The Challenges and Affordances of Longitudinal Youth Research

Longitudinal research has had a powerful influence on youth sociology. While the question of how youth researchers do their work is perennial, there has been little critical assessment of the specific nature, affordances and challenges of longitudinal youth research. In this session we open up discussion on this topic, allowing youth researchers from across the world to critically reflect on the specific contributions that their work has made to youth sociology. In so doing, the session seeks to interrogate not only how youth researchers use longitudinal approaches, but how longitudinal research can help us to both understand and shape the field of youth sociology. Longitudinal research is resource-intensive, and in many cases large-scale longitudinal studies have been funded (as well as administered) by national governments. For this reason the global coverage of investment in longitudinal research programs is uneven, and has historically been concentrated in parts of the Global North. This session seeks to acknowledge the historical legacy of longitudinal research, while highlighting the diversity of longitudinal research that is currently underway. Speakers will reflect on how their longitudinal projects – conducted across a range of contexts – can be harnessed for comparative work, and produce conceptual insights that resonate across the wider field of youth sociology. In so doing, the session seeks to provide a contemporary illustration of the global state of the field, while also prompting speakers to consider the future of the field, and how the value of longitudinal research can be identified and articulated.