Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Inventing Adulthoods (IA) archive currently consists of qualitative interview transcripts for 30 young people interviewed up to six times. Transcripts for a further 20 young people will be included in the archive in the near future. Inventing Adulthoods is a qualitative longitudinal (QL) study that 'walked alongside' young people as they moved from early teenage years to young adulthood in five contrasting areas of England and Northern Ireland. This dataset showcases the biographical material collected between 1998 and 2004, providing a unique window on many aspects of young people's lives at the turn of the 21st century. The case data for each of these young people comprise biographical data that illustrate change over time in most aspects of their lives: home and family, leisure, education, work, relationships, identity and adulthood. Interview 1: focuses more specifically on moral development Interview 2: includes perceptions of life chances and the future, as well as reflections on the research process Interview 3: if young people had responded to the memory book research method, this involves data based on discussion of the content of the memory book. If not, the content reflects that of Interview 2 Interview 4: includes material on social perceptions and responses to issues of social exclusion and reflections on the research process Interview 5: includes material on perceptions of community, networks and social change Interview 6: includes material on spirituality and responses to the researcher's interpretations of the case narrative The focus for investigation shifted from values, to adulthood, to social capital across these three studies. However, a consistent concern was to investigate agency and the 'reflexive project of self'; values and the construction of adult identity; how the social and material environment in which young people grow up acts to shape the values and identities that they adopt; and the impact of globalisation on the individual. Working with the complexity of young people's accounts, the study focused on the dynamic interplay between the individual, the resources available to them and the structuring effects of time, locality, class and gender. The study also offers considerable methodological potential not only for the further development of prospective QL methodology and biographical and case history approaches but also for application to policy and practice. Further information is available at the project's site, Inventing Adulthoods. In September 2011, the title was shorted to Inventing Adulthoods, 1996-2006 to describe the current data collection. For the third edition (July 2011), 44 semi-structured interview transcripts with 10 new, young female respondents were added to the data collection (5777int108 to 5777int151).

Main Topics:

Teenagers, young adulthood, growing up.

Volunteer sample

Face-to-face interview