Transformer les bénéficiaires des politiques sociales en clients actifs: la capacité d'expression et les discours des jeunes chômeurs dans une mesure d'intégration suisse

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Thesis

Reference

Transformer les bénéficiaires des politiques sociales en clients actifs:

la capacité d'expression et les discours des jeunes chômeurs dans une mesure d'intégration suisse

LEPPANEN, Virva

Abstract

L'objectif de cette thèse est d'analyser la manière dont les jeunes en situation de vulnérabilité négocient le passage de l'école au travail et, plus spécifiquement, l'impact des politiques sociales visant à faciliter cette transition. Elle décrit sous l'angle des capabilités les défis auxquels les jeunes au chômage sont confrontés au sein des institutions de protection sociale. L'analyse de discours est employée pour découvrir comment les politiques du marché du travail en Suisse s'efforcent de produire la participation active (désignée ici comme clienthood) de ces jeunes. Les discours des jeunes et des acteurs de terrain sont examinés à l'aune du cadre évaluatif et normatif de l'approche par les capabilités. L'analyse se focalise sur une mesure d'insertion en particulier : les Semestres de Motivation, destinés aux jeunes sans solution professionnelle. Sur la base d'entretiens semi-directifs et d'observations, cette étude met en lumière une limitation de leur capacité d'action (agency) et de leur capacité à faire valoir leur point de vue (voice) en raison de la pression temporelle qui pèse [...]

LEPPANEN, Virva. Transformer les bénéficiaires des politiques sociales en clients actifs: la capacité d'expression et les discours des jeunes chômeurs dans une mesure d'intégration suisse . Thèse de doctorat : Univ. Genève, 2015, no. SdS 24

URN : urn:nbn:ch:unige-788434

DOI : 10.13097/archive-ouverte/unige:78843

Available at:

http://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:78843

Disclaimer: layout of this document may differ from the published version.

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des politiques sociales en clients actifs

La capacité d'expression et les discours des jeunes chômeurs dans une mesure d'intégration

suisse

Virva Leppänen

Codirection de thèse:

professeur Jean-Michel Bonvin, professeur Michel Oris

FACULTÉ DES SCIENCES DE LA SOCIÉTÉ

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a L ep pä ne n T ra n sfo re r l es b én éfi cia ire s d es p o liti q u es so cia le s e n c lie n ts a cti fs

SdS Thèse 24Novembre 2015

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Population et transition en Mongolie

Thomas Spoorenberg Thèse 13 – janvier 2015

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UNIVERSITÉ DE GENÈVE FACULTÉ DES SCIENCES DE LA SOCIETE

Uni Mail

40 bd du Pont-d’Arve CH-1211 Genève 4 SUISSE

www.unige.ch/sciences-societe/

Transformer les bénéficiaires des politiques sociales en clients actifs: La capacité d'expression et les discours des jeunes chômeurs dans une mesure d'intégration suisse

Virva Leppänen

Thèse 24 – Novembre 2015

L’objectif de cette thèse est d’analyser la manière dont les jeunes en situation de vulnérabilité négocient le passage de l'école au travail et, plus spécifiquement, l’impact des politiques sociales visant à faciliter cette transition. Elle décrit sous l’angle des capabilités les défis auxquels les jeunes au chômage sont confrontés au sein des institutions de protection sociale. L'analyse de discours est employée pour découvrir comment les politiques du marché du travail en Suisse s’efforcent de produire la participation active (désignée ici comme clienthood) de ces jeunes. Les discours des jeunes et des acteurs de terrain sont examinés à l’aune du cadre évaluatif et normatif de l'approche par les capabilités. L’analyse se focalise sur une mesure d'insertion en particulier : les Semestres de Motivation, destinés aux jeunes sans solution professionnelle. Sur la base d’entretiens semi-directifs et d’observations, cette étude met en lumière une limitation de leur capacité d’action (agency) et de leur capacité à faire valoir leur point de vue (voice) en raison de la pression temporelle qui pèse sur eux et de l'accent mis sur leur responsabilité individuelle. Ainsi, la construction de leur identité est envisagée sous l’angle de l’acquisition d’une subjectivité institutionnelle, impliquant l'adaptation de leurs aspirations aux réalités du marché du travail.

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Photo:

'Eastbourne? This way...' by Jean-Francois Phillips

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Constructing the clienthood in institutional settings: The capability

for voice and discourses of young unemployed people in a Swiss

integration program

THÈSE

présentée à la Faculté des sciences de la société de l’Université de Genève

par

Virva Leppänen

sous la direction de

prof. Jean-Michel Bonvin et prof. Michel Oris

pour l’obtention du grade de

Docteur ès sciences de la société mention socioéconomie

Membres du jury de thèse:

Mme. Kirsi JUHILA, professeur, University of Tampere, Finlande Mme. Amparo SERRANO PASCUAL, professeur, Complutense

University of Madrid, Espagne

M. Frédéric VARONE, professeur, président du jury

Thèse no 24

Genève, 20 Novembre 2015

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and discourses of young unemployed people in a Swiss integration program

La Faculté des sciences de la société, sur préavis du jury, a autorisé l’impression de la présente thèse, sans entendre, par-là, émettre aucune opinion sur les propositions qui s’y trouvent énoncées et qui n’engagent que la responsabilité de leur auteur.

