Emerging Adulthood: An Intersectional Examination of the Changing Life Course

• Authors: Shauna A. Morimoto
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This article draws on qualitative data of U.S. high school students considering their place in the adult world; the purpose is to investigate Jeffrey Arnett’s (2000) concept of “emerging adulthood” as a new stage of life course. Drawing on interviews and observational data collected around the time when Arnett’s notion of emerging adulthood started to take hold, I use intersectional interpretive lens in order to highlight how race and gender construct emerging adulthood as high school students move out of adolescence. I consider Arnett’s thesis twofold. First, when emerging adulthood is examined intersectionally, young people reveal that – rather than being distinct periods that can simply be prolonged, delayed, or even reached – life stages are fluid and constantly in flux. Second, since efforts to mitigate against uncertain futures characterizes the Millennial generation, I argue that the process of guarding against uncertainty reorders, questions or reconfigures the characteristics and stages that conventionally serve as markers of life course. I conclude that the identity exploration, indecision, and insecurity associated with emerging adulthood can also be understood as related to how the youth reveal and reshape the life course intersectionally.

Keywords

EN

emerging adulthood; intersectional analysis; life course; adolescence

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Łódzki. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Journal: Przegląd Socjologii Jakościowej
• Year: 2019
• Volume: 15
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 14-33

Dates

published

2019-11-30

Contributors

author

Shauna A. Morimoto

• University of Arkansas, Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Sociology and Criminology, 211 Old Main, Fayetteville, AR 72701 USA

• https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1869-156X

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Identifiers

DOI

10.18778/1733-8069.15.4.02