Dealing with the past in the transition from care. A post-structural analysis of young people's accounts

Young people experiencing the transition from care often are weighed down by their past, both through their early experiences, but also by the way their past is made relevant in encounters with others. The aim of this article is two-fold. Firstly, to present a critical discursive analysis of young people's accounts of themselves in the transition from care. Secondly, to shed light on three different ways of making the transition from care; transition through a break with the past after moving out, transition through continuing change and transition as a way of dealing with the risk of further problems in their lives. The study is qualitative and includes 27 young women and men recruited from three child welfare institutions in the Oslo region of Norway. A multi-method approach including interviews, observations and documents has been used. The analytical framework is inspired by poststructuralist theory.1

► The study focuses the battles of subjectivity that young people go through in their transitions from care.
► Youths are captured in the discourse "the weight of the past", but also actively relate to their problematic pasts.
► Three kinds of self work characterize the process of transition from care.
► Self work refers to how subjectivity is interwoven with the Norwegian social political and cultural context.
► A post structural approach enlighten how young people actually relates to themselves and society in transition from care.