Health related behavioural change in context: young people in transition

Post-modern theorists have highlighted the impacts of rapid social and economic change in lessening structural constraints, arguing that the concepts of “gender” and “social class” are now less useful in understanding peopleʹs life chances and choices. While the epochal nature of such changes has been questioned, increasing levels of individualisation and reflexivity have been widely recognised. Agency is prioritised and structural disembeddedness increasingly assumed: people are held to construct their identities and biographies reflexively from a diverse range of experiences and opportunities. When used in relation to understanding health related behaviours this theorising has led to an increasing focus upon the symbolic significance of consumption (and indeed risk) in defining lifestyles and identities. Here we report on the health related behaviours of 106 young people (15/16 yr) during their transition from school to employment, training or further education. This period is arguably central in the process of creating adult identities and accordingly should involve considerable lifestyle choice, reflexivity and symbolic consumption as identitities are formed. By drawing on two rounds of data (semi-structured interviews and structured questionnaires) we consider how smoking and drinking behaviours related to the wider social transitions towards adulthood. We provide a situated account of health related behaviours which acknowledges both subjective experience and social location. We argue that the current challenge is to integrate the different levels of structural constraint and individual agency within the context of current rapid social and economic change and suggest that it is only through empirical investigation which embraces an analysis both at the level of structure and individual experience that the conditions of late modernity can be more thoroughly understood.