Genève, le 1^er décembre 2015

Le doyen

Bernard DEBARBIEUX

Impression d'après le manuscrit de l'auteur

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Résumé

Cette thèse explore la situation de vulnérabilité des jeunes en transition de l'école au marché du travail dans les réalités créées par les institutions de protection sociale visant à l'intégration au marché du travail. Les jeunes chômeurs peu qualifiés et avec peu d'expérience professionnelle sont largement désarmés face aux défis posés par une économie en transition. Les politiques du marché du travail qui promeuvent l'intégration rapide et incluent tant des incitations professionnelles que des sanctions, sont conçues pour gérer ces situations à risque en augmentant les chances des individus d’accéder au marché du travail. Ces politiques ont des répercussions différenciées sur les biographies des jeunes et en particulier sur leurs transitions professionnelles. Un des buts de cette thèse est de présenter les aspects de ces politiques sociales qui mettent en cause le bien-être et la voix des jeunes chômeurs.

Ces politiques sont examinées dans une approche qui considère l’agentivité (agency) au sein des structures. Une telle conceptualisation est atteinte par la combinaison théorique originale de deux approches : celle par les capabilités et le cadre socioconstructiviste de l'analyse du discours. La première offre une perspective sur l'action individuelle en termes de capabilité pour la voix (capability for voice) qui s’exprime au sein de structures qui limitent la pleine expression des désirs et des aspirations individuelles. La capabilité pour la voix décrit les possibilités d'exprimer ses opinions et, in-fine, de les faire compter dans la délibération publique. Le constructivisme social est considéré comme un outil complémentaire pour révéler les structures qui limitent l’agentivité ; il est opérationnalisé à l'aide de l'analyse critique du discours, qui décrit l'impact des relations de pouvoir dans les pratiques discursives avec un accent particulier sur les systèmes de connaissances intégrés dans les institutions et les politiques sociales. La partie empirique comprend des entretiens semi-structurés avec les participants et les professionnels dans un programme d'insertion suisse pour les jeunes chômeurs peu qualifiés et présentant des difficultés d'intégration professionnelle. Des observations dans le programme et une analyse exploratoire du cadre juridique ont également été menées afin de cadrer et situer les interviews.

Les principaux résultats de ma recherche sont décrits dans les termes d'une division dans les significations discursives créés par les politiques d'activation.

Cette division décrit la création du client qui est simultanément actif et passif. Le client actif est l'effet secondaire de la promotion de la politique qui vise à l'intégration rapide au marché du travail. Cette 'clienthood' est construite en faisant ressortir le client problématique responsable de son chômage au détriment de l'Etat. En outre, les politiques d'activation promeuvent l'adaptabilité des individus aux situations variables du marché du travail, attendant d’eux flexibilité et adaptation. L’adaptation est cependant entendue en terme de passivité. C’est ici que les discours des participants impliquent une institutionnalisation des parcours de vie à travers le 'welfare subjectivity'. Cela signifie que les sujets eux-mêmes se positionnent dans le cadre de la conformité aux règles et aux processus institutionnels à travers une auto-évaluation.

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L'adaptabilité est également évidente dans les pratiques de 'cooling-out', qui est une procédure générale dans le programme et qui vise à l'intégration efficace au marché du travail en définissant les aspirations des participants pour les faire correspondre à la situation du marché du travail.

Au filtre de l'approche par les capabilités, l'accent sur l'employabilité et la responsabilité individuelle a des conséquences problématiques pour l'agentivité des individus. L'agentivité individuelle doit être combinée avec une agentivité sociale qui prend en considération la responsabilité des institutions dans ces processus. En termes de droits de participation et d’exercice de la citoyenneté, les attentes normatives et les processus d'adaptation font problème. Alors que les droits formels de participation pourraient exister et être respectés, l'influence de la pression externe pour pousser à l'adaptation implique que la capabilité pour la voix est souvent limitée, voire brimée. Nous concluons que des politiques sociales inclusives devraient prendre en compte la capabilité, en particulier lorsqu'elles concernent des jeunes, et être basées sur leurs expériences en rendant les processus de prise de décision ouvert à leur voix et à leur participation effective.

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Abstract

This thesis outlines the vulnerable position of young people in transition from school to work in the midst of realities created by welfare institutions aiming at labor market integration. The unemployed youth with low qualifications and little professional experience facing the challenges posed by the current economic climate are often hit the hardest. The active labor market policies (ALMPs) promoting fast integration and providing professional incentives and sanctioning measures are designed to manage such risks in order to increase individuals' chances for labor market integration. These policies have different implications on the young people's biographies and professional transitions. One of the purposes of this dissertation is then to bring forward what aspects of these social policies are less sustainable for the wellbeing and voice of unemployed youth.

These policies are scrutinized in an approach that describes agency within structures. Such a conceptualization is reached by a theoretical combination of two approaches: the capability approach and the social constructionist frame of discourse analysis. The first offers a perspective on individual agency in terms of the capability for voice in the frame of structures that constrain the full expression of individual desires and aspirations. The capability for voice outlines the opportunities to express one's opinions and ultimately make them count in the public deliberation. The social constructionism is taken as a complementary tool to reveal the structures that constrain agency scrutinized with the aid of critical discourse analysis, which describes the impact of power relations in discourse practices with a particular focus on systems of knowledge embedded in welfare institutions and policies. The empirical part includes semi-structured interviews with the participants and professionals in a Swiss integration program for unemployed youth with low qualifications and with difficulties in professional integration. Observations in the program and exploratory analysis of the legal frame have been conducted in order to provide empirical support to the interviews.

The main findings of my research are described in terms of a division in the discursive meanings created by the ALMPs. This division outlines the simultaneous creation of the active and passive client. The active client is a side effect of the promotion of policy aims for fast integration into the labor market.

Such clienthood is constructed by bringing out the problematic client responsible for her unemployment at the expense of the state taking in charge of the beneficiaries. Secondly, the activation policies promote adaptability of the individuals to the changing labor market situations in the form of flexibility and adjustment. Adaptation is expected in terms of passivity whereby participants' discourses imply an institutionalization of the life courses through welfare subjectivity. This means that the subjects create themselves in the frame of conformity to the institutional rules and processes and by self-evaluation.

