Entry to employment: discourses of inclusion and employability in work‐based learning for young people

Entry to Employment (E2E) is a work‐based learning programme aimed at 16–19 year‐olds in England deemed not yet ready for employment, an apprenticeship or further education and training. Taking into account educational, social and personal circumstances which are often severely disadvantaged, it aspires to provide these young people with training experiences aimed at improving their ‘employability’. This paper places E2E within its social and economic context and uses Bernstein's work on pedagogic discourses to problematise its curriculum. It is argued that, however laudable its aims, by concentrating largely on occupational socialisation and generic skills, E2E may serve to promote an impoverished form of employability and reinforce the class‐based divisions of labour that continue to characterise the English economy.