Rethinking education and work relationships in youth transition: an alternative metaphor

Abstract

Education and work are two essential parts of young people’s lives. Currently, the relationship between education and work in the youth policy field is predominantly discussed from the perspective of a narrow economic discourse of education to work transitions. This is despite the fact that this narrow paradigm of examining youth transition from school to work which was prevalent in the 1980s and early 1990s has been consistently problematised and re-worked in the past few decades. Drawing on longitudinal data collected from a cohort of Australian young adults reporting their self-assessment of and their reflections on the connection between their study and work, this paper provides new empirical evidence in support of some of the arguments that have emerged within the field of youth studies regarding transition. Grounded in a broader conceptualisation of transition and informed by theories of youth citizenship, this paper highlights the complexities involved in young people’s navigation of education and work, and proposes the metaphor of a double helix which considers education and work as two interconnected venues through which recognition and meaning are achieved by young people in a postmodern society.