The experiential continuum: a case for longitudinal narrative research on youth transitions

The study of youth transitions remains a central concern in sociology and youth studies, acknowledging youth as a pivotal life-course stage traditionally focused on preparation for adult status (Pitti, 2022, p. 2). In late modernity, this process has become increasingly complex, fragmented and non-linear (Furlong and Cartmel, 2007; Thompson, 2011). Transitions are not isolated events; they are fundamentally shaped by both normative social expectations (Youvan, 2024) and structural inequalities related to gender, class, race and sexuality (Valentine, 2003). While some emphasise the growing individualisation of life paths (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002; Giddens, 1991), the enduring influence of the social, including mediating factors like place and context (Bradford and Clark, 2011), remains critical.

Traditionally, youth transitions have been framed around five core markers: school completion, labour market entry, leaving the parental home, forming partnerships and/or marrying and becoming a parent (Williamson and Côté, 2022). Yet, these “milestones” are no longer achieved in a predictable, linear sequence. Contemporary patterns are better characterised by “yo-yo transitions” (Walther, 2006), where young people oscillate between dependence and independence, education and employment, reflecting broader shifts toward increasingly uncertain, diversified and precarious life paths (Guerrero Puerta, 2023). This understanding of pervasive uncertainty led Cuzzocrea (2020) to introduce the metaphor of “pinball youth”, capturing the contingent, seemingly aimless nature of modern transitions, where young people are “bouncing” (Guerrero Puerta, 2023, p. 4) between experiences without a clear, predetermined destination. This metaphor effectively highlights the intensifying precarity and mobility central to biography construction in the third decade of the 2000s.

To capture the complexity and fluidity of these evolving, non-linear trajectories, researchers have employed various methodological approaches. This paper argues for the distinct utility of longitudinal narrative research, a qualitative method that explores how individuals' stories and identities evolve over time through repeated data collection points.

Longitudinal research, once dominated by quantitative approaches, has increasingly incorporated qualitative methods to explore how meanings, identities and lived experiences evolve over time. This is exemplified by major studies such as Milltown Boys at Sixty (Williamson, 2021), which spans more than 50 years and traces participants from their teenage years into middle age; Inventing Adulthoods (Henderson et al., 2006), a decade-long study of young people in England and Northern Ireland, and the Life Patterns study in Australia (Wyn and Dwyer, 1999), established in 1991 and now in its third cohort recruited in 2022. These studies demonstrate the field's growing commitment to capturing social life as an unfolding, dynamic process. In particular, longitudinal narrative research offers a valuable way to trace individual trajectories and examine changes and continuities in identities, aspirations and social roles, providing rich insight into young people's experiences at key life transitions (Wyn, 2020).

The core aim of this paper is to demonstrate the conceptual and methodological strength of combining a narrative approach with a qualitative longitudinal design for investigating and representing the complexity and evolving nature of youth transitions. It draws on methodological insights from a doctoral study (Mangion, 2024), which combined biographical narrative inquiry with qualitative longitudinal research (QLR). The study followed sixteen Maltese tertiary students over four years through three rounds of interviews, examining key experiences and decisions shaping their transition to adulthood, including education, careers, relationships and other personal milestones.

The subsequent sections will first discuss the theoretical underpinnings of narrative inquiry and then turn to the methodological implications of QLR, examining participant recruitment, data collection and analysis as well as reflexivity and ethical considerations. In the final instance, empirical insights from longitudinal narratives will be highlighted by making reference to the findings from the doctoral study used here as an exemplar. This engagement scaffolds the argument for how longitudinal narrative research provides a robust method for revealing the experiential continuum of young people's lives as they negotiate the uncertainties of contemporary transitions. The original study (Mangion, 2024) is cited throughout to illustrate key conceptual and methodological issues.

The art of narrative is “knowledge which is embedded not just in the stories we tell our children or to while away our leisure but in the orders by which we live our lives” (Mitchell, 1981, p. x). Societies can best be comprehended through the stories that constitute them (MacIntyre, 2007). Drawing on Dewey's theory of experience (1938), it emphasises experience as continuous and shaped through interaction between individuals and their social contexts. Understanding a person therefore requires attention to the temporal, relational and situational dimensions of their lived experiences, as these elements together render the “tangled scenes of life more intelligible” (Dewey, 1934, p. 290).

