Youth Agency and Transitions to Adulthood In Turbulent Times - 1

Traditional studies on youth transitions to adulthood have often focused on the relationship between education and entry into employment. The multiple crises (e.g. climate change, wars, widening social inequalities, financial recessions, global pandemic, technological transformations, labour precarity, political polarisation and authoritarianism) that youth and young adults have confronted in this century call for renewed approaches to understanding youth transitions. In line with the conference theme on the challenges of these “turbulent times” and “rapid transformations”, and the need for a “global dialogue” to provide “critical thinking” and “rigorous analyses”, this session invites conceptual and empirical contributions that examine how youth and young adults navigate, negotiate, challenge, and transform their social, economic, political, and environmental realities. We are particularly interested in the role of youth agency in shaping contemporary pathways to adulthood under conditions of inequality, insecurity, uncertainty and social change.

We welcome papers that explore agency in relation to social divisions (e.g. class, race, gender, sexuality, disability), time, space, urban and rural contexts, labour markets, care responsibilities, cultural practices, and political participation. We also encourage contributions that are underpinned by social theories and frameworks (e.g. political economy of youth, mobility, belonging, recognition, and alienation), and that examine fragmented and non-linear life courses, precarious pathways, and emerging forms of adulthood across diverse contexts. Ultimately, our aim is to foster a sociological dialogue on the new forms and configurations that transitions to adulthood are taking in different regions of the world, including both the Global South and Global North.