Conference Agenda

In the panel discussion, we focus on how temporal and spatial structures affect the life courses of young people, especially those in vulnerable and multi-disadvantaged positions, and their learning performances. Young people’s life courses unfold in various local/regional opportunity structures, which “frame the configuration of possibilities and constraints for thought and action” (Benasso et al., 2022, p. 28) and expand or hinder the access to and accessibility of education (Parreira do Amaral et al., 2015). Our aim is to open the debate on how time and space as selected aspects of these opportunity structures interfere with the life courses of young people and, in particular, with the processes of their subjectivation. To proceed with the idea and the organisation of the panel discussion, we first briefly conceptualise our core concepts.

With regard to time, we depart from the observation that temporality, i.e., the sequence of life events, can be experienced differently by different groups of young people, e.g., as continuous, linear, but also as disruptive or fragmented reality (Hörschelmann, 2011). More specifically, time is inscribed and materialised in histories of (political, cultural, architectural, etc.) transformations that exercise impact over self-perception and identity of the subjects (Graves & Teulié, 2017) and their ability to imagine future. In reference to Doreen Massey, we conceptualise space as an interactive, heterogeneous, and open-ended construct of social and physical worlds, which can be modified, re-defined, contested and re-arranged in multiple, even, yet unknown ways (Massey, 2005). Finally, with the term subjectivation we refer to Michel Foucault (Foucault, 1988) and, in particular, to the notion of subjectivation as a form of self-conduct initiated and performed by the subjects themselves, rather than imposed on them by discursive structures (Bettinger, 2022).

By looking at the interplay of spatial/temporal structures and the processes of subjectivation, we seek to explore how young people’s life courses and subjective biographies unfold within and across European regions. We are well aware that the dialogue between Life Course Research (LCR) and Subjectivation Analysis (SA) has its epistemic limits and pitfalls. For example, while LCR stresses the time-dependent linkage between social structure, institutions, and individual action (Heinz et al., 2009), the process of subjectivation is conceptualised as a discursive effect of unavoidable and constant attempts to define individual self-conduct (Peter et al., 2018), with no specific temporal horizon. Similar differences can be identified in relation to space. Nevertheless, we seek to enable the dialogue between these two research domains specifically in order to account for the less known aspects of young people’s life courses.

To this end, in the panel we will present and compare findings from three European countries (Finland, Germany and Italy) using the data consisting of narrative biographical interviews with young people aged 18–29 years. The data were collected within an ongoing European research project Constructing Learning Outcomes in Europe: a multi-level analysis of (under)achievement in the life course (CLEAR) (2022-2025), which explores the factors that affect the quality of learning outcomes across European regions. In accordance with the conference’s theme, our panel contributes to the debates on how young people navigate their life courses through time (and space), especially during crises and modes of uncertainty. More pointedly, we aim to discuss how young Europeans, especially those facing multiple disadvantages, utilise their existing opportunities, how they perceive their learning performances, obtained skills and competencies, but also their ability to imagine their future(s).