Individualized youth subjectivity and social background: subjective understandings of advantage and disadvantage among Oslo youth

Abstract

This study examines the subjective understandings of advantage and disadvantage of Oslo youth. It combines survey and interview material where participants have been invited to judge the relevance of various assets for and obstacles to achieving one's goals in life. As advantages and disadvantages can be grouped into factors within and outside the control of individuals, this object of study is of direct relevance to the long-standing debate about individualization, class, and youth subjectivity. The study finds a widespread adherence among participants to the central tenets of individualism, but this endorsement is not accompanied by a rejection of the impact of family resources. The study further identifies social differences in that youth from higher class backgrounds are more inclined to acknowledge assets and obstacles of a structural quality. Finally, participants from dissimilar class backgrounds mobilize structural factors in reflexive, but dissimilar ways.

Keywords:

• youth subjectivity
• perceptions of advantage
• individualization
• class
• reflexivity

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the two reviewers for their constructive comments. The author is grateful for being permitted by the NOVA research institute to use their youth survey data and to conduct follow-up interviews with volunteers from the survey. The survey questions utilized in the article were developed in concert with NOVA researcher Kristinn Hegna, who has also read and provided helpful comments on earlier versions of the article. The interviews were conducted in coordination with University of Oslo MA students Margrethe Gustavsen, Stian Mathisen, Kine Paulsen, and Linda Pettersen. Torben Hviid Nielsen has contributed with ideas throughout the research process. The author would finally like to thank Dan Woodman for a thorough reading and inspiring comments.

Notes

1. Fittingly, the researcher can only blame himself for this omission.

2. It should be noted, however, that the 78 who mention ethnic minority status comprise around 40% of the ethnic minority youth who answered the question.

3. In a later paper, Furlong (2009, 349) denies that the epistemological fallacy implies a lack of awareness of unequal resources. In my view, this invites the question of what is left within the concept that makes it epistemological, and what makes it a fallacy.