of rather imprecise notions about 'disadvantage', 'social handicap' and the 'threat of violence'. Another is the response t o ' black mugging' and unemployment through the adoption of police-crime-control and social-problem perspectives in relation to policy formation. The second element, which in a sense grows out of the first, is the tendency on the part of governments to intervene on the basis that through their operations they could render young blacks more ' normal'.


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Because it is individual deviance from the norm which is defined as the problem, an inbuilt tendency exists for government agencies to seek causal explanations of the problems faced by young blacks through reference to cultural and personal inadequacies which could be overcome by ameliorative actions. A pathology of individuals predominates over a pathology of institutions, in the sense that the 'problems' which policies are supposed to remedy are personalized (Cottle, 1978; Dunn, 1983). The concentration of society's fears about the future of race relations around the image of 'young black muggers' is a good example of how these elements combine in practice. This was reflected throughout the early seventies in media stories about 'Jobless Youth and Crime' and 'Crime May Tempt Young Jobless Blacks', which encapsulated fears about where the combination of ' crime, race and the ghetto' may lead. It was also reflected in the setting up of an inquiry by the Community Relations Commission on the relationship between unemployment, homelessness and crime among young blacks (CRC, 1974). Paradoxically, however, apart from a few reports on the issue, and some attempts by the Careers Service to introduce new ways of contacting young unemployed blacks, there was little or no action taken by central government to create more job opportunities as such. Far from there being a unified central strategy to criminalize young blacks (Gutzmore, 1983) there seems to have been a lack of centralized direction. New initiatives were emerging, mostly from the race relations institutions and the voluntary sector, and to some extent from the police themselves. But until the late seventies this did not amount to a coherent set of policies with clearly worked out objectives. Nevertheless, the public debates around mugging and 'black crime' which have recurred with some regularity since the seventies have acted as an important influence on how successive governments and official agencies have perceived the 'problem'. First, by constructing a powerful image around which a number of mythologies have been added, specifically in relation to the growth of Rastafarianism and other cultural and political movements among young blacks. Secondly, by providing a commonsense rationale for police controls and other forms of social control in urban areas with a large black presence. Images of young blacks were constantly changing, however, and this meant that the concern with mugging was only one recurring symbol among many used during the seventies. From this standpoint the importance of the mugging phenomenon was that it symbolized a shift away from the view of the second generation as suffering from problems of newness and adjustment (i.e. problems of integration) to one of ' black youth' as an incarnation


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of potential social and political dangers. This change in language evoked a transformation in social images of race more generally, as shown in studies of race relations policies (Lea, 1980). But, in addition, it signalled a move away from the previous concern with accommodating the 'second generation' to the later concern about how to deal with the highly politicized question of economic and social deprivation among black British youth. MORAL PANIC ABOUT BLACK YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT

Evidence that young blacks, particularly school-leavers who were popularly defined as ' underachieving', were more likely to be unemployed can be found from the earliest studies of race relations onwards. By the late sixties the scale of this phenomenon led to the first studies of black school-leavers and the problems they faced in the transition from school to work (Beetham, 1967; Rose etal., 1969; Stevenson and Wallis, 1970). However, it took a combination of the fears aroused by the mugging scare of the early seventies, and the relative increase in levels of black youth unemployment from around 1973, for the issue to become a subject of political debate. It is also interesting to note that both the Community Relations Commission and the Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration linked this with the issue of relations with the police and the fear of unemployed young blacks drifting into crime or violent political action.6 Yet it is also clear that black youth unemployment did not become a direct policy issue until the late seventies, at around the same time as the general youth unemployment issue. This was partly the result of an assumption commonly held by policy-makers that as long as special measures could be taken to deal with key issues such as relations with the police and crime, there was no need for concerted action against discrimination and urban poverty in relation to young blacks as such. It was also because to some extent the 'problem' of high levels of unemployment among the 'second generation' came to be seen as a problem of race relations, and as an outcome of a vicious circle of failure starting in the family (generational conflict), continuing through the failure to find work, drift into contact with the police, homelessness, and alienation from the official agencies. The implication of such views was that the cause of this vicious circle was not discrimination as such, but the personal deficiencies of young blacks themselves or their communities. Moreoever it was a short step from this to the view that the root of the problem lay in the pathological features of Afro-Caribbean culture and the values of young blacks themselves (John, 1981; Cross, 1982).


