‘Mind the Gap’: Reassessing Transitions to Adulthood Using Young People’s Accounts of Undertaking Short-Term Employment

Abstract

Young people’s transitions to adulthood have been subject to intense critical evaluation in recent years. Various writers have argued that contemporary transitions are complex (Dwyer, et al., 2001; Cieslik and Pollock, 2002; Wyn, 2004) with multiple pathways to adulthood wherein young people may ‘yo-yo’ between periods of dependence and independence; in short, it appears that transitions are now flexible, mutable and reversible (Pais, 2000; EGRIS, 2001; Walther, et al., 2006). In addition, it has been suggested that previous conceptions of transitions have overlooked the differing experiences of a number of groups of young people. These include those disconnected or excluded from employment (MacDonald and Marsh, 2001), young women (Wyn and White, 1997), those with disabilities (Monteith, 2003; Wells et al., 2003), and those from different geographical locations (Holdsworth and Morgan, 2005; Walther, et al., 2006; Henderson et al., 2007).