Reconstructing fate as choice? Initial findings from the comparative study 'Taking Control?': personal agency and social structures in young adult transitions in England and the new Germany

Abstract

This article explores how young adults experience control and exercise personal agency as they pass through periods of transition in education and training, work, unemployment and in their personal lives in selected localities experiencing economic transformation in England and the new Germany.
Through a combination of questionnaire survey and group interviews the research has explored how, in different ways, choice and uncertainty can be important dimensions in young adults' biographies in the current moment. Their experiences and actions are not exclusively determined by socialising and structural influences, but also involve elements of subjectivity, choice and agency. The research, which is funded by the United Kingdom Economic and Social Research Council and supported by the National Foundation for Educational Research, will contribute to understanding of the processes involved in becoming independent and personally effective in different settings. It also will add to the debate about the most effective ways to support transitions in early adult life.
This article reports first findings from the questionnaire survey (n=900) and a series of group discussions in the three cities of Derby (England), Hannover (Western Germany) and Leipzig (Eastern Germany).