Adaptability is also evident in the 'cooling out' practices as a general procedure in the program, which aims at efficient labor market integration by setting the participants' aspirations to correspond the labor market situation.

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Viewed against the capability approach, the focus on employability and individual responsibility poses problematic implications for the agency of individuals. The individual agency should be combined with social agency, which takes into consideration the responsibility of the institutions in these processes.

In terms of rights for participation and citizenship, the normative expectations and adaptation processes are viewed as problematic. While the formal rights for participation might exist and be respected, the influence of external pressure for adaptation ensures that the capability for voice is often not realized. Hence, inclusive welfare policies should have a capability aspect particularly when directed to the youth and be based on their experiences by rendering decision- making processes open to their voices and effective participation.

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Acknowledgments

The process of writing my PhD thesis has been a great learning experience as well as a professional and personal challenge. Without the opportunity to share this experience and to receive help and support from a wide community of researchers, institutions and from personal relationships this thesis would not have been finished.

Therefore, I would like to give a special thanks to my supervisor Prof. Jean- Michel Bonvin for his efforts and patience in guiding me throughout the process, for his valuable teachings about the capability approach and about the Swiss labor market and welfare system. I am also very grateful for the support provided by my second supervisor Prof. Michel Oris who had the patience and availability to give valuable comments and make corrections to all the versions of my thesis.

I thank both of my supervisors for encouraging me to grow as a researcher and believing in me in every step of the way.

My gratitude goes also to the other members of the jury, Prof. Kirsi Juhila and Prof. Amparo Serrano Pascual for reviewing my thesis and for the crucial advice they gave me during the defense. A big thanks goes to the president of the jury, Prof. Frédéric Varone for organizing the private and public defense and for his comments and suggestions.

A special thanks goes to the University of Geneva for accepting my PhD thesis and for providing me the facilities for private and public defense. I would also like to thank the doctoral school of the project NCCR LIVES for allowing me to participate in their trainings, meetings and conferences.

I express my appreciation to the project 'Eduwel' and its funding body the EU for granting me the scholarship. Thanks to the PhD program I was able to profit from the training and expertise of the international researchers that was crucial for the methodological and theoretical framing of my thesis. I am also grateful to the fellow doctorates for their friendship and for fun times in project meetings but also for their support and encouragement in difficult times. I would like to give my special thanks to Davina Gateley Saïd, Margherita Bussi, Petia Ilieva- Trichkova and Sofia Ribeiro who I became good friends with.

A big thanks goes also to EESP for giving me the facilities for doing my thesis, for the extension to the contract and for the opportunity to learn from their work. I am grateful to my colleagues at the EESP for enabling me to learn about the Swiss culture and people, for helping me with French language and for giving me their friendship. In particular, I would like to thank Stephan Dahmen for giving me very valuable advice particularly regarding my theoretical framework, for the nice chats and the laughs at the office.

I am also very grateful to my friend Tracy Durrant who ever so kindly agreed to proofread my thesis. I'd like to express my great appreciation for her dedication and precision in this work, which must have not been easy.

A warm-hearted appreciation goes to Pirkko Nurmi who worked as my unofficial supervisor and helped me elaborate the research question and topic and who gave me a great start for the project as well as emotional support.

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Last but not least, huge thanks to all my friends and my close ones. To my boyfriend, Achille, who had the patience and persistence to support me through tough times, to encourage me to continue and for giving me practical advice in carrying out my thesis as well as all his love and dedication. And to my father Johannes together with my late mother Helena for their upbringing that gave me the prerequisites for carrying out a project requiring persistence and ambition.

Thanks also to my sister Irina who, all the way from Australia, improved my skills of thinking out of the box.

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List of figures

Figure 1 Youth unemployment rates, EU-28 and EA-17, seasonally

adjusted, January 2000 - January 2014 (Eurostat) ... 14

Figure 2 Structure of youth population by education and labor market

status, EU-28, 2012 (Eurostat) ... 15

Figure 3 Unemployment rate of young people registered in the ORP in

the canton of Vaud and in Switzerland ... 54

Figure 4 Unemployment rate of young people registered in the ORP in the canton of Vaud - a comparison between Swiss and foreign

youth ... 55

Figure 5 Organization chart of the labor market authorities in

Switzerland ... 59

Figure 6 'Process of sociological discourse analysis' (Ruiz Ruiz 2009:

12) ... 75

Figure 7 A stylized non-dynamic representation of a person’s capability set and her social and personal context (Refigured

from Robeyns 2005) ... 79

Figure 8 The role of discourse in the constitution of the world, [Based

on Jørgensen and Phillips 2002: 20] ... 94

Figure 9 The agency/structure – relation in the theoretical approaches

used in the study ... 96

Figure 10 Illustration of the empirical focus in four levels of analysis ... 106

Figure 11 Non-dynamic representation of the factors composing

capability for voice ... 206

Tables

Table 1 LACI indicators for regional job services, source SECO (2006) Département fédéral de l’économie, Pilotage par les résultats

ORP/LMMT/ACt ... 60

Table 2 Educational situation of young people 2 years after obligatory

school by socio-economic status of parents (Source: OFS) ... 200

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List of acronyms

ALMP Active Labor Market Policy CA Capability Approach CDA Critical Discourse Analysis CV Capability for Voice DA Discourse Analysis

ILO International Labor Organization

LACI Loi sur l'assurance chômage (Swiss law on unemployment insurance)

LMMT Logistique des mesures du marché du travail (Logistics of the activation measures)

NEET Not in Employment, Education or Training NPM New Public Management

OECD Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development OFS Office Fédéral de la Statistique (Swiss Federal Statistical Office) ORP Office Régional de Placement (Regional Placement Office) PISA Program for International Student Assessment

