ABSTRACT
Individualisation has become a key concept in theories of social change in Western societies. Closely associated with this is the idea that the life course is undergoing fundamental changes, involving destandardisation and desequencing; the ‘standard biography’ is thought to be replaced by ‘choice biography’. These theorisations invite debate about the concept of time, since they occur over time and within time. They also require an orientation to time. In this chapter we examine theories of life-course process and change and concepts of time with reference to the research questions: how do young people think and speak about the future; and what bearing do young people’s situations and time perspectives have upon the way they envisage the future and the transition to adulthood? We draw upon empirical material from focus groups conducted with young people in two West European countries, Britain and Norway. Our main purpose in this chapter is to develop a theoretical discussion about young people’s time orientations as they emerge in group discussions, and to present our tentative attempts to apply theory to empirical data. This is an exploratory analysis, since the study was not designed to address this issue specifically. Moreover, the ways in which national trends and institutional frameworks shape young people’s discourses about combining employment and family life in the future are discussed elsewhere (Chapters 7 and 8). We explore variations in young people’s ways of thinking about their future lives on the basis of which we propose three ideal-typical models. The models suggest a greater variety in ways of thinking and planning for the future than the individualisation thesis and its emphasis on ‘the choice biography’ implies.
