Economic growth, social exclusion and the European discourse of equality: pathologizing ‘the unemployed’

Abstract

Based on an understanding of the discursive construction of the European Union and the recognition of the many conflicting and collaborative interests of those involved in it, this paper explores the European Commission's discourse of gendered equality in relation to economic growth and social exclusion, and considers its effect on education and training policy. The involvement of the Commission's Equal Opportunities Unit is of particular interest in the construction of this discourse. The paper concludes by focusing on recent trends in which unemployed people in general and lone mothers in particular are, through threatened loss of state benefit, forced to attend training programmes. Such training aims to increase the unemployed person's own opportunities for employment. Yet, at the same time, it discursively constructs an image of the pathologized unemployed individual. In locating unemployment on the individual's lack of confidence, lack of work experience and lack of motivation, this reverse mirror image effectively deflects attention away from the economic and societal causes of unemployment.