Clandinin and Connelly (2000) extended Dewey's (1938) theory of experience through the three-dimensional narrative inquiry space framework, which comprises temporality, the personal and social dimension and place. Temporality focuses on the continuity and links between past, present and future experiences; the personal and social dimension highlights the relational nature of experience, and place refers to the specific physical and contextual settings in which experiences occur (Connelly and Clandinin, 2006). Experiences are thus understood as unfolding over time, within relationships and in particular contexts. Applying this framework allows for an in-depth analysis of participants' narratives, including their emotions, beliefs and interactions with others. In the doctoral study on youth transitions in tertiary education (Mangion, 2024), narratives were examined across past and present experiences and situated within wider social narratives, such as the digital revolution, the COVID-19 pandemic and the national context, enabling a nuanced understanding of key turning points shaping young people's transitional journeys.

Labov and Waletzky (1997) reframed narrative as a “mode of thought” (Bruner, 1997, p. 64) rather than merely a textual form, emphasising the importance of everyday oral stories in understanding human experience. Building on this view, narrative inquiry provides a way to interpret how individuals construct meaningful, coherent life stories that connect past, present and future, encompassing a “beginning, middle end” (McApline, 2016, p. 33).

Narrative inquiry positions the research encounter as an interpretive and relational process in which participants actively make sense of their lives rather than serving as passive subjects. This aligns with theories of individualisation and reflexivity in late modernity, particularly Giddens' (1991) conception of the self as a reflexive project shaped through ongoing biographical work. Narrative research is well suited to exploring transitional selfhood because it captures the fluid, contextual and temporal dimensions of identity, integrating past, present and future. Participants' narratives extend beyond the research setting, contributing to their ongoing self-stories and reflecting their psychosocial realities. In the doctoral study referenced, participants were encouraged to author their own narratives, valuing their experiential knowledge and meaning-making (Tuli, 2011). Narrative inquiry is thus a co-constructive process in which researchers shape and present stories while striving to remain faithful to participants' real-life experiences. Kim's (2016, p. 119) metaphor of the researcher as a “midwife” highlights this ethical and relational commitment, emphasising collaboration, trust and the careful co-production of “healthy, trustworthy stories” (Kim, 2005, p. 57) grounded in participants' realities.

Personal narratives function as an analytical lens for examining lived experience within its historical, social and cultural contexts (Chase, 2005). Biographical narrative research focuses on how young people understand and interpret their everyday lives, emphasising meaning-making through storytelling rather than simple recounting of events (Denzin, 1989). Through narration, participants actively construct meaning at the intersection of personal agency and social structures. This approach highlights how individual lives are shaped by both subjective interpretation and the structural contexts in which experiences occur (Kim, 2016).

Traditionally, longitudinal research has been predominantly associated with quantitative and nomothetic studies. Over the past decade, QLR has become increasingly established and valued as a legitimate research approach, reflecting a shift toward capturing the complexity and fluidity of lived experiences over time. QLR is widely acknowledged “as a distinct methodological paradigm, yet one that encompasses a range of approaches, concepts and project designs” (Thomson and McLeod, 2015, p. 243). To illustrate the evolving nature of longitudinal data, Thomson (2007, p. 573) invoked the metaphor of wine, proposing that such data, like wine, acquire greater depth and complexity “in flavour and character over time”. QLR portrays how experiences or phenomena change over time, offering a dynamic and in-depth understanding of social processes, transitions and lived experiences. This methodological approach enables the exploration of not only evolving practices and perceptions but also the ways in which individuals reinterpret their past and renegotiate their expectations and visions of the future over time and in relation to specific events (Hollstein, 2020).

Longitudinal studies highlight how life experiences and events unfold over time. This perspective underscores that people are engaged in an ongoing journey rather than remaining static. Their life course is characterised by continual movement through time, with change playing a fundamental role. QLR is particularly valuable for exploring developmental change and for understanding how people experience and respond to such transformations. QLR can be applied at any stage of the life course, as its methods “can address phenomena both that extend across life phases (e.g. perspectives on employment experiences across adulthood) and also phenomena that are delimited within a phase (e.g. the subjective criminal careers of juveniles)” (Hermanowicz, 2016, p. 491). QLR provides an apposite framework for reframing discussions about change and decisions. This is portrayed in the original doctoral study cited throughout, where the focus is the negotiation of the transitional journey of young people in tertiary education.

