ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the changing paterns of youth transitions, placing these in the broader context of social change, which is beginning to reformulate intergenerational relations and the place of leaming across the life-course as a whole. It describes sorne of the diversity among solutions to increasingly shared problems, by looking at how member states organise their education and training systems and by asking whether they are becoming more similar in certain basic respects. The chapter considers the challenge of creating a learning society for Europe, which is perhaps the central policy issue for the coming years. Adulthood is still socially defined as being economically independent and setting up one's own household and family, although the contexts of people's lives increasingly indicate some redefinition of life-course phases. It is also important to bear in mind that youth transitions are not solely about transitions between education and employment.
