Handbook of youth and young adulthood : new perspectives and agendas

492 Pages·2009·2.67 MB·English

by  Andy Furlong

Handbook of Youth and
Young Adulthood
The parameters within which young people live their lives now have changed radically.
Changes in education and the labour market have led to an increased complexity of the
youthphaseandtoanoverallprotractionindependencyandtransitions.
Written by leadingacademics from severalcountries,this handbookintroduces up-to-date
perspectives on a wide range of issues that affect and shape youth and young adulthood.
It provides an authoritative and multi-disciplinary overview of a field of study that offers
a unique insight on social change in advanced societies and is aimed at academics, students,
researchers and policy-makers.
HandbookofYouthandYoungAdulthoodintroducessomeofthekeytheoreticalperspectives
used within youth studies and sets out future research agendas. Each of the ten parts
covers an important area of research – from education and the labour market to youth
cultures, health and crime – while discussing change and continuity in the lives of young
people. This work introduces readers to some of the most important work in the field
while highlighting the underlying perspectives that have been used to understand the
complexity of modern youth and young adulthood.
AndyFurlong isProfessor ofSocial Inclusion andEducationintheFacultyofEducation
at the University of Glasgow and editor of the Journal of Youth Studies.

Handbook of Youth and
Young Adulthood
New perspectives and agendas
Edited by
Andy Furlong
Firstpublished2009
byRoutledge
2ParkSquare, MiltonPark, Abingdon,OxonOX144RN
Simultaneously publishedin theUSA andCanada
byRoutledge
270Madison Avenue,NewYork,NY10016
Routledge isanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,aninformabusiness
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
©2009AndyFurlongfor selection andeditorialmatter;individual chapters,
thecontributors.
Allrights reserved. Nopartofthisbookmaybereprinted orreproduced or
utilizedin anyformorbyany electronic,mechanical,orothermeans,now
knownorhereafter invented,including photocopyingand recording,orinany
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
BritishLibrary Cataloguing inPublication Data
Acataloguerecord forthisbookisavailable from theBritishLibrary
Library ofCongressCataloging inPublication Data
Handbookof youthandyoung adulthood:newperspectivesand agendas/
editedbyAndyFurlong.

p.cm.
1.Youth–Socialconditions.2.Youngadults–Socialconditions.I.Furlong,Andy.
HQ796.H25592009
305.235–dc22 2008035735
ISBN 0-203-88196-6 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN978-0-415-44540-5 (hbk)
ISBN978-0-203-88196-5 (ebk)
To Gerda with love

Contents
List of illustrations xii
List of contributors xiii
Part I: Reconceptualizing youth and young adulthood 1
1 Youth transitions in an age of uncertainty 3
Walter R. Heinz
2 Socio-economic reproduction 14
Ken Roberts
3 Youth and generation: in the midst of an adult world 22
John Goodwin and Henrietta O’Connor
4 Models of navigation and life management 31
Manuela du Bois-Reymo nd
5 The emergence of ‘emerging adulthood’: the new life stage between
adolescence and young adulthood 39
Jennifer Lynn Tanner and Jeffrey Jensen Arnett
Part II: Divisions 47
6 Social class, youth and young adulthood in the context of a shifting global
economy 49
Lois Weis
7 New masculinities and femininities: gender divisions in the new economy 58
Linda McDowell
vii
CONTENTS
8 Young people, ‘race’ and ethnicity 66
Colin Webster
9 Young people and social capital 74
Cherylynn Bassani
10 Disability, exclusion and transition to adulthood 81
Sheila Riddell
11 Young refugees 89
Elizabeth Heger Boyle
Part III: Education 95
12 Educating for late modernity 97
Johanna Wyn
13 Explaining cross-national differences in education-to-work transitions 105
David Raffe
14 Young people’s subjective orientations to education 114
Andy Biggart
15 Mass higher education 121
Andy Furlong and Fred Cartmel
16 Vocationalism 127
David B. Bills
17 Keeping kids on track to a successful adulthood: the role of VET in improving
high school outcomes 135
James R. Stone III

Part IV: Employment and unemployment 145
18 Changing experiences of work 149
Jeylan T. Mortimer
19 Youth unemployment and marginalization 157
Illse Julkunen
20 Precarious work: risk, choice and poverty traps 167
Robert MacDonald
21 NEETs, freeters and flexibility: reflecting precarious situations in the new
labour market 176
Akio Inui
viii
CONTENTS
22 The stratification of youth employment in contemporary China 182
Jieyu Liu
23 What makes a young entrepreneur? 188
David G. Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald
Part V: Dependency and family relations 201
24 Leaving the parental home in young adulthood 203
Clara H. Mulder
25 Young, free and single? The rise of independent living 211
Sue Heath
26 Intergenerational support during the transition to adulthood 217
Teresa Toguchi Swartz and Kirsten Bengtson O’Brien
27 Early childbearing in the new era of delayed adulthood 226
Frank Furstenberg Jr
28 Homeless youth and the transition to adulthood 232
Bill McCarthy, Monica Williams and John Hagan
Part VI: Youth, culture and lifestyles 241
29 Leisure activities, place and identity 243
Joan Abbott-Chapman and Margaret Robertson
30 Young adults and the night-time economy 249
Robert G. Hollands
31 Young people and consumption 255

Amy L. Best
32 Spectacular soundtracks: youth and music 263
Andy Bennett
33 Young people, drugs and alcohol consumption 269
Shane Blackman
34 Spectacular youth? Young people’s fashion and style 276
Paul Hodkinson
35 The experience of youth in the digital age 283
Philippa Collin and Jane Burns
ix