RI Revenu d'Insertion (Integration Income) SC Social Constructionism

SDE Service de l'emploi (Employment services)

SECO Secrétariat d'Etat à l'économie (State secretariat for economic affairs)

SeMo Semestre de Motivation (Motivation Semester)

SPJ Service de Protection de la Jeunesse Vaud (Youth Protection Services in Vaud)

VET Vocational Education and Training

VSB Voie Secondaire de Baccalauréat (Secondary school track for baccalaureat)

VSG Voie Secondaire Générale (Secondary school track - general) VSO Voie Secondaire à Options (Secondary school track for options)

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Introduction

The trajectory between school and professional life can be seen as one of the most challenging periods of life for young people in the midst of other relevant transitions typical to youth. This transitional phase manifests a source of vulnerability (Billari and Liefbroer 2010) that is further complicated for youth by the unpredictability of the risks introduced by the post-modern society (Brückner and Mayer 2005). The challenges in the so-called 'risk society' (Beck 1992) bring along new types of vulnerability linked with instability of the economic and social structures including changing labor markets and insecurity of employment and educational pathways. 'New social risks' (Ranci 2010, Taylor-Gooby 2004) introduce a broad spectrum of negative outcomes related to these developments going beyond an absence of a job or income. These risks are progressive in nature and the result of a complex conjunction between the labor market, public welfare and household organization. As the young people are facing difficulties in entering the labor market and finding a stable position, the new social risks hit the youth the hardest. This is particularly striking for those young people without qualifications who often lack financial, social, personal and cultural resources.

The lack of resources and opportunities can be the source of disadvantage deriving from structural factors such as social class, socio-economic status or migrant background (Grusky 2001).

Today's transitions in the post-modern era are characterized by destandardization and fragmentation of transitional pathways intrinsic to the risk society (Billari and Liefbroer 2010). The increased opportunities provided by the post-modern welfare system for labor market integration bring about more freedom of choice and liberty. However, uncertainty and instability of these contemporary transitions expose the youth to the pressure of having to learn to cope by themselves with the problems that they confront (Mørch and Andersen 2005) and thus to social exclusion (du Bois -Reymond 1998). Due to the current changes in the labor market as well as in educational and economic structures, the meaning of work in young people's transitions has an increasing importance.

Today's society demands for a stronger dependence of individuals on labor markets and the welfare state rather than on more traditional institutions thus widening the employment opportunities available (Giddens 1991, Beck 1992).

However, this dependence brings along new types of risks as well as opportunities specifically concerning social security and welfare measures provided by the state. Thereby, the social policies and institutions do not simply provide answers to social problems and make individual trajectories smoother but contribute to shaping the life-courses of young people by providing normative expectations and requirements for their realization (e.g. Mayer 2012).

One of the main challenges for the transitional phase is posed by unemployment. The active labor market policies (ALMPs) are activation measures focusing on professional integration of the unemployed. They introduce new ways of managing unemployment by means of integration and sanctioning measures in order to activate the beneficiaries in exchange for welfare benefits. The implications of these policies on the responsibilization of individuals have been widely recognized (e.g. Bonvin 2008, Borghi and Van

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Berkel 2007, Clarke 2004, Handler 2004). In the 'active welfare state discourse', unemployed people are constructed as responsible for seeking labor market participation and preventing unemployment (Van Berkel and Valkenburg 2007).

Along with the introduction of individual responsibility, the relationship between the state and the individual has reached new dimensions that lean on a social contract. This contract is claimed to have acquired new meanings as the duties are increasingly held upon individuals at the expense of the state (Åkerstrøm Andersen 2007, Crespo Suarez and Serrano Pascual 2004). The current tendencies towards contractualization of client relationship have implications at the organizational level that in this research are captured with a thorough scrutiny of practices and discourses. The practices entail conventions rooted in the institutions while the discourses describe such habits as they take place in speech and language. In general, the labor market policies are taken as measures that produce dominant discourses with normative connotations on unemployed.

In the thesis, such meanings are looked at from the perspective of social constructionism that describes dominant discourses as held real, maintained and reproduced by social subjects who participate in these processes by transforming the culture through which the same actions are made understandable (Jokinen et al. 1999). Social constructionism brings forward the evolution of these processes and their association to the social structures produced in social interaction or by language (Gubrium and Holstein 2008). In the institutional context of ALMPs the meanings given to unemployed are constructed in the normative climate of discourses creating the welfare client by promoting a certain type of image rather than another and it is precisely these constructions that the approach is intended to discover.

The purpose of my dissertation is then to look through these developments as they affect young people's transitional pathways in the institutional framework of unemployment insurance in Switzerland. This is done by focusing on an important integration program for young people called 'Semester de Motivation' (SeMo), which aims at improving young people's chances for fast labor market integration by means of workshops simulating a work place. Interviews with professionals and young people as well as participant observation and text analysis all attempt to bring light into the current developments in the active labor market policies by having a high empirical emphasis on the implementation level. An important aspect of the focus on the participants in the design of the methods is the wellbeing of the youth and their role not merely as policy targets but also, as outlined by the capability approach, as agents whose wellbeing should be seen as an end in itself. Young people can be said to be the main targets of the policies based on activation due to their lack of experience in the labor market, implying that recourse to paternalistic measures is easier than with adults. In addition, young people often have lower expectations, making them more vulnerable to accepting jobs with poor conditions (Crespo Suarez and Serrano Pascual 2004). These factors bring forward the need to emphasize issues linked to the agency of these young people within the frame of the social policies: their abilities to autonomously construct their transitions, to participate in the reproduction of meanings attached to this phase and express their voices.

