Young Adults in Europe: Abstracts of the Contributions

Abstract

Andreas Walther’s introduction starts from the empirical evidence that there is an increasing share of young people up to 35 years (or even more) participating in institutional measures and programmes conceptualized as youth programmes (up to 25 years of age). The history of the last decades of German and European youth research and youth policies shows that the age limits of youth have been postponed more and more and that this postponement increasingly has been subject of scientific debates. Behind these strategies of extension of youth structural changes and problems of social integration affecting the European societies do appear: integration into the labour market gets more and more difficult and insecure, periods of education and training are prolonged, gender relations are irritated by the coincidence of a dissolution and restructuration of former inequality and life styles stand for coping strategies between security and experimental life forms. Obviously previous youth research was stuck to the socalled ‘normal life course’ presupposing the individual solution of these tasks in the youth stage. In order not to hide the ongoing changes and challenges of social integration and social exclusion behind the construction of a new social group ‘Young Adults’, the author suggests to use the concept first of all as an analytical concept to open new perspectives on growing up and social integration.