The article examines three bodies of theory: individualization, the lifecourse, and concepts of time. It interrogates these theories with respect to the following questions: how young people speak about the future; and the bearing of young people's situations and time perspectives upon the way they envisage the transition to adulthood. It draws upon empirical research from a five-country European study, in particular material from focus group discussions conducted with young people in two west-European countries, Britain and Norway. It analyses variations in young peoples' ways of thinking about their future lives, and proposes, as a basis for further research, three ideal typical models.

In this paper we seek to explore a tendency in current sociological thought to highlight notions of choice and autonomy in writings about contemporary Western societies. We wish to draw attention to some of the consequences of leaving out discussions of the structural aspects of societies and people's lives, for individuals as well as for the development and application of sociological theory and its ability to understand the connection between history and individual biography. Our discussion is based on qualitative research that we have conducted in recent years, and draws on focus groups with young people in Norway and Britain. From this critique we seek to demonstrate how concepts that take account of context and structure as well individual subjectivities can create a better 'fit' with complex and diverse realties.

Drawing upon biographical-narrative research involving case studies of British families in which four generations were alive at the same time, the article examines change and continuity among fathers and sons, focusing in detail upon one family.The article examines the scheduling of fatherhood in the life course of three generations; the ways in which they talked about ‘fathering’ and fatherhood when their children were young; and the transmission of fathering within families. The particular case, a family of low-skilled men, demonstrates how structural changes and cultural resources combine in the negotiation of a model of ‘hands-on fathering’ in the current father generation. The article draws out some theoretical aspects of the analysis; in particular, how structural and cultural changes and gender intersect differently for different social classes.The theoretical insights depend upon a biographical approach which emphasized the changing context and the ways in which each generation acted upon that context.

No abstract

This article examines some methodological issues relating to an embedded case study design adopted in a comparative cross-national study of working parents covering three levels of social context: the macro level; the workplace level; and the individual level. It addresses issues of generalizability, in particular the importance of criteria for the selection of cases in the research design and analysis phases. To illustrate the benefits of the design the article focuses on the level of individual biographies. Three exemplars of biographical trajectories and experiences are presented and discussed. It is argued that a multi-tiered design and a comparative biographical approach can add to the understanding of individual experience by placing it in context and thus yield knowledge that is of general sociological relevance by demonstrating the interrelatedness of agency and structure.