Transition to Adulthood as a Peer Project

Abstract

This study used an action theoretical framework and the action-project method to address the following research question: ''How do youth jointly with peers construct, articulate, and act on goals and strategies pertinent to the transition to adulthood?'' Fifteen young adult friendship dyads were studied over a 9-month period, using videotaped conversations and telephone monitoring. Peers jointly and intentionally engaged in actions and enacted goals related to young adult transition. Negotiating and maintaining friendship, constructing identity, and promoting career were the projects that emerged most frequently. These projects involved using a range of skills and resources that allowed the participants to take a number of functional steps in constructing and realizing their joint goals, including being intimate, humorous, and reciprocal with each other, providing support, sharing emotion, and exercising judgment. The findings illustrate how friendship, identity, and career promotion are jointly constructed and enacted by young adults.

Does Your Research Really Matter? Revitalizing Public Engagement in the Study of Emerging Adulthood

“…In the study of emerging adulthood in particular, there is great potential for further public engagement among scholars to address important social issues, especially those that marginalize and disadvantage certain subsets of emerging adults. Articles in this journal and presentations at the Society for the Study of Emerging Adult conferences explore topics such as navigation of the transition to adulthood (e.g., Young et al, 2015), vulnerabilities in emerging adult mental health (e.g., G. M. Ferguson & Adams, 2016), how emerging adults negotiate social services (e.g., Greeson, 2013), discrimination experienced and expressed by emerging adults from different social groups (e.g., Radmacher & Azmitia, 2013), experiences of sexual violence in emerging adulthood (e.g., Longmore, Manning, Copp, & Giordano, 2016), and civic engagement among emerging adults themselves (e.g., Nario-Redmond & Oleson, 2016). Indeed, in their 2016 article, Abo-Zena and Pavalow specifically detail the value of using participatory action research to advance the study of emerging adulthood.…”

Understanding Goal-Directed Action in Emerging Adulthood

“…Case example. Amita, a 23-year-old female first-generation Indo-Canadian, and Brad, a 24-year-old Euro-Canadian male, participated in a study describing peer joint projects related to the transition to adulthood (Young et al, 2015). 1 At the time of the first interview, Amita was an undergraduate student and Brad had been working in various part-time jobs.…”

“…For example, reviewing Amita and Brad's final case record in a set with three other dyad's case records, the following themes emerged as salient across the cases: (a) how they establish and maintain their friendship; (b) how humor is expressed and functions as a facilitator for friendships; and (c) how their friendship serves as a backdrop for negotiating other goals, such as identity and career promotion. These and the other themes that emerged from the cross-case analysis were then grouped into three broad categories or superordinate projects for the sample as whole, specifically, (a) maintaining and negotiating friendship, (b) constructing identity, and (c) promoting career (Young et al, 2015).…”

“…Youth and their peers also tried to ensure their ongoing connection. This was evidenced in the way in which they navigated the realities of daily life and prioritized their friendship (Young et al, 2015). Examples of concrete steps peers took to ensure that they did not lose their connection or sense of connectedness included recognizing the importance of and actively engaging in efforts allowing them to keep in touch despite complicated schedules, or having explicit conversations about how to ensure their friendship persisted despite distance or lack of free time.…”

“…Additional steps involved (a) making selfreferent statements articulating their values and beliefs about themselves, the world, and their sense of self in the world; (b) adopting and discarding roles in the relationship allowing them to try out new ways of being in the world and to witness the roles taken on by peers; and (c) receiving feedback (Young et al, 2015). For example, receiving feedback allowed one peer to contribute to the other's sense of identity by sharing his or her perspective of who the other is, was, or could become, by providing confirmation or suggesting other possibilities, and by creating a friendship identity where both young adults in the dyad differentiated their identity through the ways that their friendship was distinct from others (Young et al, 2015). The parent-youth relationship often involved actions related to transferring responsibility over different domains of the youths' life from parent to youth.…”