Self-Projects (DFG)
Inbetween Self-project and Limited Opportunities - A Longitudinal Study of the Biographically Dense Time between School and Professional Qualifications
Lead: Prof. Dr Bühler-Niederberger
Contributor: Dr Alexandra König
Duration: 2008-2011
Third-party donor: DFG
Project description:
We define orientations and strategies of creating a biography as "self-projects" and examine them in the "biographically dense period" between school and obtaining a qualification for a job through studying or training. Self-projects don't only include career design, they also aim for the creation of the "self" as a person who can be identified by the individual themselves and by others. It also allows the identification with oneself. The projects take place within borders; the confrontation of self-projects and limited chances in the title of the project would thus be redundant, but it emphazises the "working out" of own aspirations and socially structured chances: the balance, arrangement, bearing, revision of plans, optimising chances, reducing/raising and relocating of identification options. - In a quantitative and qualitative longitudinal study, we want to measure (1) the orientations, (2) the biographic processes of decision-making within (3) structured ranges of possibilities, which (4) are being processed, used and (re-)structured through strategies/investments. By doing that, we expand the research on social selection in the phases of childhood and youth by a) the focus on actors and processes and b) in a biographical dimension.
Publications:
Spielfelder des Selbst. Spielfelder des Selbst. Eine Längsschnittstudie zu jungen Erwachsenen in Handwerksbetrieben, Hochschulen und Kunstakademien. Juventa (planned early 2018; on the basis of the postdoctoral thesis).
König, Alexandra (2012): „Ich weiß nicht nach welchen Regeln ich gehen soll“ – Orientierungen, Strategien und Chancen von Kunststudierenden. In: Bernhard, Stefan/Schmidt-Wellenburg, Christian: Feldanalyse als Forschungsprogramm. VS: 363-390.
Bühler-Niederberger, Doris; König, Alexandra (2012): Die Generation der Selbstorientierten und ihre vielfältigen Grenzen. In: Neuland, Eva (Ed.): Sprache der Generationen. Mannheim. Zürich: Duden Redaktionsverlag: 56-77.
Bühler-Niederberger, Doris/König, Alexandra (2011): Childhood as a resource of the self-project. In: Childhood, 18: 180-195.
Bühler-Niederberger, Doris; König, Alexandra (2011): Zwischenbericht (DFG BU 1034/7-1): Zwischen Selbstprojekt und limitierten Chancen. Wuppertal.
Lectures:
König, Alexandra: Changing aspirations – Universities and craft businesses as fields of self-formation – ESA-Conference (Athens, 29.08.-01.09.2017)
König, Alexandra: Orientations and strategies of less privileged students – ISA-Conference (Yokohama, 13.-19.7.2014)
König, Alexandra: A self-orientated generation. Professional careers as subjectivized and structured self-projects – ESA-Conference (Turin, 28.-31.8.2013)
König, Alexandra: Kulturelles Kapital : Praktiken und Legitimierungen in unterschiedlichen Feldern – SGS-Kongress 2013 (Bern, 26.-28.7.2013)
Bühler-Niederberger, Doris/König, Alexandra: Eine feldspezifische Perspektive auf geschlechts(a)typische Verläufe nach Verlassen der Schule – Gemeinsame Tagung der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft für Geschlechterforschung und des Forschungs-komitees Bildungssoziologie der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft für Soziologie: 'Berufliche Orientierung, Bildungssysteme, und vergeschlechtlichte Übergänge von der Schule in den Beruf' (Basel, 23.-24.11.2012)
König, Alexandra: 'I always wanted to become an artist'. Access to higher education as an individualized and structured self-project. – International Conference: 'Higher education and beyond – Inequalities regarding entrance to higher education and educational credentials' (Education Sociology, Monte Verità, 04.-09.7.2010)