Youth and transition

Colleagues are involved in a range of work in this area. Some funded projects are listed separately but areas of research interest include young people's pathways, transitions and prospects in the current context of profound social, educational and labour market changes, and socio-political crises, including Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic. Presentations are available from a city wide event we ran in partnership with Leeds City Council in 2019 on 'Young people, skills and prospects in employment' with an array of academics and city stakeholders.

Publications by colleagues in this area include:

Allen K (2020) ‘Young women’s aspirations and transitions into, through and away from contemporary creative work’, in Taylor S and Luckman S (eds) Pathways into Creative Working Lives, Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan

Allen, K., Finn, K. and Ingram, N. (2020) (Are you) OK Boomer? Discursive Constructions of Millennials and Generation through COVID-19, Discover Society: The COVID-19 Chronicles.

Ingram, N., & Allen, K. (2019). ‘Talent-spotting’ or ‘social magic’? Inequality, cultural sorting and constructions of the ideal graduate in elite professions. The Sociological Review, 67(3), 723–740.

Irwin, S (2020) ‘Young people in the middle: pathways, prospects, policies and a new agenda for youth research’, Journal of Youth Studies, DOI: 10.1080/13676261.2020.1792864

Irwin, S. (2020) ‘Subjective understandings of young people’s agency: concepts, methods and lay frames of reference’, in Nico, M. and Caetano, A. (eds) Structure and agency in young people’s lives: theory, methods and agendas, London: Routledge.

Mendick, H., Allen, K., Harvey, L., and Ahmad, A. (2018), Celebrity, Aspiration and Contemporary Youth: Education  and Inequality in an Era of Austerity. London: Bloomsbury Press.

Allen, K. (2016), ‘Top girls navigating austere times: interrogating youth transitions since the “crisis”’, Journal of Youth Studies, 19(6): 805-820.