Isabelle Diepstraten

Trendsetting Learning Biographies: Concepts of Navigating through Late-modern Life and Learning

In this article we build a theoretical framework with which to analyse trendsetting learning biographies; that is, biographies that are prototypical realisations of a cultural script about how young people learn and live in late modernity. In the current debate on lifelong learning in knowledge-based societies learners are interpreted in an economical and psychological sense. Notions from youth, life course, and generation sociology are, however, needed to fully understand trendsetting learning biographies. We selected 14 Dutch younger adults (varying by class and gender) with these biographies, analysed their biographical narrations, and explored the importance of structure and agency in their learning biographies. Their life stories reveal a structured interrelation between an integrated life conception, special forms of social capital, and the key competence of biographicity. We conclude with some thought on the complications of theory building when interpreting learners in a biographical sense.

Buy Nothing Day in Japan. Individualizing life courses and forms of engagement.

Buy Nothing Day (BND) in Japan is a case for connecting notions on individual-ization of life courses and emerging forms of civic engagement. Based on interviews with BND Japan participants, we will see who participates and why. Moreover, we will explore how this participation interacts with the Japanese context. The highly educated participants of BND are well aware of the notions of seeking and shaping their own path in life, including civic life, and especially of doing so in a loose network of like-minded others. They are uncomfortable to define themselves in a one-dimensional way. There are three categories of motives to participate in BND Japan. The participants appreciate loosely structured, lifestyle-oriented and spontaneous activism. Also, they reflect Japanese cultural and structural conditions by, especially, separating their lives, identities and activism from the ‘world above’, the polity in Japan. It is complicated in Japan to present an ‘authentic self’ in one’s lifestyle that is stable and noticeable across roles, situations or contexts if one does not want to risk exclusion.

Reminiscences of an Extreme Century Intergenerational Differences in Time Heuristics: Dutch People's Collective Memories of the 20th Century

The new millennium has inspired social observers to contemplate the events that shaped the 20th century. Little is known about how the general public and generations within it interpret the landmark events of this century. If generation theory is correct one may hypothesize that different generations remember and interpret distinct events. Generations share different collective memories and, consequently, intergenerational differences are expected in the time heuristics that generations apply. This hypothesis is tested with the Dutch CentERdata Millennium Survey (N = 1391). It is observed that though generations recall similar events, they interpret these events in distinct ways, based on their formative experiences.

Conclusions: From Politicization to Culturalization of Civic Engagement

Hoe zijn nieuwe vormen van politieke actie in Japan te duiden? Wat is er typisch Japans aan?