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Hall et ah (19 78) have shown how the supposed linkages between black youth, crime and unemployment led to the social construction of mugging as essentially a problem of a lack of adequate social control. By the late seventies, however, it was not so much the notion of black youth as potential muggers but as a potential source of street riots and disturbances that began to haunt policy-makers. This shift to the issue of street violence was brought about largely by the recognition that it was no longer a small minority of young blacks who were likely to be unemployed: that the target of policies was no longer relatively isolated but numerically significant. The importance of this recognition can be gauged from the convergence in policy debates during the late seventies between discussion about black unemployment and law and order (John, 1981). It is in this sense that we can see the rise in black youth unemployment, particularly from 1973 onwards, as the mechanism which sensitized government agencies, the media and other definers of 'social problems' to the realities of being young and black in seventies Britain. The ensuing period produced a steady flow of definitions and mythologies about the ' problems' of the young black in the labour market, which in turn pushed the issue firmly into the centre of the political and policy agenda by the beginning of the eighties, and produced the concern during the early eighties with the ' special needs' of young blacks. This in turn interacted with broader race issues to produce a sharper focus on the threats posed by ' alien' communities to dominant cultural values and institutions, and firmly tied the question of black youth to fears about the ' future of race relations' in a general context of crisis management. The concern with 'black youth unemployment' in the late seventies thus became a metaphor, indicating the combination of fears about the increasing politicization of 'race' and law and order with those fears specific to the issue of unemployment. This can be illustrated by reference to a joint report from the MSC and CRE on the ' special needs of the minority unemployed', which carried the warning that a substantial number of the young blacks who could not find work were also losing touch with the statutory services, and were in danger of becoming involved in crime or ending up alienated from society as a whole (MSC/CRE, 1979). The message was reinforced by a report from the CRE which linked the growth of unemployment to the growth of revolt and unrest, and warned that this could lead to permanent unemployment and estrangement from society. This would in turn ' pose the sort of problem for our society for which we have no solutions other than firm control' (quoted in John, 1981, p. 152).


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The focusing of fears about the future of young blacks around the question of unemployment became even more clear with the massive growth of youth unemployment during the late seventies. Since young blacks were (up to four times) more likely to be unemployed than their white counterparts and to be concentrated in inner-city areas, this resulted in the development of massive levels of unemployment in areas of black settlement such as Brixton, areas of North London, Handsworth, Moss Side and Liverpool (Anwar, 1982; Dex, 1982; Brooks, 1983). Given the existing history of bad relations with the police and authority figures and the association of young blacks in crime, it is easy to see why their relatively high levels of unemployment became a highly politicized issue. The 'threat' factor was crucial in this process. While evidence of higher unemployment levels among the second generation had been produced during the late sixties (Stevenson and Wallis, 1970), the response was relatively mild compared to the reaction that was produced by rather similar evidence in the seventies and early eighties. Part of the reason for this difference must be the fact that by the period 1980-81 we are talking about levels of unemployment of over 50 per cent in some inner-city areas. Another reason was the politicization of the raceunemployment couple during the course of debates about the future of race relations and law and order. But perhaps the most important reason was the popular perception that young blacks, and particularly those that were unemployed, had become a troublesome political issue and one which had to be treated more actively if it was not to mature into a destablizing factor. In this sense it is true that' moral panics about workless youth tell us far more about those who fall into a frenzy than it does about the social character and disposition of the young unemployed' (Mungham, 19 8 2, p.40). References in policy documents about the 'problems' faced by the young black unemployed should thus be read as an evocation of this larger set of issues: about race relations, the political impact of unemployment, about the politics of youth, and other related questions (Edelman, 1977). Such references, particularly after 1977-8, came to be structured around the notion that it was in the interest of all that government actions to reduce discrimination against the minority youth should be expanded. This in turn served to reassure those pressing for action to prevent further problems that the government was really concerned with the issue, and was doing all it could. What this legitimation failed to analyse, however, was why the actions taken by governments since the late sixties have been in response to ' problems' as perceived by policy-makers — perceptions largely structured around a fusion of images of unemployment, crime,


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crisis and violence. By taking such 'problems' for granted, the danger is that they are not subject to critical analysis and become a basis for questionable policy objectives. To summarize the argument of this section: the importance of the question of black youth unemployment from the late seventies has to be located within the broader context of the politicization of 'race' during this period and the association of 'race problems' with law and order discourses. By helping sharpen the politicization of the black youth question, the rise in levels of unemployment thus became a symbol of the failure of past policies and the need for more direct intervention. But before such actions could take shape, official thinking on this issue was questioned by what happened in the streets of Britain's major cities during 1980-81:' the riots' in places such as Bristol, Brixton, North London and Liverpool (Joshua et ah, 1983). It is to the impact of these events that we now turn. BLACK YOUTH AND THE I 9 8 O - 8 1 RIOTS

