Brine (1999) offers an analysis of what she defines as the ‘“class ceiling” [these are] the structures and processes that prevent working-class women from getting out of the cellar’ (ibid.: 2). In this her analysis focuses on European education and training policy. This is because education and training appear to offer a way out of poverty. Yet central to Brine’s analysis is the assertion that working-class women and men are ‘socially constructed as ‘‘low educated’’ — they are undereducated’ (ibid.). Education may increase opportunities for a few but competitive markets require the cheap, flexible labour provided by working-class individuals. Brine’s research combines policy analysis with empirical,
case study data. Her analytic framework focuses on the implications of globalization and draws on Foucaldian analyses of power and discourse. Here she explores conflict, collaboration and resistance in relation to regionalized and national state policies and practices through the work of training providers, femocrats, feminist educators and unemployed working-class women. Her intention is to explore the connections between different levels of policy and process.
Central to Brine’s analysis of the continuation of material inequalities is a focus on the discourses of equality. Brine distinguishes between two forms of inequality. These are formal and material. Formal equality is concerned with an equalization of political and legal rights and this is dealt with through legislative means. To alleviate material inequality more radical policies are required that will redistribute the wealth and success of a society. Brine argues that the European Union only recognizes formal inequality. A consequence of this is that material inequalities can be maintained as well as reduced. One example is that of changing UK policy towards the employment of lone mothers. Because of their responsibilities for childcare lone parents had until recently been considered as legitimately excluded from the labour market. However lone mothers are now offered ‘employment opportunities’ and are encouraged to take these up through changes to state benefits. Underpinning this are persuasive equality arguments. Brine summarizes these as
There is a widespread understanding that unemployed people need jobs, an understanding that we cannot be complacent about unemployment; that unemployment is linked to social exclusion and poverty, and conversely that employment is linked to self-esteem, greater economic independence, social inclusion and freedom of movement. The neoliberal equality discourse speaks of increasing opportunities for employment and removing barriers to employment; the discourse says ‘why shouldn’t lone mothers (or disabled people) have the opportunity to work, they need help with understanding the opportunities for training, for employment, that are open to them’. (ibid.: 148)
As Brine points out, while such a discourse may be highly persuasive, it requires the existence of enough employment opportunities. Thus she comments: ‘The key point is that such employment opportunities do not exist — at least on the scale needed. Instead of employment opportunities we have opportunities for employment — a highly significant discursive difference’ (ibid.). From this point of view, as Brine further notes, ‘benefit-linked training programmes construct a falsehood of opportunity, and the discourse’s compulsion disguises its punitive
actions’ (ibid.). Nevertheless Brine refuses a deterministic, and overwhelmingly pessimistic, reading of the implications of this. Here she draws attention to the possibilities for resistance and agency that are enacted by those committed to the politics of material inequalities.