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Another focus of the thesis concerns the implications of these aspects to the 'clienthood' (Hall et al. 2003) of the young unemployed people participating in a labor market measure. Clienthood refers to the meanings given to a participant in an integration measure as they are implied by the ALMPs at the legal level and taking their form in the implementation. At the program level, the term includes the point-of-view of the professionals and experts in the program as well as the construction of clienthood by the participants themselves. The latter perspective brings along the notion of 'institutional selves' as the construction of identities through the realities of the social institutions that participate in constructing the subjective realities of individuals (Gubrium and Holstein 2000).

As another perspective takes into consideration the institutional reality of the Swiss unemployment insurance (LACI) and the meanings of unemployment implied by such discourses, clienthood is viewed from the general formulations dealing with the dominant image given to unemployed people at three levels:

institutional, organizational and individual. Scrutiny of these levels takes into consideration the legal frame of the labor market measures in Switzerland whereas the organizational and individual levels focus more on small-scale implications, such as the practices within the organization, the relationship between the institutional actors as well as the meanings created by the individuals themselves.

While the objective of the ALMPs is a reduction of unemployment levels and quick reintegration of the beneficiaries into the labor market, the issues of social justice and wellbeing of the beneficiaries have received less attention (Bonvin and Orton 2009). The capability approach as a major framework for theoretical and methodological design of the study offers tools for identifying the pitfalls within these policies and proposes policy recommendations by focusing on real freedom of the individuals to lead the life 'they have reason to value' (Sen 1999:

291). The achievement of real freedom is promoted, which requires not only the access to resources but also the fact of being able to convert the resources into functionings, the outcomes of actions or the opportunities as they are realized (Robeyns 2005). In this way, the approach is able to promote the prospective aspects of social policies by means of policy suggestions most likely to advance human development and capability expansion (Alkire and Deneulin 2009).

The incentive for using the capability approach can be derived from the importance of bringing out the difficulties faced by young vulnerable people in danger of marginalization, particularly when it comes to expressing their opinions and concerns. This group deserves a platform for expressing their voices, which can then be held as a base for further design of measures and their implementation. The notion of capability for voice is important in this research, as it is associated to a wide spectrum of concepts such as participation, democracy and citizenship. In addition, the notion carries within it the idea of being able to critically formulate ideas and opinions, the capacity to aspire as well as the ability for authentic self-definition and self-expression. The notion of voice is relevant in the frame of school to work transitions due to the critical period in which the young people of the study are living when it comes to their professional lives and their futures. Finding the right professional pathways that are in accordance with their real aspirations and with the reality of the labor market can be seen as a challenging task. Thereby, an important question is

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how the young people manage these requirements while being true to themselves and being able to express their true wishes.

Leaning on these aims, the methodology and the theoretical framework of this study combine the capability approach to discourse analysis. The latter perspective allows those meanings that are dominant in the discourses produced by the young people and through which they identify their goals and aspirations in speech to be captured. The simultaneous outcome is the identification of the dominant meanings that are brought forward and promoted by the current climate within the social and welfare policies. The capability approach, in turn, introduces such meanings in the frame of human development and human rights against normative standards recommended by the approach.

The identification of the informational basis on which the evaluations of young people have been based can be derived from the discourses presented by the narratives within the institutional frame. Such basis can be discovered in the language used by those making such evaluations that identifies the frame of information against which assessment takes place. It reveals whether individuals are perceived as active decision-makers able to move freely in the institutional arena and thus responsible for their own actions, or passive receivers of benefits dependent on welfare allocations. Both images have consequences in the way the social policies are constructed now and in the future and reveal to which degree evaluations are based on human capabilities.

Finally, as the construction of the client implies power relations whereby the individuals are offered tools for self-identification, there is a space for resistance and negotiation of the dominant discourses. While there are instances of negotiation and reproduction of the activation discourses, the examination of these instances reveals some important aspects of the construction of the clients. In addition, the opportunities for negotiation of activation discourses highlight the agency, autonomy and voice aspect as desired capabilities of the individual. Therefore, the normative frame of the capability approach is introduced as it offers a special emphasis on the notion of vulnerability conceptualized in terms of participation and autonomy of the young people and their capabilities as the recommended aim for policy interventions. Together with the social constructionist perspective, the capability approach attempts to bring forward the power possessed by the dominant structures in the frame of labor market policies while not forgetting the capacity of the individuals to resist, negotiate and strategically use them to their advantage.

This dissertation results from the participation in a European-wide Marie Curie research project 'Education as Welfare – Enhancing opportunities for socially vulnerable youth in Europe' (EduWel) that took place from January 2010 until August 2014. The project aims were to consolidate research on education and welfare and evaluate its capacity to tackle the multiple challenges and pressures a large proportion of young people in Europe faces in transition from school to working life. It was funded by the European Union under the 7^th framework program. The training program consisted of 17 partner institutions from 10 countries with interdisciplinary research experience and expertise based in leading European and worldwide university departments and social, economic and political stakeholders. The network-wide training activities with thematic workshops, methodology seminars and complementary skills training were

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provided by the EduWel-ITN senior researchers, experienced researchers from the partner institutions and invited guests.