The impact of 'the riots' during 1980 and 1981 on the thinking of central and local government in relation to young blacks and unemployment has been commented on by numerous writers over the last three years, although it is perhaps too early to assess their long-term impact.7 Nevertheless, it is quite clear that, in popular imagery at least, the issues of 'the riots' and 'black youth' are inextricably linked. A study of television news coverage of these events has shown clearly the ways in which the issues of unemployment, race and youth become closely intertwined during July 1981 (Tumber, 1982). References to 'black youth' and 'violence' in the media during the events of July 1981 managed to symbolically establish a linkage that had only been hinted at before: between the condition of being young and black in England and the growth of forms of resistance and alienation from the dominant political institutions and authority. This powerful image was given further support by arguments in the Scarman Report, which were popularly interpreted as calling for a more coherent set of policies to deal with the social problems of the black ghettos, particularly in relation to the young (Popple, 1982; Scarman, 1982). Although it is difficult to gauge the full impact of' the riots' on policies at this stage, there is at least some preliminary evidence to suggest that the short-term effect may have been to strengthen the' problem-orientated' approach to black youth which has been discussed above. Although the various policy debates in the aftermath of the riots signalled some criticisms of pathology models, the subsequent policies have done little


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to displace the ' commonsense' view that at least a major factor in explaining high levels of black youth unemployment are their own cultural and social deficiencies. There is still a strong body of official opinion which sees higher levels of unemployment as being caused by young black people's attitudes to work, language difficulties, educational disadvantage, and the double disadvantage of being concentrated in deprived inner-city areas. The popular association of the riots with young blacks did, however, push the issue of law and order more directly onto the political agenda. This has produced a contradictory mixture within official and policy thinking about minority youth: on the one hand it continues to see them as a problem category because of their supposed cultural deficiencies, and on the other it sees its role as one of compensating for broader social disadvantages resulting from the position of blacks as a deprived minority in British society and ensuring the maintenance of law and order if such compensation does not work. The first approach is quite evident, for example, in the post-riot responses of the Manpower Services Commission. Writing about the events in Bristol, Brixton, Liverpool and numerous other urban areas during 1980 and 1981, the MSC's Corporate Plan for 1982-86 contains the following interpretations: Last year saw an explosion of unrest and violence in some of our inner cities which has focused public attention on the problems of these areas, and, in particular, those of the ethnic minority groups who are concentrated in them. The ethnic minorities in these areas suffer a double employment disadvantage: registered unemployment among ethnic minority groups is particularly high, and the unemployment and social problems of many inner-city areas are also acute. This represents one of the most difficult challenges in the field of social, economic, environmental and employment policy, and the programme of development for Merseyside announced by the Secretary of State for the Environment indicates the range of problems and remedies under consideration (MSC, 1982c, para 5.20). What is interesting about this quotation is the way it combines some recognition of wider social and economic issues with an emphasis on the ' double disadvantage' faced by blacks in inner-city areas. The report then goes on to outline the ways in which the MSC was responding to this challenge, and in the process summarizes its own philosophy of the ' problem': Our approach has been based on the view that over a wide area of employment the problems of ethnic minority groups in inner cities and elsewhere are similar in kind, though often much more acute in degree, to those of the labour force generally ... Through our planning system we try to concentrate our services


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on areas where labour market needs are greatest and where they can be most effective, and ethnic minorities in inner cities benefit from this (MSC, 1982c, para. 5.21). The Commission's claim that minorities suffer from a' double employment disadvantage' is here balanced against the claim that the problems they face ' are similar in kind, though much more acute in degree'. This means that the issue of racism is hardly mentioned in relation to training programmes for the young unemployed, since it is assumed that young blacks are only suffering from problems more acute 'in degree' than white youth. The logic of this approach fits in quite well with the thinking of the MSC as a whole about 'special client groups' (e.g. the disabled, ex-offenders, young girls, and the educationally disadvantaged) which, while making some reference to processes of discrimination, tends to negate this question by emphasizing only the 'special needs' of such groups. Another aspect of the post-riots response to black youth unemployment is the development of co-operation between the MSC and the CRE in drafting an equal opportunity strategy for the new Youth Training Scheme and encouraging public and private employing organizations to take on board more' positive action' initiatives to help young unemployed blacks. During 1982-83 the CRE produced a statement on equal opportunity and YTS, and a broader document on equal opportunity and positive action (CRE, 1983a, 1983b). By January the MSC itself had adopted a statement on equal opportunity which stated: The YTS will ... be open to all young people within the range of eligibility regardless of race, religion, sex or disability. The scheme will need to comply with legislation forbidding discrimination, but more than that it should provide special help for disadvantaged groups (quoted in CRE, 1983b, p. 1). Beyond that the MSC has introduced monitoring by racial and ethnic group within its schemes, and supported a number of research projects on the special needs of minority youth. It is difficult to see, however, how the CRE and MSC plan to introduce effective implementation of this strategy. The second approach evident since 1980-81 is the increasing emphasis on the need to develop more effective policing strategies to deal with young blacks. The stress on the part played by black youth in street violence during this period reinforced the pre-existing stereotype of young blacks as a subculture of criminality and renewed the concern with ' riot prevention' which had been a theme of public debate from the sixties onwards. What is clear, however, is that in the aftermath of July 1981


