Taking Control of Their Lives? The Youth, Citizenship and Social Change Project

Abstract

The question of whether there now exists a period of ‘extended dependency’ in young people's transitions is central to the ‘Youth, Citizenship and Social Change Research Programme’. The project ‘Taking Control’ aims to understand how young adults experience control and exercise personal agency as they pass through extended periods of transition in education and training, work, unemployment and in their personal lives in selected localities experiencing economic transformation in England and the new Germany. Through a combination of questionnaire survey and group interviews the study has investigated how, in different ways, choice and uncertainty can be important dimensions in young people's biographies in contemporary societies. Their experiences and their futures are not exclusively determined by socialising and structural influences, but also involve elements of subjectivity, choice and agency. The research contributes to understanding of the process involved in becoming ‘independent’ and ‘personally effective’ in different settings and has aimed to involve researchers and users (young people, policy-makers and practitioners) in debate about the most effective ways to support transitions in early adult life. While building on methodological approaches and findings of the author's previous Anglo-German research, this research is new and distinctive in its theme of control in the under researched ‘young adult’ phase (up to 25) and in the inclusion of the post communist society of eastern Germany in the selected localities.