Studying Second-Generation Transitions into Adulthood in Switzerland: A Biographical Approach

Abstract

This chapter aims to identify the approach, interests, and specific contributions of biographical research in the case of the analysis of the second-generation transition into adulthood. It is based on a biographical study that looked at how second-generation residents experience and manage the transition from school to professional life and adulthood. A specificity of the study is that persons were interviewed twice, first at the end of the compulsory school (i.e., ninth grade) and second, three years later. Such a longitudinal design makes it possible to analyse changes and/or continuities in the biographical structure and in the subjective interpretation of his/her life particularly well.