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the fear that unemployment among young blacks would lead to street violence became an important influence not only on police thinking but also came to be accepted as a major rationale for a more interventionist stance outside of policing issues. It was no longer seen as inopportune to see youth unemployment as a highly political issue, since even neo-conservative ideologists accepted the need to provide greater support for the unemployed in order to reduce the likelihood of violent confrontations on the streets (Mungham, 1982; Croft and Beresford, 1983). By reinforcing the mythology which links black youth with crime and social unrest ' the riots' may have, in fact, strengthened the image that they need discipline and direction to prevent them from becoming marginalized from society as a whole. As a consequence of this there are two slightly separate but related issues which have to be looked at in an analysis of the policy impact of the 1981 'riots'. First, the direct impact on actual policy outcomes in the period since the 'riots'. At this level the more interventionist stance since 1981 has meant that more resources have been directed at young blacks as a social category. Nevertheless, we cannot simply read into this increase in resources an actual improvement in the position of young blacks in the labour market. This seems to be borne out by the persistence of relatively high levels of unemployment and the high numbers of young blacks on training schemes (Anwar, 1982; Bedeman and Courtenay, 1983). The second issue to be analysed is the ideological interpretation and definition of 'the riots'. Pearson (1983) has argued that the image of the ' hooligan' has performed the function of mobilizing ' respectable' fears about youth, and metaphorically about society as a whole. The 'riots' would seem to represent an extreme example of this process, because they concretized fears about a number of 'problems' around the theme of street violence and the breakdown of law and order. Moreover, their representation by the media made them into a national issue, and one which was a political as well as a policy issue. It is this political aspect, which cannot be pinned down simply to policy outputs, which is perhaps the most important aspect of the ideological aftermath of 1981. Perhaps a good measure of this ideological confusion can be gauged from the Financial Times account of the events in Brixton; which combined a call for more effective political actions with a warning about future tensions: Last weekend's riots can be interpreted either as the growing pains of a society gradually moving towards racial integration or as the omen that racial tension will eventually tear society apart, particularly when it is exacerbated by a high level of unemployment among the young. Which of these interpretations eventually proves correct may depend in large measure on what people are now


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prepared to believe. For there is plenty in Brixton to suggest that a genuinely multi-racial society is achievable. But racial insecurity, partly fostered by the deliberate actions of successive governments, can all too easily destroy the cohesion on which all societies must base their system of preserving society and order (18 April 1981). Such statements were reproduced many times during the events of July 19 81 (see Tumber, 1982), particularly in relation to youth unemployment and law and order. What is interesting to note is the way they combine 'race', 'youth unemployment' and 'law and order' into a single theme: the preservation of social cohesion and order. They are a measure of the uncertainty and destabilization caused by the image of young blacks as alienated, socially marginalized and prone to violent political action. The long-term consequences of these images remain to be seen, but in the short term they seem likely to strengthen a problem-oriented approach to young blacks. WHAT KIND OF EQUALITY?

As argued above, the premise of ' equality of opportunity' has been a recurring theme in interventions to help young blacks since the mid-sixties. It is of some interest therefore to analyse critically the meanings which are now attached to this notion, particularly in relation to the question of how to deal with high levels of black youth unemployment. Edelman (1977) has argued that the notions of equality which underpin welfare and other ameliorative programmes are by no means neutral, nor can they be seen as necessarily advancing the interests of those they claim to help: The actions governments take to cope with social problems often contradict, as well as reflect, the beliefs used to rationalize those actions. While claiming to help the poor, public welfare agencies can control them and take pains to limit the help they offer. While claiming to rehabilitate prisoners and the emotionally disturbed, authorities also constrain and punish them. Governmental rhetoric and action, taken together, comprise an elaborate dialectical structure, reflecting the beliefs, the tensions and the ambivalence that flow from social inequality and conflicting interests (p.19). The interventions of successive governments in relation to black youth can be seen as an example of how this process works in relation to (a) specific interventions to cope with 'problems' seen as related to being young and black in contemporary Britain, and (b) the rationalizations used by government agencies in order to explain why young blacks are more likely to be unemployed and therefore more likely to be in need of 'special treatment'.


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The actual meaning of the equality of opportunity which government interventions are supposed to bring about has never been specified in any but the most general and often contradictory terms. A good example of recent thinking can be found in the Manpower Services Commission's annual report for 1981-82, which argues: In providing services (to ethnic minorities) the Commission's approach has been to maintain and facilitate equality of access by all groups and to establish a number of programmes which deal with particular labour market needs, such as those of ethnic minorities (MSC, 1982b, para 5.25). In practical terms, equality of access (which is used here interchangeably with equality of opportunity) is denned by the MSC as (a) the avoidance