Within the program I had the opportunity to be trained together with 14 early- stage researchers and to be guided by senior researchers with various disciplinary backgrounds. My role as an early stage researcher in the working group 2 exploring 'welfare institutions as facilitators of educational processes', was to focus on the capability for voice and participation of youth from low- income families. The interest that I had on the issue of voice before applying to the position derived from my personal experiences according to which voicelessness could easily be associated to the particularly vulnerable situation of young people in the society. The initial research question was then further developed towards my own theoretical and methodological interests and research experience taking into consideration the current societal relevance of the topic. As a consequence of the literature review, active labor market policies and youth unemployment proved to be timely issues in the debates around Western and particularly European welfare state development and the young people were often the central focus of these debates. From the analytical perspective the capability approach, a common theoretical orientation within the project, had attracted my curiosity mostly due to its ability to thoroughly explore and conceptualize opportunities, individual freedom and democracy. Further on in the research process, deriving from the existing literature advocating the use of additional theoretical approaches, the idea of using social constructionist framework and discourse analysis emerged. The final research question, then, was formulated as a result of a process whereby personal theoretical research interests and expertise met a current research topic providing a new theoretical combination bringing an original contribution to academic debates. As a consequence of this process, the dissertation was accomplished and receives its final form as outlined in the following overview.

The thesis is divided in three main sections: 1) the literature and background, 2) theory and methods, and 3) the results. The first section describes the most relevant literature in the field of youth studies as well as current social work and welfare state developments. All these areas are combined in an interdisciplinary approach, which takes into consideration the young people in the midst of the challenges posed by the current developments in economy and welfare states. A conceptualization of youth and young people starts the introduction to literature and is followed by a description of the most influential theories made in life course research. The notion of transition is of particular interest as it relates to the biographical perspective of the research focusing on life courses whereby individual's choices are looked at in a frame of changing situations of welfare state and labor market. In these developments young people's vulnerability and the related processes of marginalization as well as their agency are described particularly from the angle of youth unemployment. Along with the figures showing the factors related to increasing youth unemployment, marginalization of youth populations is scrutinized by taking into account implications at the European level on policy processes.

The second and third chapters focus on the welfare policies and their implications at local level of policy implementation, in social work. First of all, welfare state is described by its change towards promoting active participation

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and the flexibility of the workers and job seekers. The impact of these changes on notions and ideas such as citizenship or responsibility of the individual is taken as a focal point in this section. The second part looking at implementation of welfare policies introduces the relationship between an individual and a professional who makes interpretations on the guidelines given to social work and uses her discretion. This issue is largely covered from the perspective of categorization common to professionals in social and educative work and its impact on young people's agency. Lastly, in the fourth chapter, these processes in welfare policies and social work are scrutinized in the Swiss scale of labor market policies and the education system. Key labor market institutions, ALMPs and unemployment of youth in Switzerland as well as in more local scale in terms of the canton of Vaud are looked at while keeping European social and welfare policies in mind.

The second section of the thesis focuses on the theoretical framework and the methods used as well as on the research process. The first part on theoretical framework is a collection a wide spectrum of different perspectives: the social constructionist framing of research with an overview on Foucault's theories and critical discourse analysis, and the capability approach. The chapter is constructed by first outlining the social constructionist framing of reality in interaction and the idea promoted by discourse analysis that this reality is formulated in speech in particular. An important theoretical and analytical contribution comes from the critical discourse analysis that takes into consideration the impact of power relations within these processes. After a description of the contribution made by the capability approach in the research on young people, agency and voice, the final part attempts to bring together the theoretical and analytical bases of the two approaches, social constructionism and the capability approach. This is done by taking into consideration their differing ontological and epistemological premises while bringing forward also their commonalities and by describing the practical, non-discursive role of the reality.

The sixth chapter on methods introduces the integration program 'Semestre de Motivation', its particularities as an integration program for young people and in relation to the Swiss labor market policies. The research aims and the specific research questions are listed and a conceptualization of all the levels of research is given with an illustration of the empirical focus in the research. Next, the process of data collection is explained by giving a review on the case construction. Along with the description of participant observation, the main methods of research, i.e. interviewing, are looked at from the narrative perspective structuring the interview process, which is then followed by the discourse analytical and the capability approach point-of-view for interviewing. In addition, the ways of using text analysis in analyzing the texts of the Swiss unemployment insurance and other relevant documents are described. Lastly, ethical and language related issues are covered partly due to the fact that the interviews were done with a foreign language to the interviewer.

The last part focusing on results is two-fold, firstly explaining the active logic and secondly focusing on the passive logic inherent in the active labor market policies. The first part of the results describes clienthood from the perspective of normative meanings and expectations on the activation of the clients as well as

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on their responsibilization. The important developments related to activation of the participants are the specific culture of the SeMo towards a production-based program, a problematization of clients and the following processes towards individual responsibility and time pressure experienced by the participants. The final part of this chapter describes such developments in the light of the capability approach and gives some policy implications leaning on the results.

The passive logic in the chapter 8, instead, focuses on the adaptability of the clients and introduces a notion of welfare subjectivity, which implies a certain institutionalization of the self by the adaptation to the rules and regulations and passivity expressed by the participants. A link to aspirations gives an indication of the practices in the program aiming at bringing down their professional expectations and wishes. In the end of the chapter, again, a section describing the results with the capability approach and the capability for voice in particular ends the actual dissertation. Lastly, in the final discussion I bring the results into a broader sociological frame of general developments in the social and welfare institutions towards a more individualistic and market-oriented entities lacking care, mutual responsibility and compassion. Moreover, I reflect on the original theoretical contribution of the research also regarding future possibilities for both of the theoretical commitments and take into consideration the political implications of the results.

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Part I – Literature and background

1 Young people in transition from school to work

The recent economic events and changes remind us of the struggles and challenges faced by the unemployed in the labor market, which particularly concern young people. Such images are further reinforced by the political responses to the economic crises targeting young people and the global discourses around unemployed and the socially excluded. This chapter takes a look into the focal points in such discourses connected to the transitions from education to employment. In order to clarify what is meant by the notion of youth, the chapter introduces basic definitions and concepts related to young people from sociological, political and institutional perspectives. Transitions, in turn, are conceptualized as changing in time and introducing new challenges to young people related to external expectations of successful transitional pathways. These challenges and expectations are closely connected to institutions, welfare and educational structures in addition to labor markets.

