Doing Transitions in the Life Course

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

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2. Introduction

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. “Doing Transitions”: A New Research Perspective

      • Andreas Walther, Barbara Stauber, Richard A. Settersten Jr

      Pages 3-18Open Access

   3. The Trajectories of a Life

      • Theodore R. Schatzki

      Pages 19-34Open Access

3. Institutions and Organisations

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 35-35

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   2. Welfare States as Transition Regimes: Reconstruction from International Comparisons of Young People’s Transitions to Work

      • Andreas Walther

      Pages 37-53Open Access

   3. Young People’s Use and Construction of Institutional Support in Transitions from School to Work

      • Heidi Hirschfeld, Bianca Lenz

      Pages 55-70Open Access

   4. Young Adults’ Exclusive Educational Careers in the Transition to Higher Education or Employment: Key Findings of a Qualitative Longitudinal Study

      • Heinz-Hermann Krüger

      Pages 71-85Open Access

   5. Organizations as Collective Subjects in the Formation of Transitions Over the Life Course

      • Eva Heinrich, Nils Klevermann, Bernhard Schmidt-Hertha

      Pages 87-103Open Access

   6. Aging Transitions at Work: The Embodied Experience of Becoming Older

      • Kathleen Riach

      Pages 105-118Open Access

4. Times and Normativities of Transitions

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 119-119

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   2. Relative Time and Life Course Research

      • Núria Sánchez-Mira, Laura Bernardi

      Pages 121-138Open Access

   3. Biographical Articulation in Transition

      • Noreen Eberle, Jessica Lütgens, Andrea Pohling, Tina Spies, Petra Bauer

      Pages 139-153Open Access

   4. “Everything But Ordinary”? Reflections on Extra-/Ordinariness in Life Course Transitions

      • Anna Wanka, Julia Prescher

      Pages 155-168Open Access

   5. Becoming ‘(Ab-)Normal’: Normality, Deviance, and Doing Life Course Transitions

      • Tobias Boll

      Pages 169-183Open Access

5. Materialities and Transitions

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 185-185

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   2. The Multidimensionality of Materiality: Bodies, Space, and Things in Transitions

      • Deborah Nägler, Anna Wanka

      Pages 187-201Open Access

   3. Bodies in Transition. Gendered and Medicalized Discourses in Pregnancy Advice Literature

      • Janne Krumbügel

      Pages 203-218Open Access

   4. How Spatial Sensitivity Enriches Understanding Transitions in Childhood and Later Life

      • Tabea Freutel-Funke, Helena Müller

      Pages 219-232Open Access

6. Outlook

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 233-233

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This open access book provides a unique research perspective on life course transitions. Here, transitions are understood as social processes and practices. Leveraging the recent “practice turn” in the social sciences, the contributors analyze how life course transitions are “done.” This book introduces the concept of “doing transitions” and its implications for theories and methods. It presents fresh empirical research on “doing transitions” in different life phases (e.g., childhood, young adulthood, later life) and life domains (e.g., education, work, family, health, migration). It also emphasizes themes related to institutions and organizations, time and normativity, materialities (such as bodies, spaces, and artifacts), and the reproduction of social inequalities in education and welfare. In coupling this new perspective with empirical illustrations, this book is an indispensable resource for scholars from demography, sociology, psychology, social work and other scientific fields, as well as for students, counselors and practitioners, and policymakers.

• Transitions in the life course
• Life course and biography
• Transitions as social practice
• Doing difference and social inequalities
• Social inclusion and exclusion
• Doing transitions in the life course
• Discoursive articulation of transitions in the life course
• Institutional regulation of the life course
• Individual coping with life course transitions
• Education and the life course
• Welfare and the life course
• Doing gender in the life course
• Migration and transitions
• Transitions from education to work
• Relational research perspectives
• Sociology
• Open Access

• Institute of Educational Sciences, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

  Barbara Stauber

• Institute of Social Pedagogy and Adult Education, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

  Andreas Walther

• College of Public Health & Human Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, USA

  Richard A. Settersten, Jr.

Barbara Stauber is Professor for Educational Science in the sub-discipline of Social pedagogy at Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, Germany.  She is one of two coordinators of the collaborative PhD programme Doing Transitions at Goethe University of Frankfurt and University of Tübingen. She has published on youth and young adults, transitions in the life course (especially school to work transitions and transitions into parenthood), and on (riskful) youth cultural practices – both nationally and internationally. 

Andreas Walther is Professor for Educational Science, Social Pedagogy and Youth Welfare and Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He is Director of the research unit Education and Coping in the Life Course and one of two coordinators of the collaborative PhD programme Doing Transitions at Goethe University of Frankfurt and University of Tübingen. He has published on youth and young adults, transitions in the life course (especially school to work transitions), and on youth participation both nationally and internationally.

Richard A. Settersten, Jr., is University Distinguished Professor of Human Development and Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs at Oregon State University, USA, where he also served as head of the School of Social and Behavioral Health Sciences and founding director of the Hallie E. Ford Center for Healthy Children and Families. A specialist in life transitions, Settersten works flexibly across different life phases and disciplines. He has played leadership roles in the American Sociological Association and the Gerontological Society of America and has received numerous awards for his research, teaching, and service.