Diverse pathways in becoming an adult: The role of structure, agency and context

Abstract

Although the transition from education to work has been a topic of much research, there is still lack of understanding regarding experiences of recent cohorts of young people. Moreover, much of the debate has focused on the polarization of youth transitions, at the neglect of a large group of young people who fall outside this dualism. This paper introduces a diverse pathways view offering a more comprehensive understanding of changing youth transitions and examines how transitions are shaped by interactions between structure and individual agency. The study is based on data from the British Household Panel Study (BHPS) and the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UK-HLS) using sequence analysis to identify transition patterns among cohorts born in 1980-84 and 1985-1989. Five distinct clusters could be identified, differentiating between those who participate in extended education, two pathways dominated by continuous employment, either directly after completing compulsory schooling at age 16 or after some further education, and two pathways characterized by exclusion from the labor market (either through prolonged experience of unemployment or inactivity). Both structural and agency variables are associated with variations in transition patterns, pointing to the need of conceptualizing the role of the agent as well as that of structures and resources for a better understanding of the processes underlying the selection into different pathways.

Young people and the Great Recession: Variations in the school-to-work transition in Europe and the United States

“…Socio-cultural systems provide the blueprint for social lives and associated transition regimes, which regulate opportunities for education and employment. They bestow laws, rules and regulations that delineate distinct pathways for individuals to follow, and also inform attitudes and beliefs by shaping outlooks for the future (Schoon and Lyons-Amos, 2016;Mortimer et al, 2017;Heckhausen and Buchmann, 2018). The life-course principles considered at the beginning of the paper provide a good basis for considering the processes involved.…”

A socio-ecological model of agency: The role of psycho-social and socioeconomic resources in shaping education and employment transitions in England

“…We identified six distinct transition patterns, suggesting that the assumption of polarised transitions is not sufficient to capture the diverse experiences of young people (Schoon, 2015;Schoon & Lyons-Amos, 2016). In addition to the 45% of young people who continued in full-time education after compulsory school leaving age, we find that 42% of the sample succeeded in making the transition into the labour market (6.5% who engaged in vocational training, 14.5% entered employment after some period in further education, 21.1% showed an early work orientation, entering full-time employment more or less immediately after completing compulsory schooling) .…”

“…A number of recent studies across different countries found that there is not one normative way to negotiate a successful transition to adulthood (Schoon, 2015a;Schoon & Lyons-Amos, 2016;Schulenberg & Schoon, 2012). There is heterogeneity in transition experiences: early transitions do not necessarily have a negative outcome, and protracted pathways to adulthood are not necessarily optimal.…”

The Role of Agency in Shaping the Educational Journeys of Care‐experienced Adults: Insights from a Life Course Study of Education and Care

“…Several studies in the education field have considered the role of agency and structure in shaping educational pathways (Danic, ; Schoon and Lyons‐Amos, , ), with some adopting a life course perspective (Schoon and Lyons‐Amos, ; Schoon and Lyons‐Amos, ). Danic () draws on qualitative and quantitative data collected from eight European countries as part of the Governance of Educational Trajectories in Europe (GOETE) research project and considers how ‘disadvantaged’ students negotiate access to higher education within the context of structural — and institutional — frameworks and individual student agency.…”