of discrimination on its training programmes and (b) as the provision of special help to minority youth who have special needs (e.g. language, educational disadvantage). What the outcome of such equality of access will be, however, is never adequately defined. Neither do we have an analysis of how the development of equal access to training schemes can help young blacks get jobs in the labour market. It has been argued persuasively, for example, that even when special treatment for minority unemployed is legitimized in terms of improving their training and skill levels, the unintended consequence may be to marginalize the problems they face, while not challenging the failure of mainstream services to tackle the racism and discrimination which prevent black workers from getting jobs (Cross and Edmonds, 1982; Cohen, 1983). The consequence of training measures may thus be to provide short-term alleviation of a highly politicized issue without producing the structural changes that would be necessary to improve the chances of young blacks finding permanent work. Lea (1980) has pointed out the inherent problems of implementing 'equal opportunity' in societies which are characterized by deep social inequalities that are over-determined by class, racial, and gender factors: he argues that the conception of equality of opportunity that has dominated thinking on race since the sixties has served to locate unequal opportunity for blacks ' outside the fundamental inequalities' and ' socioeconomic structure' of British society, and has thus not aimed to change the structured inequalities which blacks suffer from. It has aimed merely to increase opportunities for mobility of individuals within the structure. It is thus very difficult to see in what sense the ideology of equal opportunity provides a sound basis for bringing about greater equality between young blacks and whites in the labour market. When combined with the notion that young blacks need 'special treatment' the outcomes


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have been even more contradictory. Although it may be true that some members of the ethnic minorities need compensatory training or education, it is difficult to see how such measures can actually help all young blacks who are unemployed. Unless, of course, it is assumed that all black youngsters who are unemployed necessarily suffer from cultural deficiences which have to be remedied through training provisions. Research evidence from a variety of sources has shown, however, that such an assumption cannot be justified, and that its influence on policies may act to restrict even limited equality of access of black youth to training. 8 Part of the problem with the current usage of terms like equal opportunity is that they have become ideological charter-words which do not necessarily help us understand the root causes of institutional racialism. While much of the recent concern with the special needs of groups such as the black unemployed can be said to represent an improvement on a 'race-blind' approach, it seems rather questionable to assume that such special treatment as is provided will overcome the essential problems: which are that young blacks face strong institutionally racialist barriers in their search for work and that government agencies have not been able or attempted to overcome such barriers. Moreover, if schooling cannot compensate for society (Bernstein, 1971) it is doubtful if training will be able to compensate for the long-standing discrimination against the second and third generations of young blacks in their search for work. The first step in any critical evaluation of current policies towards the young black unemployed must be to analyse the differences between unintended and intended consequences. At a minimum the promise of equal access to all types of training provision means little unless it is made clear to what it actually refers — does it mean the recruitment of large numbers of young blacks on MSC schemes, the provision of special assistance, or an attempt to ensure equality of outcomes as between white and black participants on training schemes? A recent study of training schemes and ethnic minorities concluded: We have been appalled to see just how many times black and Asian youngsters are bracketed with the handicapped and the afflicted. How on earth can groups of normal young people — with all the range of human talents and diversities — develop their potential when they are continually referred to as having 'special needs' analogous to the mentally handicapped, the educationally disadvantaged and the ex-offenders (Cross et al., 1983, p.32). The underlying confusion hinted at here is between the generalized notion of' special needs' with the view of the young black as pathological


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and in need of remedial treatment. The tenacity with which such notions have maintained their hold over policies in this field suggests that there is widespread confusion between the need to eliminate the deep-seated nature of unemployment among young blacks and the need for specific measures to help those young blacks that have 'special needs'. As a consequence this has helped shift attention away from the pathological institutions to the pathological individuals. Another problem with the current quest for equal opportunity is the failure to link issues of access to markets (housing, employment, etc.) to outcomes which are a result of participating in these markets. There is a tendency, for example, to separate out questions relating to participation on training schemes from actual participation in the labour market. The success of the MSC in integrating minority youth into its schemes is taken to show that movement towards equality of opportunity is actually taking place. In terms of numbers participating in training schemes this may well appear to be true, but this in itself does not resolve the much more problematic issue of whether such developments have much effect on the structural inequalities resulting from institutionalized racialism, class stratification and age stratification. At best interventions aimed at the 'special needs' of minority youth may help individuals achieve more equality of access while leaving untouched the inequalities which affect young blacks as a social group. It may well be argued that policies of remedial help must necessarily leave certain inequalities untouched, since the rationale of such policies is to help individuals to overcome disadvantages. This would be at least a plausible answer to the criticisms advanced about the role of training schemes. But the legitimation of current policies towards the young black unemployed rests on the premise that such interventions will render them more competitive, in the long run, with their white counterparts. As has been argued in this paper, however, such a development would be a limited success, and one which may do little to alleviate the pressures which produced the 'problem' in the first place. In this sense there is an inherent contradiction between the claims on which recent policies towards young blacks have been based and the actual outcomes, since such policies attempt to define the problems faced by young blacks within strict limits. The consequences of this contradiction may be that the coming decade will witness both an increase in individual mobility among young blacks and a reproduction of the structural inequalities that characterize their everyday experiences in the urban ghettos. This in turn would undermine the broader objective of' harmonious race relations' which is espoused as the basic policy objective.


