On your own within a network? Vulnerable youths’ social networks in transition from school to adult life

Irene Velsvik Bele; Rune Kvalsund

doi:10.1080/15017419.2013.847860

On your own within a network? Vulnerable youths’ social networks in transition from school to adult life

Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research

Volume 17 (2015): Issue 3

By: Irene Velsvik Bele and Rune Kvalsund

Open Access

|Nov 2015

Abstract

This article is based on longitudinal prospective life-course data (1995–2007) about Special Educational Need (SEN) students in upper secondary school, addressing changes in these vulnerable persons’ (N=372) spare time-related social relationships at age 29 compared to five years earlier. Logistic regression analyses show that experiences of exclusion (being solely in special class) during upper secondary school have a marked negative effect on being in a small and potentially isolating social network at age 24 compared with the variables personal diagnostic characteristics and experienced psychosocial stress in the family. Applying the same explanatory model to the adaptive situation at age 29 reveals very different results: time distant variables (special class, personal characteristics at school start) loose effect. Contemporary independent variables describing a contextually changed life situation produces patterns of social integration, reducing social marginalization. The results suggest that a shift in the life situation in adulthood (having work, own family, driver's license) changes network characteristics and agency from being self-realising and individualistic towards a more collective, altruistic and self-sacrificing action pattern in social relationships. This shows a pattern of resilience. Theoretic approaches are life-course theory, theory of frame conditions, network theory, theory of disability and critical realism.

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Articles in this issue

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/15017419.2013.847860 | Journal eISSN: 1745-3011

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Language: English

Page range: 195 - 220

Submitted on: Dec 19, 2012

Accepted on: Sep 19, 2013

Published on: Nov 3, 2015

Published by: Stockholm University Press

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Keywords:

vulnerable youth,

life-course transitions,

effects of attending special class,

social network,

logistic regression analysis

© 2015 Irene Velsvik Bele, Rune Kvalsund, published by Stockholm University Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 17 (2015): Issue 3