ABSTRACT
The ways in which we are unfolding the research findings and questions that have been stimulated by this project suggest how our research project has 'pirouetted' on what sociology has framed the 'agency-structure' boundary. In the UK, until fairly recently, this has tended to be approached academically as an either/or duality. This has been manifest in two very different traditions of youth research namely, the cultural studies approach to youth (Nava, 1992; Griffin, 1993, 1997; McLaughlin and Heath, 1993; McRobbie, 1994; Cohen, 1997; Skelton and Valentine, 1998), and the sociological approach. The latter has been preoccupied with investigating structural pre-determinants of young adults' lives such as social class (Bynner, 1987; Banks et al., 1992; Bates and Riseborough, 1993; Roberts, 1995; Dolton et al., 1999; ESRC 16-19 Initiative). The former has been characterized by a 'quasi-anthropological concern with exotic instances of youthful deviance and difference' (Cohen and Ainley, 2000, p. 89).