Furthermore, transitions are viewed in terms of research made with the life- course approach as it shares an important part of the research on youth and effectively views the trajectories from a biographical standpoint. Life-course research provides the opportunity to see young people's efforts and struggles in the labor market in a larger sociological frame whereby transitional pathways gain new meanings surrounded by notions such as 'non-linear', 'fractured' and 'extended' (e.g. Biggart and Walther 2006). These new types of trajectories are reflected against the old, traditional model of transition towards employment described as more predictable and predestined. At the same time, young people are faced with new types of challenges in a post-modern world that simultaneously provides more opportunities for individualization, self- identification and choice as it poses expectations regarding individual responsibility and success (e.g. Walther and Plug 2006).

Naturally, as youth unemployment has received wide–spread attention, the situation regarding the matter mainly in Europe and in Switzerland is described in the chapter. Young people without education or employment (NEETs) are taken as a special politically formulated group to demonstrate the risks of marginalization and social exclusion of youth. As a consequence, young people are often seen as a vulnerable group in the society who are at risk of social exclusion. Therefore, the literature outlined here focuses on the issues commonly held to be responsible for the poor labor market outcomes of young people. In addition, special groups such as women, migrants and young people having a low socio-economic status are taken for more thorough inspection.

Lastly, the connection to the overall theme of the dissertation, the aspect of voice, is brought forward as the citizenship status of young people has been questioned by some researchers (e.g. Barry 2005, Kasearu et al. 2010).

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1.1 Conceptualizing youth and transitions

The initial challenge of youth studies is to form a successful definition of youth and young people, including the multiplicity of definitions from different disciplines and capturing the complexity of the age group. In psychology, for instance, a notion of 'emerging adulthood' (Arnett 2000) refers to the life span between adolescence and full-fledged adulthood. From the life-course perspective, youth can be defined as a 'period of semi-dependency' (Furlong and Cartmel 2007) explaining the transition from childhood to adulthood in terms of the amount of dependency it entails. This concept refers to a new extended life phase prolonging the period of dependency. Another notion of 'quasi- citizenship' (Jones and Wallace 1992) differentiates a young person from a child as the former has a wider access to rights and responsibilities while full access to entitlements open for adults is denied (Coles 1995, Jones and Wallace 1992).

Therefore, youth can seen as a 'socially organized life phase' (du Bois-Reymond and Lopez Blasco 2003: 21) characterized by the opportunities offered for young people as conditions in the form of institutions such as education, schooling and welfare.

In addition, the life stage of youth can be increasingly defined through the life phases they go through and the ways in which they cope with the challenges brought along with the different periods of life. In the research of youth identities, a three-fold division of youth phases has been introduced to separate 'adolescence', 'post-adolescence' and 'young adults' for the purpose of allowing more overlapping of age brackets (Androutsopoulos and Georgakopoulou 2003).

In policy discourses on transitions, a specific age – related definition is common, however varying by countries and policy areas. Educational framework, for instance, stresses the phase after education whereas employment policies suggest the age of 25 as the limit between childhood and adulthood (du Bois–

Reymond and Lopez Blasco 2003). Instead, the UN General Assembly defines youth with the age scale from 15 to 29 (see A/36/215 and resolution 36/28, 1981).

Youth is often described in relation to the transitions, of which the school to work transition is particularly relevant. Accompanied by other relevant transitions such as becoming an adult, leaving the parental home or starting a romantic relationship, the transition from education to working life poses multiple challenges requiring diverse coping strategies and 'life-management' (Helve and Bynner 1996). Due to the changes in the labor market as well as in educational and economic structures, the meaning of work in young people's transitions has an increasing importance. Striving for and achieving an occupational identity implying skills, experiences and knowledge is commonly seen as a sign of a successful transition while issues such as unemployment or casual work signify an unsuccessful transition (Bynner 2013).

In addition to the challenges in labor markets, education, training and welfare structures are more and more regarded as relevant structures affecting the lives of youth (e.g. Beck 2002, Giddens 1991). Such research describes young people being affected by 'institutional filters' implying factors related to welfare regimes in addition to employment and education and the family (Schoon and Silbereisen 2009). The high impact of the labor market in several aspects of life

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similarly brings along demands related to education. Resources such as competences and qualifications play a prominent role in the competition for the best places in the labor market, in self-development and in other spheres of life (Bendit 2008). The importance of education can also be evidenced in the growing number of young people participating in education since the 1970's with particularly dramatic changes from the 1980's (Furlong and Cartmel 2007).

Thus, contemporary literature on youth research has evolved around these issues increasingly focusing on transitions, trajectories and biographies. Such concepts are generally used as central descriptors of the life course characterized by short and long-term dynamics related to several areas of life (Macmillan 2005).

Along with the increasing youth unemployment rates, the concern about the effectiveness of education and welfare policies has received great attention at the start of the 21st century, particularly from the 1990's (e.g. Esping-Andersen 1990, 1999). Such research has focused on reforms and cuts in the provisions of social security introducing a particular comparative perspective between welfare economies. The welfare institutions for their part affect school to work transitions by the provision of allowances and measures aiming at facilitating these transitions. As the current focus of youth research seems to be on the change of the relevant institutional structures and their impact on young people's lives and trajectories, in sociological studies the life-course research has had a great influence on research based on youth and adolescence.

