DECONSTRUCTING NEET CONDITION. FOR A RENEWED POLICY APPROACH TO YOUTH VULNERABILITY

This article discusses the not in education, employment, or training (NEET) construct used in pub- lic policies to identify vulnerable young people and respond to their needs but which is actually in- capable of grasping their heterogeneity and diverse life conditions. We critically reflect on the shortcomings of the NEET indicator and its risk of essentializing a category that does not exist as such in reality. The underlying assumption is that these policies contribute to reinforcing these shortcomings and fail to intercept the most disadvantaged youngsters. Furthermore, the article provides some suggestions to go beyond the NEET category and proposes new approaches and re- search paths to understand and explain youth vulnerability, highlighting the social-cultural con- struction of youth vulnerability, the importance of the temporal dimension in youth marginalization and the usefulness of an intersectional approach that highlights young peoples’ personal resour- ces, social resilience and capability to exploit social and economic life chances.