Abstract
Lifelong learning (LLL) programmes can be perceived as a means of governing youth transitions. Young adults can use such programmes to try to overcome different constraints in their life course. This article explores the decisions of young adults in Vienna (Austria) and Malaga (Spain) who are participating in different LLL programmes that seek to address their transition from unemployment to employment. In order to understand these decisions, we want to explore: (1) how the young adult’s experiences influenced their decision to engage with an LLL programme, (2) what role these programmes played in their biographies and (3) how young adults imagine their future. We use two theoretical lenses to explore these questions: bounded agency and projectivity. A comparative study of these two regions provides insight into how different contextual conditions influence young adults’ decisions. We perform three different analyses: of the young people’s past trajectories and transitions, of their imagined futures, and of their decision to enrol in the programme. Exploring young people’s subjective accounts of their pasts and their imagined futures helps to improve our understanding of the role young people believe these programmes play in their lives, why they have decided to enrol in them, and how they use and interpret these pathways through, and in the framework of, different contextual conditions.
Highlights
The character of life courses has changed in recent decades
In the Fordist life course regime, life phases were organised in a tripartite manner: education during youth, work during adulthood and retirement during old age (Du Bois-Reymond & López Blasco, 2004; European Group for Integrated Social Research [EGRIS], 2001)
This research aims to advance understanding of ways the biographies of young adults reflect the transition regimes differently and how lifelong learning (LLL) programmes shape their lives in relation to their opportunity structure, past experiences and future plans
Summary
The character of life courses has changed in recent decades. During the Fordist period, the arrangement of work, welfare and life course were characterised as highly linear and predictable. In the Fordist life course regime, life phases were organised in a tripartite manner: education during youth, work during adulthood and retirement during old age (Du Bois-Reymond & López Blasco, 2004; European Group for Integrated Social Research [EGRIS], 2001). Scholars such as Walther and Stauber (2006) have questioned this assumption, . Life courses are understood as less linear, with reversible “yo-yo” movements (cf EGRIS, 2001; Walther, 2006) during transitions These movements could take the form of undertaking training, being employed in a temporary job, being unemployed, being retrained and being employed in a different job (cf Du Bois-Reymond & López Blasco, 2004)
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