Emerging Adulthood: An Intersectional Examination of the Changing Life Course

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

Understanding the Social Science Effect: An Intervention in Life Course Generosity

Does interacting with social science data in early adulthood promote generosity? To investigate this question from a life course development perspective, two distinct samples were drawn for a survey with an embedded experimental design. The first sample is of emerging adult college students (n = 30, median age = 20 years). The second sample is of young adults who were selected to participate based on their prior participation in a nationally representative and longitudinal study (n = 170, median age = 31 years). Toward the end of the survey, participants were randomly selected into a website interaction with either: (a) data on charitable giving, (b) data on social inequality, or (c) data about weather (a control condition). The key outcome of interest is a behavioral measure of generosity: whether participants elected to keep their study incentive or donate their incentive to a charitable organization. The donation decision occurred after the randomly selected website interaction. Interacting with charitable giving data resulted in greater generosity than interacting with weather data, across both samples. Interacting with social inequality data had mixed results. Moreover, emerging adult college students gave at a considerably higher rate overall than the national sample of young adults, net of treatment type. Implications are discussed

The Science of College: Navigating the First Year and Beyond

The transition to adulthood is a complex process, and college is pivotal to this experience. "The Science of College" aids entering college students--and the people who support them--in navigating college successfully, with up-to-date recommendations based upon real student situations, sound social science research, and the collective experiences of faculty, lecturers, advisors, and student support staff. The stories captured in this book highlight how the challenges that college students encounter vary in important ways based on demographics and social backgrounds. Despite these varied backgrounds, all students are more likely to have successful college experiences if they invest in their communities. Universities have many resources available, but as this book will show, students need to learn when to access which resources and how best to engage with people serving students. This includes having a better awareness of the different roles held by university faculty and staff, and navigating who to go to for what, based upon understanding their distinct sets of expertise and approaches to support. There is no single template for student success. Yet, this book highlights common issues that many students face and provides science-based advice for how to navigate college. Each topic covered is geared towards the life stage that most college students are in: emerging adulthood. In addition to the student-focused chapters, the book includes appendixes with activities for students, tips for parents, and methods information for faculty. Supplemental website materials suggest classroom activities for instructors who adopt this book within first-year seminars and general education courses