Defining age. Perspectives on age and development among young people in vulnerable life situations

This abstract focuses upon young people who have been in out-of-home care and their perspectives on age and development. Young people who have been in out-of-home care often experience a variety of vulnerabilities and... [ view full abstract ]

This abstract focuses upon young people who have been in out-of-home care and their perspectives on age and development. Young people who have been in out-of-home care often experience a variety of vulnerabilities and challenges such as unemployment, psychiatric illness, homelessness, alcohol, and drug misuse. Additionally, resent research documents how young people in vulnerable life situations often do not organize their time along the same educational, employment and family structures as other young people. Nonetheless the young people in their daily life are met by and compare themselves with expectations of what can be termed as a normal biographical life course understood as a life course that follows a relative stable and predictable pattern. This results in the young people being confronted with socially defined roles connected to formal and informal age structuring. For example, formal age structuring plays an important part in the life of the young people, as they at age 18 have to leave care and live an independent life.

My PhD study deals with constructions of meanings among young people who have been in out-of-home care and is designed as a qualitative longitudinal study based on narrative interviews. Through a period of two years interviews were conducted with eight young people age 20 to 33 approximately every six months. Thus a total of five interviews were conducted with each participant. Drawing on a life course perspective findings from my study points to three central perspectives on age from the stance of subjective age identity. Through subjective age identity it is possible to analyze the roles and positions the individual assigns to oneself through a subjective view and discussion of age. The first perspective of age discusses whether the young people find themselves living an adult and independent life. Findings clearly show that youth and adulthood are terms that the young people wish to negotiate. The second perspective deals with the flexibility of self-ascribed age. The young people find themselves consisting of several understandings of age and roles inherent in socially defined age positions. The third perspective is a comparison between and discussion of the age-related roles ascribed to the young people formally from the child welfare system and their own experiences of subjective age identity.

Findings show that the young people’s definitions of their own age provides an important insight into the social roles they ascribe themselves as well as an understanding of their experiences of marginalization from their surroundings.