Young people, transitions and change: an overview

1
Young people, transitions and change an overview

• Professor Johanna Wyn
• Australian Youth Research Centre
• The University of Melbourne

2
Life-Patterns project
Longitudinal study of Victorian school leavers
from 1991 - 2004 Representative sample of 2000
young people surveyed A sub-set of 100
interviewed New cohort study in Victoria, NSW,
Tas and ACT in 2005
3
The context

• Post-compulsory education is now the norm
• life-long education, need for credentials
• 76.2 of young Australians completed secondary
  education in 2004
• 15.5 of 15-19 yr olds not in full-time work or
  education (ABS, 2005)
• Recognition of need to reform education to meet
  the needs of a post-industrial society
• New Education Act?
• Private-public partnerships?

4
(No Transcript)
5
(No Transcript)
6
Responses to uncertainty and change

• valuing flexibility and mobility
• personal autonomy, responsiveness
• a balance of life commitments
• new meanings of career
• the self as a project

7
Combining work and study1996 N1717
8
Employment and Change 2002

• 75 in full time employment
• Only 18 had held only 1 job since 1996
• 61 had held between 2 and 4 jobs
• 20 had held 5 or more jobs since 1996
• Overall, 82 have changed jobs in the last 5
  years
• 55 changed for better opportunities

9
Life focus and career outcomes2002 (n763)
10
What is a career?

• 80 or more said
• A job that offers scope for advancement
• To be a career the job must offer commitment
• Any ongoing role that offers personal fulfilment
• A single career for life is a thing of the past

11
A career is

• Not necessarily a permanent full-time job
• Not necessarily your job
• Not necessarily your source of income

12
Gender, SES and Autonomy
13
New life patterns

• Reflect the conditions of a post-industrial
  society
• changed relationships with social institutions,
  including education
• stage managers of their own biographies
• flexible skills, the capacity to make choices and
  a be proactive about job mobility

14
Disruption of time sequence

• Traditional time sequences of youth have become
  disrupted
• Full-time employment is difficult to get, even
  for graduates
• Cross-generational subsidisation
• Living in family home, supported to live
  elsewhere, assistance with educational fees

15
Core life beliefs

• Dominant priorities
• Financial Security
• Personal Relationships
• Issues to do with career and lifestyles are
  measured against these priorities

16
Faulty Transitions?

• Post-adolescence
• Over-aged young adults
• Generation on hold
• Extended transitions
• Generation X, Y
• Generation MY
• Arrested Adulthood
• Developmentally underdone

17
Social and economic change

• Has presented both young and old with new
  challenges
• Flexibility is seen as more important than
  predictability as a basis for future security in
  a post-industrial world
• e.g. valuing horizontal mobility over vertical
  mobility
• Work is not rewarding enough

18
A new adulthood?

• Engaging early with multiple responsibilities
• Project of the self (pragmatic)
• need to make active choices about all areas of
  life
• Forging patterns that will endure into their 30s
  and 40s
• Decline in life-time careers

19
What are the implications for education?

• School systems which were designed to meet the
  needs of an industrial age must now meet the
  needs of a post-industrial society characterised
  by
• uncertainty
• weakening of traditional pathways
• an onus on individuals to shape their own lives
• uncoupling of age with transition

20
Educational approaches
21
Multiple commitments and mobility

• Simultaneous experience of study and work
• Knowledge about how workplaces and jobs are
  changing
• how to manage balance across life
• new meaning of career
• Information and advice from trusted people
• a role for parents in partnership with schools

22
Broad life outcomes

• Outcomes focus on economic measures
• examination results
• short term job outcomes
• specific disciplines
• How do we measure
• health and social cohesion outcomes?
• Flexibility, problem-solving, social skills?
• personal development?