Inventing Adulthoods

A Biographical Approach to Understanding Youth Citizenship

Bibliographic Data

ID3313033
AuthorsRachel Thomson (0000-0002-3955-5818, South Bank University), Janet Holland (South Bank University), Sheena Mcgrelli, Sheena McGrellis (South Bank University), Robert Bell (0000-0003-0427-2567, South Bank University), Sheila Henderson (South Bank University), Sue Sharpe (0009-0003-1571-0064, South Bank University)
Year2004
Volume52
Issue2
Pages218-239
Publication date2004-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-0261 • E-ISSN: 1467-954X
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-954x.2004.00466.x
OpenAlexW2113553143
LanguageEN
Citations received69
References cited33

Traditionally adulthood and citizenship have been synonymous. Yet adulthood is changing. In this paper we explore how young people's evolving understandings of adulthood may contribute towards an understanding of citizenship within the broader context of increasingly extended and fragmented transitions. The paper draws on a unique qualitative longitudinal data set in which 100 young people, from contrasting social backgrounds in the United Kingdom, have been followed over a five-year period using repeat biographical interviews. We present first the themes that emerged from a cross-cut analysis of the first of three rounds of interviews distinguishing between relational and individualised understandings of adulthood. We then present a model we developed to capture the ways that young people sought out opportunities for competence and recognition in different fields of their lives. Finally a case study that follows a young woman through her three interviews illustrates how these themes can appear in an individual trajectory. We offer the model and case study as a way of exploring a more subjective approach to citizenship in which participation is not deferred to some distant future in which economic independence is achieved, but is understood as constantly constructed in the present

Aesthetics · Citizenship · Competence (human resources) · Context (archaeology) · Life course approach · Period (music) · Political science · Politics · Qualitative research · Set (abstract data type) · Social science · Sociology · Family Support in Illness · Gender Studies · Identity, Memory, and Therapy · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology · Youth Education and Societal Dynamics

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access