Time structures such as future orientation, moratorium and linearity as characteristics of the socialisation of youth have increasingly lost their self-evidence in the process of social change, blurring boundaries of youth in the activating welfare state. This is by no means to a uniform 'new' temporality of youth, but rather tensions between orientation towards the future, acceleration and sequentiality on the one hand and orientation towards the present, time gain and simultaneity on the other. These tensions, which are in turn structured by relations of inequality, are at the centre of the contribution and will be used for a time-theoretical reflection on the social constitution of youth. To this end, they will be contextualised both with regard to the development of youth research and with regard to exemplary constellations based on three vignettes concerning transitions during the pandemic, the youth-cultural practice of chilling and the Fridays for Future movement. Against this background, relational concepts of temporality are introduced and their contribution to a theoretical reassurance of the constitution of youth is discussed.

Temporality is a key principle of the constitution of youth as a life phase. Historically, ,invented‘ and institutionalized as moratorium, youth has been reserved for preparation for adulthood, thus contributing to the sequential order of the modern life course. Institutional age marks in school, youth welfare or citizenship claim to explicitly demarcate beginning and ending of youth in a linear way. Not only but most lately in the context of the activating welfare state, temporal normativities and normalities of growing up seem to have lost consistency. Consequently, young people have to position themselves with regard to chrononormative markers of the ‘right age’ reflected by distinctions from, ‘too young for …’ or, ‘too old for …’. The article analyses blurring temporalities of the youth phase by relating changes of the temporal regime(s) of young people's growing up and their individual and collective time work from a doing transitions perspective. The complexity and paradox of these temporalities are illustrated by three exemplary empirical case vignettes: Coping with suspended transitions in the pandemic; Fridays for Future as intergenerational struggle for future; and youth cultural practices expressing attempts of slowing down. In these constellations tensions of temporality emerge: the tension between moratorium and acceleration, between orientation towards the future and orientation towards the present, between simultaneity and linear sequentiality. A relational approach to the temporalities of youth is developed along with concepts like relative time and asynchronicity while young people's time work is reinterpreted in terms of doing youth in time. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of relational temporality for conceptualizing young people's agency and consequences for youth research.

Insbesondere Zeitstrukturen wie Zukunftsbezug, Moratorium und Linearität als Merkmale der Vergesellschaftung von Jugend haben im sozialen Wandel bzw. der Entgrenzung von Jugend im aktivierenden Wohlfahrtsstaat zunehmend ihre Selbstverständlichkeit verloren. Dabei ist keineswegs von einer einheitlichen ‚neuen‘ Zeitlichkeit von Jugend auszugehen, sondern vielmehr von Spannungsverhältnissen zwischen Zukunftsorientierung, Beschleunigung und Sequenzialität auf der einen und Gegenwartsorientierung, Zeitgewinn und Gleichzeitigkeit auf der anderen Seite, die wiederum durch Ungleichheitsverhältnisse strukturiert sind. Diese Spannungsverhältnisse stehen im Zentrum des Beitrags und dienen einer zeittheoretischen Reflexion der gesellschaftlichen Konstituierung von Jugend. Dazu werden sie sowohl mit Blick auf die Entwicklung der Jugendforschung als auch exemplarisch anhand dreier zeitdiagnostischer Vignetten – zu Übergängen in der Pandemie, der jugendkulturellen Praxis des Chillens und der Bewegung Fridays for Future – kontextualisiert. Vor diesem Hintergrund werden relationale Konzepte von Zeitlichkeit eingeführt und deren Beitrag zu einer theoretischen Vergewisserung der Konstituierung von Jugend diskutiert.

Far right extremism, understood as both an ideology of inequality and exclusion that manifests itself in attitudes and behavior as well as a heterogeneous movement, partially with affinity to violence, challenges and even threatens democratic societies. We argue that social science research on far right extremism contributes to strengthen democracy and civil society against this threat. By adopting a transdisciplinary, lifeworld (Lebenswelt) and political culture perspective, social science can contribute to this task and also help to overcome the fragmentation of the research field. In this article, we first provide an overview of current developments in social science research on far right extremism with a focus on Germany. Second, we outline five premises for such a transdisciplinary research perspective on far right extremism. Thus, we argue for adopting both a theoretical perspective built around the lifeword’ concept and methodological pluralism. Third, we propose four interrelated thematic clusters as a taxonomy of transdisciplinary research perspectives on far right extremism: a) Far right ideologies and knowledge constructions; b) Far right actors, organizations, and networks; c) Far right extremist discourses, (digital) media, and strategies in the public sphere; and d) political education, transfer, and implementation research regarding projects against far right extremism. Fourth, we argue that further institutionalization research on far right extremism is indispensable to make research on far right extremism more sustainable, to connect research with societal actors, and to utilize research results to strengthen society’s democratic resilience.