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CONCLUSIONS

What I have said above may be seen as a somewhat over-pessimistic assessment of the current situation. There do seem to be a number of reasons, however, why such a pessimistic line of development may be predicted. Apart from the notable failure of the existing training programmes to have any major impact on levels of youth unemployment generally (Finn, 1984), there are a number of reasons for doubting the actual effects of initiatives aimed at providing black youths with 'equality of opportunity'. The most important of these, as I have mentioned above, relate to the weakness of enforcement measures, the ambiguous nature of the concept of 'equality of opportunity', and the contradictory linkage between social justice ideology and measures aimed essentially at preserving social stability and order. The last factor has gained particular importance in the aftermath of the 1980-81 riots and has effectively pushed government responses since then further along the road of seeing the black youth question as essentially one of social control. This climate of opinion represents an important blockage in the way of effective action against institutionalized racialism as it affects young blacks. Although a whole array of measures are being undertaken or proposed in relation to' equal opportunity',' community policing',' urban renewal' and so on, the actual objectives underlying such measures are usually inexplicit and contain conflicting meanings. In the aftermath of the Scarman Report there was some hope that the content of policies on race relations would be made more explicit and the mechanisms for bringing about more equality in access to basic services and employment would be established. Hope was aroused among a large section of the black communities that more fundamental changes in their conditions were on the way. The available evidence on the implementation of post-Scarman policies is inconclusive, but the levels of black unemployment have remained high and there is little evidence to show that the youth training schemes are helping young blacks overcome the racism which prevails in the labour market. Moreover, there is at least some plausibility to the argument that the success of programmes such as YOP and YTS in helping black youngsters is seen largely in quantitative rather than qualitative terms (Finn, 1984). The impact of YTS on this situation remains to be analysed, and the adoption of an equal opportunity statement by the Manpower Services Commission can be read as an encouraging sign. But the stark reality remains that the employment prospects of young blacks are gloomy, and have shown no significant sign of improving as a result of government


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interventions. Already there is evidence that Mode A YTS schemes, which seem to produce better results in terms of permanent employment, have a smaller proportion of black trainees than Mode B schemes. While only 45 per cent of Afro-Caribbean trainees in London were placed on Mode A schemes, the figure was 70 per cent for whites (Runnymede Trust, 1985). A study of MSC provisions for ethnic minorities found that the ' special needs' category was often defined as being of lower quality than other provisions by the MSC, and that this conflicted with the expressed social goals of the equal opportunity policy (Means et al., 1985). A recent report by CEDEFOP, an agency concerned with improving training provisions within the European Community, concluded that' the possibility of their (young migrants) finding employment is very small indeed' (CEDEFOP, 1982, p. 18). In addition any improvement in this situation must depend not only on measures to tackle youth unemployment in general, but on measures aimed at tackling the institutional and structural bases of racialism. As I have tried to show above, however, the starting point for such a strategy must be a critical reassessment of existing provisions and the ideologies which underpin them. The assumptions which are used to define the ' problem' of black youth are often based on a view of black community life as pathological, and this helps define the question of systematic racism as unimportant. In such a situation it is difficult to see the state taking the kind of measures that would help bring about a fundamental improvement in the employment prospects of young blacks. In a situation where in some areas over half of young blacks are unemployed, and the existing provisions have failed to prevent or remedy this situation, the question that critical social science research should be attempting to answer should be: what impact has the idea that black youth suffer from cultural and personal pathologies had on the kind of responses that official agencies have made to the high levels of unemployment among young black workers. In a modified form this is also a question which could be asked of programmes for the young unemployed as a whole, as has been shown in a number of recent studies (Rees and Atkinson, 1982; Gleeson, 1983). An answer to this question may help shed some light on the operation of recent interventionist policies, and show the limits of their achievement. It may also provide a basis for developing alternative approaches to black youth unemployment and for more effective measures to tackle racism as it affects the employment chances of young blacks. The weakness of existing definitions and assumptions which have helped shape policy intervention in this area is that they have taken for granted a number of images of black youth which have tended to ignore the issue of racism and emphasize personal or communal handicaps. Far


