SAGE Publications London,Thousand Oaks, New Delhi Articles Exploring Complex Transitions: Looking Back at the ‘Golden Age ’ of From School to Work 1

Using data from a little known project, ‘Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles’, carried out in Leicester between 1962 and 1964, this article aims to re-examine the extent to which transitions during this time were complex, lengthy, non-linear and single-step and explores the assumed linearity and uncomplicated nature of school to work transitions in the 1960s. It is argued that earlier research on youth transitions has tended to understate the level of com-plexity that characterized youth transitions in the early 1960s and 1970s. Instead, authors exploring transition during this period concentrated on ‘macro ’ or more structural issues such as class and gender. It is suggested that transitions in the 1960s were characterized by individual level complexity that has largely been ignored by others exploring school to work transitions. KEY WORDS Norbert Elias / risk and individualization / young workers / youth transitions t is now well established that the way youth transitions are conceptualized has changed over the last 30 years or so (Evans and Furlong, 1997; Lawy, 2002; Layder et al., 1991; Roberts, 1995). Evans and Furlong (1997) reflect on this change by documenting the metaphors emerging from the different the-oretical approaches of the last 30 years. They argue ‘each metaphor represents ways of analysing and understanding the young person’s interactions with his or her social milieu and typical sequences of events between adolescence and I SOC50535 Goodwin 4/3/05 3:00 pm Page 201 at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on May 12, 2016soc.sagepub.comDownloaded fro