Der Beitrag entwickelt ein Verständnis von Transdisziplinarität, mit dem anerkannt wird, dass wir aus unterschiedlichen disziplinären Perspektiven Forschungsgegenstände zwar jeweils unterschiedlich hervorbringen, gleichzeitig aber – theoretisch wie methodologisch – vielfach bereits Transdisziplinarität praktizieren. Dies wird anhand aktueller Forschungsfelder konkretisiert. Der Beitrag wendet sich dann einer Perspektive zu, die Transdisziplinarität noch einmal neu rahmt: das „reading through“ oder die diffraktive Perspektive. An dieser kann sich ein Forschen orientieren, das sich seiner Positionalität und Relationalität bewusst bleiben will.

AbstractLife courses and the transitions that mark them are highly complex phenomena of social reproduction. Past research has been driven by institutional actors and policymakers concerned with mitigating problems such as social disadvantage and risks of exclusion. It has tried to reduce complexity to make it easier to observe and measure the effects of transitions on individual life trajectories. This chapter joins several other recent attempts to better address the complexities of life course by introducing a new framework – Doing Transitions – for understanding life course transitions, which also provides a foundation for the chapters of this book. This framework is inspired by a praxeological perspective, which takes as its starting point the proposition that transitions do not simply exist but are constantly constituted through social practices and the interrelation of social discourses, institutional regulation, and individual processes of learning, education, and coping. After describing the doing transitions framework, this chapter provides a brief overview of the volume and its contributions, which are organized around three themes: institutions and organizations; times and normativities; and materialities, such as bodies, spaces, and artefacts.

AbstractIt is common to interpret transitions as individual experiences that are largely the result of personal choices and behaviors or that are being worked out through individual processes. A foundational tenet of a Doing Transitions framework is that transitions are shaped and produced through social practices and are therefore not individual but relational – constantly co-produced or shared with, conditioned by, or otherwise involving multiple others. As such, a Doing Transitions framework makes visible the ways in which social interactions and processes create or reify individual and group differences, including how transition processes and outcomes are entangled in dynamics of power and empowerment, inequalities, politics and the welfare state. Instead of being seen as fixed entities, transitions are viewed as processual, dynamic, situated, and interwoven. This chapter makes an innovative contribution to the literature by systematizing this shift in observing and analyzing transitions. It recalls some core aspects of the theoretical turn offered by relational approaches and, against this backdrop, offers five distinct patterns of relationality and draws upon chapters of this book to illustrate how the science and practice of transitions can be advanced by leveraging these patterns of relationality.

What are the foundations of reflexive transition research envisaged by the concept of doing transitions? The article opening this special issue introduces the concept as a theoretical reflection grounded in empirical research on how transitions in the life course are shaped and constituted as changes of social state. This perspective is motivated by social change and its effects on how transitions are socially addressed and by developments in recent transitions research. The focus of the article lies in developing the concept from its theoretical foundations, practice theory and doing difference, and their operationalization in discursive, institutional and individual modes of doing transitions. These are illustrated by three exemplary phd projects developed in the phd programme in the framework of which the concept has been developed. To conclude, the added value of this perspective for both educational sciences and for interdisciplinary transition research is identified in a reflexive approach towards ageing and the life course and the inherent structures of power.

Was macht das Grundverständnis einer reflexiven Übergangsforschung aus, die mit dem Begriff Doing Transitions angestrebt wird? Der Beitrag eröffnet das Beiheft und stellt das Konzept Doing Transitions als eine – auch die eigene Forschung einbeziehende – reflexive Perspektive vor, mittels der sich erforschen lässt, wie soziale Zustandswechsel gestaltet und darüber immer wieder hergestellt werden. Diese Perspektive wird sowohl mit Blick auf die im gesellschaftlichen Wandel veränderte Thematisierung und Gestaltung von Übergängen im Lebenslauf als auch auf Entwicklungen in der Übergangsforschung selbst begründet. Kern des Beitrags ist die Einführung in die zugrundeliegenden praxis- und differenzierungstheoretischen Prämissen und ihre Operationalisierung als Frage nach diskursiven, institutionellen und individuellen Modi der Gestaltung und Herstellung von Übergängen. Letztere werden anhand dreier konkreter Dissertationsprojekte, die im gleichnamigen Graduiertenkolleg entstanden sind, in ihrem Wechselverhältnis illustriert. Der Mehrwert dieser Perspektive liegt für die Erziehungswissenschaft und generell für eine sich interdisziplinär verstehende Übergangsforschung in einem reflexiven Zugriff auf Lebenslauf und Lebensalter sowie darin enthaltene Machtstrukturen.