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from being based on objective analysis, the various stages of response discussed in this paper would seem to indicate the importance of 'commonsense' fears about 'race' in the construction of race policies. The symbolic evocation of the danger represented by young blacks has at best produced a series of contradictory responses and counter-responses, and at worst helped popularize images of young blacks which are negative. But it shows little sign of bringing about the kind of social reform necessary to improve the material conditions of young blacks. In conclusion, although the concerns of this paper have been limited to the interaction between policies and race, there are reasons for believing that the beliefs and perceptions of policy-makers about ' problems ' play an important role in defining policy change in a wide variety of areas (Edelman, 1977). Studies of how policy problems are defined, and how some definitions gain dominance over others, may thus be one way of examining the process of policy change and reform more generally. They could also provide a way of developing more critical ideas about how to construct alternative definitions of policy issues and suggest ways of putting them onto the political agenda. In the context of economic recession and a growth of racism, more effective ways of challenging racist ideologies and practices will only come about if we critically analyse the trajectory of past policies and the ways they have constructed the ' problems' of various sections of the black community. NOTES 1 See the discussion of this process in Joshua et al. (1983) and Tumber (1982). The problem of how the riots were perceived by the media and other institutions remains, however, badly under-researched and much more work remains to be done on it. 2 The importance of this issue can be gauged from the fact that there is now hardly any official document on race relations which does not make some reference to 'special needs' of black youngsters as a social category. See, for example, MSC. Corporate Plan 1982-86 and Annual Report 1982-83. 3 Ft should be emphasized, however, that these phases are by no means discrete. Indeed, it was clear from the late 1960s onwards that the image of the' second generation' as a social time-bomb was a powerful force behind attempts to pursue measures for greater'integration' and 'equality of opportunity'. See John (1981) and Solomos (1983a) for a fuller discussion of the origins of this image. 4 Broad overviews of this literature can be found in Ben-Tovim and Gabriel (1979) and Rex and Tomlinson (1979, chapter 2). 5 Such ideologies have also played a part in the development of policies on race, poverty and employment in the United States, and have produced a tendency to 'blame the victim' which has been criticized by numerous writers (notably Valentine, 1968; Lowry, 1974; Edelman. 1977). 6 CRC (1974) and Select Committee (1972. 1977). In addition to these reports the discussion in John (1981) provides a useful guide to the transformations during this period. 7 Cashmore andTroyna (1982); Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (1982); Cohen (1983). 8 Bedeman and Harvey (1981), Bedeman and Courtenay (1983), Cross et al. (1983), Solomos (1983b). Benyon (1984).


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REFERENCES S. Allen (1969), 'School Leavers: Problems of method and explanation'. Race Today, October, 235-7. V. Amos and P. Parmar (1981), 'Resistances and responses: The experiences of black girls in Britain', in A. McRobbie and T. McCabe (eds), Feminism for Girls: An Adventure Story, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, pp.129-48. M. Anwar (1982), Young People and the Job Market: A Survey, Commission for Racial Equality, London. T. Bedeman and G. Courtenay (1983). One in Three: The Second National Survey of Young People on YOP, Research and Development Series No. 13, Manpower Services Commission, Sheffield. T. Bedeman and J. Harvey (1981), Young People on YOP. Research and Development Series No. 3, Manpower Services Commission, London. D. Beetham (1967), Immigrant School Leavers and the Youth Unemployment Services in Birmingham, Institute of Race Relations, London. D. Beetham (1969), 'A comment on the problems of coloured school leavers', Race Today, October, 166-9 G. Ben-Tovim and J. Gabriel (1979), 'The politics of race in Britain, 1962 to 1979', Sage Race Relations Astracts. Vol. 4, No. 4, 1-56. J. Benyon (ed.)(1984), Scarman and After, Pergamon Press, Oxford. B. Bernstein (1971), 'Education cannot compensate for society', in Class Codes and Control, Paladin, London. D. Brooks (1983), 'Young blacks and Asians in the labour market', in B. Troyna and D.I. Smith (eds), Racism, School and the Labour Market, National Youth Bureau, Leicester, pp. 78-94. H. Carby (1982), 'Schooling in Babylon', in Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, 1982, pp.183-211. E. Cashmore and B. Troyna (1982), 'Black youth in crisis', in E. Cashmore and B. Troyna (eds), Black Youth in Crisis, George Allen and Unwin, London, pp. 15-34. CEDEFOP (1982), 'Young migrants: The "less equal'". Vocational Training, No. 10, December, 18-49. Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (1982), The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in 1970s Britain, Hutchinson in association with CCCS, London. J. Clarke et al. (1974) 'The selection of evidence and the avoidance of racialism: A critique of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration'. New Community, Vol. 3, No. 3, 172-92. G. Cohen (1983), 'Youth training: The search for a policy', in C. Jones and J. Stevenson (eds), The Yearbook of Social Policy in Britain, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, pp.291-318. Commission for Racial Equality (1980), Youth in Multi-Racial Society: The Urgent Need for New Policies. CRE, London. Commission for Racial Equality (1983a), Equal Opportunity, Positive Action and Young People, CRE, London. Commission for Racial Equality (1983b), Equal Opportunity and the Youth Training Scheme, CRE, London. Community Relations Commission (1974), Unemployment and Homelessness: A Report, CRC, London. Community Relations Commission (1976), Between Two Cultures, CRC, London. T.J. Cottle (1978), Black Testimony: The Voice of Britain's West Indians, Wildwood House, London. S. Croft and P. Beresford (1983), 'Power, politics and the Youth Training Scheme', Youth and Policy, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1-4. M. Cross (1982), 'The manufacture of marginality', in Cashmore and Troyna, 1982, pp.35-52. M. Cross and J. Edmonds (1982), Training Opportunities for Ethnic Minorities in the UK, CEDEFOP, Berlin. M. Cross, J. Edmonds and R. Sargeant (1983), Ethnic Minorities: Their Experience on YOP, Special Programmes Occasional Paper No. 5, Manpower Services Commission, Sheffield. Department of Education and Science (1983), Young People in the Eighties, HMSO, London. S. Dex (1982), Black and White School-Leavers: The First Five Years of Work, Research Paper No. 33, Department of Employment, London.


