Home as a Physical, Social and Mental Space: Young People's Reflections on Leaving Home

Abstract

Home is a space that consists of physical places, social practices and mental meanings. All these aspects are evoked when young people plan or dream about moving away from their parental home. Young women and men have manifold hopes concerning finding space, peace, agency and independence that moving to a place of your own seems to promise. There are a range of fears and uncertainties in their thoughts about this transition as well. Starting work, getting into further education and establishing partnership have an impact on young people's dreams as well as on their practical possibilities of establishing their own household. Material, cultural and social resources at young people's disposal are embedded in their dreams and plans. They vary according to their social background and gender. In this paper we discuss reflections of young women and men on moving away from the parental home. We first met these young people when they were 13 years old, in an ethnographic study in secondary schools. This paper, then, draws from an ethnographically grounded life history research ‘Tracing Transitions—Follow-up Study of Post-sixteen Students’. In the project we have re-interviewed the same young women and men at around age 18 years, and again at around age 20 years.