Work

Reconciling Ideals of Autonomy and Parental Influence. Young People’s Stories of Educational Choice

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: Young people’s room for autonomy and independent life choices is challenged by intensive parenting practices and ambiguous ideals underpinning the youth-parent relationship. In this article, we explore how young people make sense of and relate to parental influence as they are about to make choices of higher education. Through Foucauldian discourse analyses of interviews with 23 young men and women (19 years) in Oslo, Norway, this study sheds light on how the youth reconciled ideals of self-expression and self-determination with perceived parental influence. We demonstrate how their ‘autonomous self’ is portrayed as ‘accountable’ and ‘malleable’, to allow for parent’s influence through their subject positions as ‘advisor’ and ‘socialising agent’. These subject positions overlap with discourses of intensive parenting previously described as disciplining the modern parent. We discuss whether youth contribute to the cultivation of ‘the intensive parent’, and the potential the ideal of autonomy holds for conformity to normalizing powers.

Source: British Journal of Sociology of Education

DOI: 10.1080/01425692.2024.2381684

Authors: Victoria de Leon Born, Kristinn Hegna, Kristin Beate Vasbø

Institution: University of Oslo

Language: English

Topic: Youth Education and Societal Dynamics

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Quality education

Open Access status: hybrid

Funder: Norges Forskningsråd