1.2 Transitions from life-course perspective

Research on school to work transitions has, for a large part, been covered by the life-course approach due to its focus on time, place and biography. Life- course research takes a particular perspective on the timing and ordering of events in the life span by looking at 'social pathways' and 'life patterns and their dynamics in time' (Elder et al. 2003: 7). The notion of life course can be defined as:

'Historically variable – socio-culturally and politically constructed institution that produces societal continuity and social integration through structurally embedded sequences of age-related status configurations, which refer to individuals’ societal participations and orient (but do not determine) biographical action. Life courses establish opportunity structures for self-realisation as well as patterns of rules ordering the temporal dimensions of social life' (Wingens and Reiter 2011: 189).

Thereby, the issue of timing and social changes in relation to specific age periods is at the center of the approach. The recent developments around life course imply its conceptualization as an 'institution of socialization in its own right and a central unit in social structure' (Richard and Settersten 2002: 15).

This is what brought forward the importance of age and time in pacing and structuring of life as well as rules and regulations in the society. A parallel development to this chronology (Kohli 1986) introduces institutionalization as the growing importance of the state, organization and institution in regulating the life

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course (Richard and Settersten 2002). The institutions shape and mold individual transitions, historical change and structural opportunities as well as the functioning of individual agency within the context of these opportunities (Elder 1998, Schoon and Silbereisen 2009).

Youth as a life phase has an essential place and growing importance in life- course research, which can be related to effects brought along by globalization and its causes in economic and social structures. Since transitional pathways of young people are largely dependent on opportunities and constraints provided within the socio-historical and economic context, these developments have special consequences for young people's transitions (Schoon and Silbereisen 2009). The most relevant changes in life courses can be derived from the emergence of high youth unemployment rates starting from the mid-1970's (du Bois-Reymond and Chisholm 2006). As a consequence, structural changes in terms of greater flexibility of the labor market offering part-time and temporary jobs led to an increase in the vulnerability of the young people (e.g. du Bois- Reymond and Chisholm 2006, Schoon and Silbereisen 2009). Other relevant factors have been derived from the globalization of work, the de-industrialization of Western economies and the spread of ICT (Bradley and Devadason 2008).

These changes were further followed by increased prolongation of educational pathways and by alternations between education, training and work, which are claimed to subject the young to higher risks of social exclusion (Walther and Plug 2006).

As a consequence of these changes, the focus in the field of life-course research shifted towards questioning the traditional life course and introducing transitions in the light of 'modern' life course (Brückner and Mayer 2005). Such theories propose changes in the structure and timing of the new life courses.

First of all, the current transitions have been conceptualized as 'yo-yo' transitions describing the diversification of individual pathways increasingly characterized by reversible steps taken in the career path (EGRIS 2001; Pais 2003; Biggart and Walther 2006). Common to such transitional pathways are periods of unemployment, education and work without the predestined order more characteristic of traditional transitions. Thereby, transitions are presented as non-linear, which shows a development away from constructing transitions as standardized and predictable. A comparison is often made between the Fordist era characterized by linear passages and the current state of affairs defined as unstandardized, unstable and insecure (e.g. Walther 2009). When it comes to labor market integration, the question of linearity of trajectories comes down to success and failure emphasizing linear transitions as a sign of a successful transition to employment (Heinz 1999, Shanahan 2000). However, in the field of life-course research, the importance of integrating all the different perspectives of transitions is promoted in order to avoid the simplistic view of reducing them to successful or failed transitions (Walther 2009).

Secondly, the post-modern life courses are described as extended and lengthened when compared to the traditional ones (e.g. Furlong and Cartmel 1997, Wallace and Kovatcheva 1998). This is due to the extension of compulsory schooling and post-compulsory education (Vinken 2003, Walther 2006) as well as longer time periods taken to settle down and create professional plans and more time devoted to 'occupational profile-building' by

Transformer les bénéficiaires des politiques sociales en clients actifs: la capacité d&#039;expression et les discours des jeunes chômeurs dans une mesure d&#039;intégration suisse

Thesis

Reference

Transformer les bénéficiaires des politiques sociales en clients actifs:

la capacité d'expression et les discours des jeunes chômeurs dans une mesure d'intégration suisse

LEPPANEN, Virva

LEPPANEN, Virva. Transformer les bénéficiaires des politiques sociales en clients actifs: la capacité d'expression et les discours des jeunes chômeurs dans une mesure d'intégration suisse . Thèse de doctorat : Univ. Genève, 2015, no. SdS 24

URN : urn:nbn:ch:unige-788434

DOI : 10.13097/archive-ouverte/unige:78843

des politiques sociales en clients actifs

La capacité d'expression et les discours des jeunes chômeurs dans une mesure d'intégration

suisse

Virva Leppänen

Codirection de thèse:

professeur Jean-Michel Bonvin, professeur Michel Oris

a L ep pä ne n T ra n sfo re r l es b én éfi cia ire s d es p o liti q u es so cia le s e n c lie n ts a cti fs

Population et transition en Mongolie

Transformer les bénéficiaires des politiques sociales en clients actifs: La capacité d'expression et les discours des jeunes chômeurs dans une mesure d'intégration suisse

Constructing the clienthood in institutional settings: The capability

for voice and discourses of young unemployed people in a Swiss

integration program

THÈSE

présentée à la Faculté des sciences de la société de l’Université de Genève

par

Virva Leppänen

sous la direction de

prof. Jean-Michel Bonvin et prof. Michel Oris

pour l’obtention du grade de

Docteur ès sciences de la société mention socioéconomie

Membres du jury de thèse:

Mme. Kirsi JUHILA, professeur, University of Tampere, Finlande Mme. Amparo SERRANO PASCUAL, professeur, Complutense

University of Madrid, Espagne

M. Frédéric VARONE, professeur, président du jury

Thèse no 24

Genève, 20 Novembre 2015

Table of Contents

Transformer les bénéficiaires des politiques sociales en clients actifs: la capacité d'expression et les discours des jeunes chômeurs dans une mesure d'intégration suisse