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D. Dunn (1983), 'Black youth, the Youth Training Scheme and the choice at 16', Multicultural Education, Vol. 11. No. 3. 7-22. M. Edelman (1977), Political Language: Words that Succeed and Policies That Fail, Academic Press, New York. D. Finn (1984). 'Britain's misspent youth', Marxism Today, February, 20-24. G. Gaskell and P. Smith (1981).' "Alienated" black youth: An investigation of conventional wisdom explanations', New Community, Vol. 9, No. 2, 182-93. D. Gleeson (ed.)(1983), Youth Training and the Search for Work, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. C. Gutzmore (1983), 'Capital, "black youth" and Crime1, Race and Class, Vol. 25, No. 2, 13-30. S. Hall, C. Critcher, T. Jefferson, J. Clarke and B. Roberts (1978). Policing the Crisis: Mugging, The State and Law and Order, Macmillan, London. A.H. Halsey (1970), 'Race relations: The lines to think on', New Society, 19 March, 472-4. D. Hebdige (1976), 'Reggae, Rastas and Rudies: Style and the subversion of form', in S. Hall and T. Jefferson (eds). Resistance Though Rituals, Hutchinson in association with CCCS, London, pp.135-55. Home Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on Race Relations and Immigration (1981), Racial Disadvantage, HMSO, London. D. Howe (1973), 'Fighting back: West Indian youth and the police in Notting Hill', Race Today, December. 333-6. R. Jenkins (1967), 'Address by the Home Secretary to the Institute', Race, Vol. 8, No. 3, 215-21. A. John (1981), In the Service of Black Youth, National Association of Youth Clubs, Leicester. H. Joshua, T. Wallace and H. Booth (1983), To Ride the Storm: The 1980 Bristol 'Riot' and the State, Heinemann, London. E. Lawrence (1982), 'In abundance of water the fool is thirsty: Sociology and black "pathology"', in Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, 1982, pp.95-142. J. Lea (1980), 'The contradictions of the sixties race relations legislation', in National Deviancy Conference (ed.). Permissiveness and Control, Macmillan, London, pp.122-48. R.P. Lowry (1974), Social Problems, D.C. Heath, Lexington, Mass. Manpower Services Commission (1982a), Memorandum on Special Client Groups, Unpublished Paper, MSC Special Programmes Division, London. Manpower Services Commission (1982b), Annual Report 1981-82, Manpower Services Commission, Sheffield. Manpower Services Commission (1982c), Corporate Plan 1982-86, Manpower Services Commission, London. Manpower Services Commission and Commission for Racial Equality (1979). Ethnic Minorities and the Special Programmes for the Unemployed: The Problems, the Needs and the Responses, Manpower Services Commission, London. R. Means, P. Burton, T. Davies and S. Fenton (1985). 'Implementation of social goals in labour market policy: The case of black youth, equal opportunities and the Youth Training Scheme', Policy and Politics, Vol. 13, No. 1, 71-83. R. Miles (1978), Between Two Cultures? The Case of Rastafarianism, Working Papers on Ethnic Relations No. 10, ESRC Research Unit on Ethnic Relations, Birmingham. G. Mungham (1982), 'Workless youth as a moral panic', in Rees and Atkinson, 1982, pp.29-40. D. Nandy (1969), 'Unrealistic aspirations', Race Today, May, 9 - 1 1 . P. Parmar (1981). 'Young Asian women: A critique of the pathological approach', Multiracial Education, Vol. 9, No. 3, 19-29. G. Pearson (1983), Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears, Macmillan, London. K. Popple (1982).' Scarman: The implications for youth work', Youth and Policy, Vol. 1, No. 1,14-17. T. Rees and P. Atkinson (eds)(1982). Youth Unemployment and State Intervention, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. F. Reeves (1983), British Racial Discourse: A Study of British Political Discourse about Race and Race-related Matters, Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. J. Rex and S. Tomlinson (1979), Colonial Immigrants in a British City: A Class Analysis, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.


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