Abstract

In discussions of how social class matters during the transition to adulthood, the simultaneous importance of both class origins and future class trajectories is underexplored. In this paper, I use interviews with 60 emerging adults in the United States to investigate their stories about progress towards adulthood during the emerging adult years. I find that regardless of class backgrounds and trajectories, participants agree on three subjective criteria—identity exploration, learning responsibility, and gaining control—as most important to the project of becoming an adult. However, personal stories about living up to these subjective criteria diverge by future class plans. While those on class-advantaged (middle- and upper-middle-class) tracks draw heavily from traditional, concrete markers of adulthood to explain the accomplishment of subjective expectations, those on class-disadvantaged (working-class and poor) tracks stress the importance of “flexibility” as important in their stories about becoming an adult. While emerging adults use subjective criteria to explain reaching adulthood, this subjectivity also helps conceal the ongoing importance of access to material resources and opportunities for transitioning to adulthood along a normative path. Subjectivity also allows for individualization in emerging adults’ stories, which helps obscure broader patterns of inequality.

摘要

在过渡到成年的同时重视如何在社会阶层问题的讨论都阶级出身和未来的班级轨迹尚未得到充分研究。在本文中，我使用对60位美国新兴成年人的访谈来调查他们关于新兴成年人时代成年进展的故事。我发现，无论课堂背景和学习轨迹如何，参与者都同意三个主观标准，即身份探索，学习责任感和获得控制力，这对于成人项目至关重要。但是，关于达到这些主观标准的个人故事在未来的课堂计划中会有所不同。处于阶级优势（中产阶级和上层中产阶级）的人在很大程度上借鉴了传统的，成年的具体标志来解释主观期望的实现，那些处在弱势阶层（工人阶级和贫穷阶层）的人强调“灵活性”的重要性在他们成为成年人的故事中很重要。虽然新兴成年人使用主观标准来解释成年，但这种主观性也有助于掩盖获取物质资源和沿着规范道路过渡到成年的机会的持续重要性。主体性还可以使新兴成年人的故事个性化，这有助于掩盖更广泛的不平等现象。