Education, Individualization and Neoliberalism

Once the preserve of a small elite, higher education in many countries today has become available to large numbers of young people. At the same time, it has become heavily commodified - opened up to market forces, rather than supported by public funding. Students are incurring huge levels of debt, against the backdrop of pronounced uncertainty in future labour markets, given the pace of change being created by technological innovation and AI. Millennials, Visanich makes clear, are caught up in a vast social and economic experiment whose outcome is largely unknown but fraught with risk and uncertainty. The book is of especial interest since it analyses these issues against the background of Southern Europe, where the individualism promoted by a market-driven ethos runs up against more traditional forms of social and cultural life.' * Lord Anthony Giddens, Kings College, Cambridge and the London School of Economics, UK *
“Avid travellers, digital natives, savvy consumers and foodies, but also bags of nerves, riddled by unmet expectations: we think we know what millennials are and what they face. But the winds of neoliberalism and globalisation do not blow everywhere in the same way. In this timely book, Valerie Visanich unpacks how the southern European periphery – small and archipelagic Malta, in particular – nuances millennial lives via such devices as protective welfarism and resilient kinship networks.” * Godfrey Baldacchino, Pro-Rector & Professor of Sociology, University of Malta, Malta *
This is a very conscientious treatment of the transition to adulthood of highly educated ‘millenials’ under the hegemony of neoliberalism generally today and in the comparatively marginal circumstances of Southern Europe. Visanich’s study concentrates specifically on the island of Malta. It is rich in examples and ethnographic details that are of much wider significance than the peculiarly Maltese experience. * Jim McGuigan, Emeritus Professor of Cultural Analysis, Loughborough University, UK *