Secondary schooling and rural youth transitions in Lesotho and Zimbabwe

Based on case studies centred on two rural secondary schools in Lesotho and Zimbabwe, this paper examines the gendered impacts of schooling on young people’s transitions to adulthood. School attendance is shown, first, to disrupt the conventional pathways to adulthood: young people attending school may leave home sooner than they otherwise would, and take responsibility for their day-to-day survival, while marriage and childbearing are often delayed. More significantly, secondary schooling reflects, and contributes to, a growing sense that adulthood itself is not fixed. An alternative version of adulthood is promoted through schools in which formal sector employment is central. Yet while young people are encouraged to opt for, and work towards, this goal, only a minority are able to obtain paid employment. The apparent possibility of determining one’s own lifecourse serves to cast the majority of young people as failures in their transitions to adulthood

Cause-specific hospital admission and mortality among working men: association with socioeconomic circumstances in childhood and adult life, and the mediating role of daily stress

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to investigate the association of childhood and adulthood social class with the occurrence of specific diseases, including those not associated with a high mortality rate, and to investigate daily stress as the mechanism for that part of any association which cannot be accounted for by established risk factors. METHODS: This was a prospective cohort study with 25 years of follow-up for cause-specific morbidity and mortality. A total of 5577 Scottish men were recruited from 27 workplaces in the West of Scotland. Childhood social class was determined from the occupation held by the individual's father, and adulthood social class from the individual's occupation at enrolment. Daily stress was measured at enrolment using the Reeder Stress Inventory. RESULTS: Health differentials were found for cardiovascular diseases, lung cancer, peptic ulcer, asthma, accidents and violence, alcohol-related diseases, and perhaps psychiatric illness. Adulthood circumstances were associated with the incidence of most diseases in adulthood, the exception being stroke, which was strongly associated with less privileged circumstances in childhood. Both childhood and adulthood circumstances contributed to the incidence of coronary heart disease. Daily stress did not underlie any of these associations once the influence of established risk factors had been taken into account. CONCLUSIONS: Socioeconomic circumstances in childhood and adulthood both contribute to health differentials in adulthood, the relative contributions depending upon the particular disease. Where known risk factors explained only part of the excess of a disease among individuals raised or living in less-privileged circumstances, there was no evidence to suggest that daily stress was the reason for the unexplained excess

Contestable adulthood: variability and disparity in markers for negotiating the transition to adulthood

Recent research has identified a discreet set of subjective markers that are seen as characterizing the transition to adulthood. The current study challenges this coherence by examining the disparity and variability in young people’s selection of such criteria. Four sentence-completion cues corresponding to four differentcontexts in which adult status might be contested were given to 156 British 16- to 17-year-olds. Their qualitative responses were analyzed to explore patterns whilst capturing some of their richness and diversity. An astonishing amount of variability emerged, both within and between cued contexts.The implications of this variability for how the transition to adulthood is experienced are explored. The argument is made that markers of the transition to adulthood are not merely reflective of the bio–psycho–social development of young people. Rather, adulthood here is seen as an essentially contested concept,located within the discursive interactional environment in which young people participate

Adulthood: the Contemporary Redefinition of a Social Category

Social trends such as delayed or forfeited family formation, postponed home leaving and allegedly infantilising leisure practices are often marshalled in support of a long standing social scientific as well as popular assumption: successive generations take longer to reach adulthood. This article argues that this 'delayed adulthood thesis' is based on an anachronistic model of adulthood and goes on to suggest an alternative conception. Some original interview material with individuals in their late twenties as well as the notion of social recognition are utilized in this process. It is suggested that the very practices that serve as evidence for the delayed adulthood thesis are in fact productive of new, emerging modalities of adulthood that are commensurate with changed and changing social realities.Adulthood; Adolescence; Emerging Adulthood; Early Adulthood; Biography; Life Course; Recognition; Social Change

Youth transitions : from offending to desistance

This article examines youth transitions and youth offending in tandem. It argues that the transition to adulthood is heavily implicated in the fact that most offending occurs in the youth phase. Drawing on a study of 20 male and 20 female persistent young offenders in Scotland, it explores young people's desire for integration with others in the transition phases - with their families in childhood, with their friends in youth and with the wider society in adulthood. During the youth phase, much of that integration comes from offending itself, whereas when more legitimate opportunities and sources of recognition are offered to them in early adulthood, desistance is more likely to occur

The Evolution of Ethnic Identity From Adolescence to Middle Adulthood: The Case of the Immigrant Second Generation

Through an analysis of qualitative interview and survey data, this study examines ethnic identity development from midadolescence to middle adulthood among a representative sample of immigrants’ children from Mexico, the Philippines, and other countries, who were followed for more than 20 years. Findings reveal that ethnic self-identity labels are more stable in adulthood than adolescence or the transition to adulthood, but the importance of ethnic identity diminishes, especially among those born abroad. Most prefer ethnic identity labels referencing their origin country, reflecting family ties and cultural attachments. However, some, mostly foreign-born, shift to ethnic self-identity labels exclusively related to their American experience, including panethnic labels in response to U.S. racialization. Only a few actively resist such labeling and claim nonhyphenated American identities. Overall, the findings reveal how diverse ethnic identity development patterns over the life course are shaped both by ancestral attachments and the imposition of existing U.S. racial structures

Career success: the role of teenage career aspirations, ambition value and gender in predicting adult social status and earnings

Links between family social background, teenage career aspirations, educational performance and adult social status attainment are well documented. Using a contextual developmental framework, this article extends previous research by examining the role of gender and teenage ambition value in shaping social status attainment and earnings in adulthood. Drawing on data from an 18-year British follow up study we tested a path model linking family background factors (such as family social status and parental aspirations) and individual agency factors in adolescence (in particular, career aspirations and ambition value) to social status attainment and earnings in adulthood. The findings suggest that ambition value is linked to adult earnings. That is, young people for whom it is important to get on in their job earn more money in adulthood than their less ambitious peers. The findings also confirm that teenage career aspirations are linked to adult social status attainment, and suggest that family background factors, teenage career aspirations and ambition value interact to influence social status attainment and earnings in adulthood. Gender differences are discusse

ADHD : from childhood into adulthood

This is an overview of the some of the most recent and seminal research done on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders (ADHD). ADHD is currently one of the most common reasons for referral to child mental health services and still is under-recognised both in children (5.29%) and adults (2.5%). ADHD is a highly heritable disorder with a mulitifactorial pattern of inheritance. Parents, siblings and parents of a child with ADHD are 4-5 times more likely to have ADHD. Environmental factors also play a role in elucidating this disorder. Untreated ADHD leads to numerous co-morbidities, and longer term morbidity. Methylphenidate is suggested as the first line pharmacological treatment. ADHD is easy to treat, 80% of correctly diagnosed patients (children or adults) respond favourably to methylphenidate. All child and general adult psychiatrists should be aware of this disorder, comfortable with making the diagnosis and treating adults with ADHD. The purpose of the overview is to cover the epidemiology, aetiology, diagnostic criteria and different managements of ADHD.peer-reviewe