26th ANNUAL WORKSHOP
SEPTEMBER, 5-8, 2018
The 26th annual workshop of the European Research Network on Transitions in Youth (TIY) will take place in Mannheim, Germany, from 5 to 8 September 2018. The workshop will be hosted by the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (Mannheimer Zentrum für Europäische Sozialforschung, MZES), University of Mannheim.
The theme of this year’s workshop is:
Youth Transitions in Challenging Times
Recent societal changes, including unprecedented waves of migration, globalisation, digitalisation and structural reforms in the aftermath of the economic and financial crisis have brought about new types of risks and fragilities, dangers of social fragmentation, and raising inequalities. These developments have significantly affected young people’s chances of attaining vocational training and higher education, entering the labour market, establishing an independent household, founding a family, and being integrated into key social and economic institutions in general.
It is not only that youths increasingly experience initial difficulties with the labour market entry and key demographic transitions in many countries, concerns are also voiced that these challenges might have detrimental effects on youth’s long-term employment prospects, their family patterns, (mental) health and social participation. In many European countries, experiences with young people who are not in education, employment or training raise questions about risks of social disintegration, with various consequences at both the individual and the societal level.
Research on youth transitions has been vibrant in recent decades, and we know much about youth labour market situation and school-to-work transitions as well as about the main factors influencing these phenomena both at the micro and at the macro level. At the micro-level, research no longer focuses only on human capital and signalling perspectives, emphasizing the role of education and vocational training, but also on the role of cognitive and non-cognitive skills, social contacts, cultural capital, personality traits and employers’ (discriminatory) behaviour. Furthermore, a paradigm shift is underway from regarding the school-to-work transition as a straight-line, unidirectional process towards analysing intervening, parallel and recursive events within the education systems, vocational training and labour markets. Demographic research has also added important insights about young people’s household, partnership and family formation, but the linkages between structural and demographic transition processes should still be further explored. Additional research is needed to better understand the effects of school-to-work transitions on time use, living conditions, poverty, health, and well-being. At the macro level, the major focus has been on the role of education and training systems as well as labour markets in shaping school-to-work transitions. New impulses can be gained from the focus on consequences of digitalisation and robotisation, specific policy interventions and reforms. In light of the European refugee crisis, it remains an open question whether existing immigration policies and integration practices are suitable for ensuring labour market and social integration of newcomers.
For the 26th annual TIY workshop, the Network Committee invites authors to submit contributions concerning the area of youth transitions, especially―but not exclusively―the transition from education to the labour market and its intersections with other life-course domains from both single-country and comparative perspectives.
Particular attention will be payed to the following themes:
– The mechanisms underlying effects of individual and institutional characteristics on a variety of youth transitions;
– The role of economic and structural changes, such as globalisation, digitalisation, and robotisation, on youth transition patterns and their life-course consequences;
– Effectiveness of youth policies and related institutions for youth transitions, labour market outcomes and overall well-being;
– Challenges of labour market and related transitions among (children of) immigrants and young refugees;
– Short-term and long-lasting effects of youth transitions on various outcomes, e.g., labour market, demographic domains, health, living conditions and overall well-being.
The Network Committee does not regard these suggested themes as a complete, let alone exclusive list. Theoretically driven empirical research on other aspects of youth transitions that is based on high-quality (longitudinal) data, experimental and intervention studies is also welcome. The committee also encourages researchers to submit conceptual contributions and papers carrying out meta analyses.
Anyone who wishes to present a paper at the workshop should send a one-page abstract via email to the address indicated below by 15 March 2018. In keeping with our usual procedures, abstracts will be assessed for selection by the members of the Network Committee on the basis of their quality and relevance to the theme of the workshop. Authors will be notified of the decision regarding their paper by 30 April 2018 at the latest.
The conference fee is set at € 600 and includes four nights of accommodation (single room), lunches and social events (including conference dinner). Since only a limited number of places will be available, anyone who wishes to attend the conference without presenting a paper should inform the conference organisers about this as soon as possible. To ensure the smooth running of the workshop and to guarantee accommodation (which will be organized by the workshop staff), participants are requested to register and pay the conference fee by 15 June 2018.
To make papers available to workshop participants in advance, final (electronic) versions should reach the local organisers at the very latest by 30 August 2018.
Local organisers:
Irena Kogan, Tobias Roth and Markus Weißmann
Relevant websites:
Conference website: http://www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/tiy2018
TIY network: http://www.socsci.ru.nl/~maartenw/tiy/index.htm
Mannheim Centre for European Social Research: http://www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/d7/en
Submission of Abstracts
Abstracts should be sent by email to: tiy2018@mzes.uni-mannheim.de