Young lives and imagined futures

Taking the future as its starting point, this seminar on 15 November 2010 investigated data on young people’s orientation to their future lives, gathered through a range of historical and contemporary studies, including the National Child Development Study, Ray Pahl’s Isle of Sheppey study, the British Household Panel study and childhood and youth projects within Timescapes.

As well as engaging with time and young lives, the seminar explored cutting edge methodologies for primary and secondary analysis of historical and contemporary datasets.

Presenters, presentations and Susie Weller's reflections

• Doing gender through imagined gendered futures? Using a mixed method approach to the analysis of essays written by members of the 1958 British Birth Cohort at age 11 Jane Elliott (London, Institute of Education, Centre for Longitudinal Studies)
• Where are they now? Pathways into early adulthood: towards a mixed method approach Heather Laurie (Essex, Institute for Social and Economic Research)
• Career and identity: The role of teenage aspirations Ingrid Schoon (London, Institute of Education)
• The imagined futures of young people on Sheppey in 1978 Graham Crow (Southampton, National Centre for Research Methods)
• Youngsters' expectations and context: secondary analysis and interpretation Sarah Irwin and Mandy Winterton (University of Leeds)
• Reflections Ros Edwards and Susie Weller (London South Bank University)
• Hopes for the future: Parents' and children's understandings of children's future employment orientations Jeni Harden (Edinburgh Napier, Centre for Research on Families and Relationships)