The background to this study is that there is no studies on youth and their transition to adulthood in preindustrial Sweden. The main objective of this thesis has therefore been to analyze young peoples transition to adulthood during the late 18th and 19th centuries in a region of the northern part of Sweden. The social context of the region was mainly agrarian during the investigated period despite the fact that in the later part of the 19th and beginning of 20th century, a development of a growing forest industry had started. The main questions is: How and when in life did different social categories of young people establish an independent and adult life? Where there any changes in transitional patterns and was the establishment smoother or more troublesome at different times during the investigated period ? Where there any changes regarding social norms related to the establishment of adult life? The transition to adult life is studied from a life-course approach and four key-transitions; The First Holy communion, leaving home, marriage and parenthood are regarded as significant steps within the process to a independent social position. Individual data related to keytransitions is mainly collected from cathectical examination records and comprised 2206 individuals born in six different cohorts between 1770 and 1900. The selected cohorts represents individuals that had to deal with different social conditions during their youth and transition to adult life. The main results regarding the transition to adult life can be summarized in two words, complexity and variance. Usually it was a "long" transition but the number of accomplished keytransitions and the order between them varied, as well as ages when taking the first Holy Communion, leaving home, marriage and entering parenthood varied. Transitional patterns varied between different categories of youth. A dividing line existed between the sexes, those from households strongly rooted in the agricultural structure and those with background in social categories that didn't own or was in possession of land. Social norms related to keytransitons changed along this dividing line during the investigated period of time, and became less permissive within landowning or land-possessing categories and less prescriptive in other categories. Transitional patterns were also influenced by the social situation at different historical times. The need for labor, war and years of famine directly intervened in timing and sequencing of keytransitions. A long term development was that the transition to adult life became more problematic in the later part of the 19th century, especially among young people who were less integrated in the social context and among socially stigmatized youth. Finally, young people were active and reflexive in seeking social space to make the transition to adult life, actions that sometimes caused tensions and conflicts between generations. / digitalisering@umu

In this dissertation, the lives of five young people living in Norrköping follows for five years (1998 – 2002) through fieldwork involving observations and recurring interviews. The objective of the study is to describe and analyse the development into adulthood and the creation of a (cultural) identity among a group of young people in a town, which used to be heavily working class. The objective is also to relate this to gender and class, institutional practices, the cultural legacy and changes in society. Primarily qualitative sociological research methods have been applied in the study. Ideas about social interaction and social processes derived from symbolic interactionism constitute one of the scientific foundations of the study. The study deals with the three key transitions; education, work and personal life. These transitions, which are essential to attaining adulthood, are emphasised and problematised in the study. In this study we can see that the process of individualisation in modern society has, in the context of the development of young people into adulthood, taken the form of a stream of messages to which they relate and in which society has, via institutional practices and rhetoric, played an active role. Factors such as gender, class and culture have constituted the conditions for the individualisation process. The mixed messages received by these young people have been representative of the discrepancy between general career possibilities and the actual opportunities which the youths in the study have encountered. These mixed messages have been mediated, as biographical schemes, at home (by parents), at school, in the context of institutional practices and, not least, via local politics, local media and in literature about the town. In its conclusion, this study points out that political and public discourse in Norrköping constitutes a bearer and “preserver” of a patriarchal tradition which contributes to preserving the negative image of the working-class town of Norrköping.