Job Training for Careers Requiring More Than High School But Less than College

Lauren Moore, blogging back in February at The Future of Children website, discusses the need for the U.S. to prepare millions of young people for jobs that require something more than a high school diploma, but not necessarily a college bachelor's degree (there are also, of course, millions of future jobs that will require a bachelor's degree).

Moore alludes in her posting to a Harvard Graduate School of Education report that "recommends identifying career fields of interest early on, and then creating pathways by which students can learn the skills they need to succeed in those occupations, some of which involve a bachelor's degree and some of which do not."

In this way, the posting reminds me of the distinction between American and European systems of transitioning young people from education to occupations. As Jeff Arnett writes in his 2004 book Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens through the Twenties, "In most European countries, young people separate into different schools by age 14 or 15, with some entering schools that will prepare them for college and others entering schools that will prepare them for a trade, such as electronics or auto mechanics" (p. 132).

Arnett discusses the pros and cons of the American and European systems. Essentially, these boil down to the European system promoting focus and occupational progress, but at the cost of requiring individuals to choose their educational/occupational life path at a very early age (with it being very difficult to change course down the line). The American system, by not requiring early focus and commitment, allows for exploration (potentially good), but with the possibility of such exploration transforming into floundering.

Jeff Arnett Discusses Economic Issues

Jeff Arnett discusses the fate of emerging adults in the persistently tough U.S. economy.

Book Announcement: Romantic Relationships in Emerging Adulthood

The new book Romantic Relationships in Emerging Adulthood (Cambridge University Press) is now available. It is an edited volume, overseen by Frank Fincham and Ming Cui of Florida State University, with each chapter written by different authors.

I contributed one of the opening chapters, providing background information on Emerging Adulthood and its possible links to romantic-relationship development.

Other chapters cover a variety of topics, including relationship initiation, family-of-origin influences, sexuality, cohabitation, and relationship education. There are also chapters on methodological and statistical approaches to studying close relationships, such as the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model.

Book Review: Urban Tribes

I recently finished reading Ethan Watters's 2003 book Urban Tribes: Are Friends the New Family? I had known about the book for several years and, in retrospect, I wished I had read it earlier, as I found it extremely relevant to the study of Emerging Adulthood. The book grew out of a 2001 New York Times magazine piece by Watters, and the voluminous e-mails he received in response to the article (and other media appearances) from fellow tribe-practitioners around the world.

Urban Tribes are groups of friends, each member of which is usually single or in a dating relationship (in fact, a major theme Watters explores in the book is whether tribe membership helps or hinders one's prospects of getting married or establishing similar long-term relationships). There is great variation in group size, although 50 seemed like a typical number. Agewise, the twenties through forties would commonly define the range of tribe members. A term Watters uses that describes many tribe participants in a manner akin to Emerging Adulthood is Post-College/Pre-Family.

Emerging Adulthood-relevant passages just jump off the page. Young adults without spouses and children face an "excess of freedom" (p. 9) and "a remarkable amount of personal autonomy to make up our lives as we went along" (p. 27). Many live in a "world of confused roles, time lines, and expectations" (p. 9). Some had a feeling of having "delayed becoming an adult" (p. 21) and that it was "Perhaps... time to move on and become a real adult" (p. 23).

The activities tribes engage in can be quite whimsical, such as re-enacting senior proms or taking "elaborate costumed Halloween trips to Vegas" (p. 37). On the other hand, tribe members also did things that represented deep levels of commitment and caring for each other. As Watters describes:

"My group of friends also came together to tackle group projects such as painting a living room, critiquing someone's rough cut of a documentary, or caring for someone who had fallen ill. We moved each other's furniture, talked each other through breakups, and attended each other's parents' funerals. Those who had money loaned it to those who didn't. Everything we owned, from books to tools to furniture to cars, was shared, or loaned or given away on an ongoing basis..." (p. 37). It is these latter acts that led Watters to hypothesize that much of what goes on in tribes of friends might have the significance of what family members do for each other (see discussion on pp. 38-39).

Another key issue is the longevity of tribes. Although people come and go, the core members of some groups sometimes stay together for 15-20 years or longer. The closest example of an Urban Tribe that I could personally relate to was the collection of friends one of my Texas Tech faculty colleagues established as a single, new assistant professor upon her arrival to Lubbock. She and several of her friends and neighbors -- a ballet instructor, a research associate, and several faculty members -- would, among other activities, gather at her house for periodic parties. At one, people had to wear nametags on which their names were preceded by self-descriptive adjectives starting with the same letter (e.g., I was "Affable, Analytic Alan"). After I finished reading Urban Tribes, I asked my colleague if she considered her group to be such a tribe. She replied that, in addition to the parties, her group hung out at a local coffee house and so, to some extent, could be considered a tribe. However, many of the members moved away from Lubbock after a year or two, so the long-term continuity wasn't there.

One last thing I wanted to mention is that Watters reviews several areas of academic research and how they might relate to the phenomenon of Urban Tribes, such as network theory, social identity, and civic engagement (i.e., "Bowling Alone"). These connections would presumably increase the interest level of the book for social scientists, but absolutely no academic training in sociology or other related fields is required to enjoy the book.

Seeking Young People's Stories About the Great Recession

Barbara Ray and colleagues are seeking young people's stories about transitioning to adulthood during the Great Recession of the past couple of years, for a book/documentary project. This project, studying whom the authors refer to as "Generation R," can be accessed by clicking here.

My Psychology Today Blog Column

Starting today, I will be a regular blogger for Psychology Today, writing a column entitled "On the Campus: Emerging Adulthood and Adolescent Life." My first column addresses the question of whether college attendance increases students' drinking compared to if they never set foot on a university campus. I'll still post here, on the Emerging Adulthood blog, pertaining to matters outside of college and academia. But for issues in higher education, I invite you to visit my writings for Psychology Today.

Young Voters in 2010 Midterm Elections

After the 2008 U.S. presidential election, I wrote about the role of young voters in Barack Obama's win and cited expert opinion at the time on whether the present cohort of young voters would continue to turn out in future elections and whether they would remain as heavily inclined toward the Democratic party as they were in '08.

Leading into this upcoming November's midterm elections for the U.S. House and Senate, state governorships, and other offices, Republicans have been projected to make major gains. It's not so much that Democrat-leaning voters are being won over to Republican ideas; rather, polling seems to suggest an "enthusiasm gap" that may propel a greater share of GOP-leaning citizens into the voting booth than of Democratic supporters. However, the Democrats may be catching up in motivation, to some degree.

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released earlier today, with the headline "Battle for Congress tightens between parties," suggests that certain segments of the traditional Democratic coalition are started to get more excited about voting -- but young adults are not among them.

The NBC/WSJ pollsters attribute the tightening to increased enthusiasm for the upcoming midterms by African Americans (who saw a six-point gain in high interest) and Hispanics (who saw an 11-point gain).

But young voters, who helped fuel Obama’s presidential victory in 2008, are now sitting on the sidelines. Just 35 percent of those ages 18-34 are enthusiastic about the election in November, versus 65 percent of seniors who say that.

In an apparent attempt to reinvigorate the youth vote, Obama spoke today at a large rally at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and apparently will appear on other campuses in the coming weeks (see here and here).