ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates how we can identify young people’s ‘projects of the self’ – their self-presentations and orientations towards the future, using a longitudinal, qualitative approach. We analyse the first wave of interviews from an ongoing study set in Norway that comprises interviews with 81 young people, recruited from four significantly contrasting communities. Based on young people’s degrees of surety and levels of aspirations, we describe a typology with four different projects of the self: the assured optimist, the local thriving youth, the youth on a narrow path and the loosely anchored youth. These projects are closely linked to young people’s family resources and to a large extent map onto traditional social class positions. However, they are also profoundly shaped by relational resources, which to a certain extent cut across formal class divisions. When young people’s project of the self aligns with resources in the family and the local community, this greatly enhances their well-being here-and-now and their surety of the future. Young people who experience a rift between the project of the self and available resources experience a shakier foundation from which to carve out their life project.