QLR involves collecting data over time with the same participants and/or within the same settings (Solomon et al., 2020; Calman et al., 2013). Repeated interviews are particularly valuable for capturing the dynamic nature of experience and tracing change. QLR focuses on how individuals exercise agency in response to change and how structural conditions may enable or constrain continuity in lived experience. Through this approach, QLR provides rich, detailed insights into the complexity of participants' everyday lives. Researchers have the opportunity to explore how

A key strength of QLR is its ability to think dynamically (Balmer and Richards, 2021), treating time as fluid and subjective rather than fixed and linear, which requires flexible research designs and complex analyses (Treanor et al., 2021). Methodological challenges include managing large volumes of data, ensuring participant retention and addressing enhanced ethical considerations due to the sustained engagement with participants over time (Hollstein, 2020). Given QLR can account not only for changes in practices and perceptions but also for changes in how people look into their past and how plans, expectations and anticipation of the future change over time and over the course of certain events, it is very well suited to study youth transitions. Rooted in interpretivist traditions and emphasising the subjective, fluid nature of time, contrasting with the fixed, linear perspective of quantitative longitudinal studies, QLR aligns naturally with narrative inquiry. A core element of narrative inquiry is the narration of lived experiences that are formed into stories which are co-constructed between the participant and the researcher. Storytelling gives meaning to lived experiences (Plummer, 2019).

Mangion (2024) adopted a longitudinal qualitative design, involving three cycles of interviews with the same participants over a four-year period, with ethical approval granted by the University of Malta Research Ethics Committee (UREC). The study followed 16 Maltese young people, 8 identifying as male and 8 as female, all of whom were first-year University of Malta students at the time of the initial interviews. Second interview cycles were conducted midway through their undergraduate studies, while the third occurred at varying stages of their academic trajectories, including course completion, postgraduate study or transition into the labour market. This approach enabled the exploration of participants' experiences over time, capturing “temporal changes in beliefs, attitudes and experiences at different points of the life trajectory” (Winiarska, 2017, p. 6). The longitudinal narratives facilitated systematic tracking of participants' evolving perspectives in relation to changing circumstances, offering insight into their ongoing processes of meaning-making, adaptation and future-oriented life planning.

The study employed narrative interviews, drawing on Schütze's (2008) approach, to enable participants to construct their own stories, positioning them as “narrators with stories to tell” (Chase, 2005, p. 660). Interviews followed a two-phase process (Kim, 2016), beginning with a narration phase characterised by minimal researcher intervention and the practice of active listening (Spence, 1982). This was followed by a conversation phase, during which follow-up questions were used to clarify and deepen emerging themes, with the researcher adopting a co-constructive role in collaboration with participants (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000). Guided by the principle that participants possess all the knowledge (Spradley, 1979), open-ended questions were used flexibly to allow unexpected narrative directions (Narayan and George, 2012). This participant-led approach generated rich data, facilitated rapport across three interview cycles and captured evolving narratives over time, a key strength of QLR (Cornwell, 1984).

During the third cycle interviews, the researcher had the opportunity to identify patterns weaved across the participants' life trajectories. A number of the participants noted that the longitudinal approach helped them reflect on their journey and recognise personal changes. Giselle realised she “was locked in a relationship”, explaining that much of what she did revolved around it. Both Mario and Stefano expressed enthusiasm to attend the third interview. Mario emphasised that these interviews helped him observe “how I evolved”. Ramona noted that revisiting past challenges left her “very satisfied” with her progress. Roberto confirms that the longitudinal approach captures a movie rather than a snapshot of one's life story: through his stories, it was possible to observe the way he negotiated his relationship with his parents and the progress he made, “I am quite ok with them. The only thing is that they keep on pushing me, but only for academic achievements, […]. Those are ok, but other things are not important”.

The integration of narrative inquiry with QLR enriched the data collected and offered deep insights into the participants' transitional experiences. This combination enabled a profound understanding of the young people's personal development and an “insight into the social world that influences individual lives” (Tilleczek, 2014, p. 19).

Polkinghorne (1995) distinguished between narrative analysis and analysis of narratives, based on Bruner's (1985) two modes of thought: narrative cognition and paradigmatic cognition. Narrative cognition refers to the human ability to understand and interpret experiences through stories. It involves structuring information in a sequential, cause-and-effect manner that typically includes characters, settings, plots and events. Paradigmatic cognition, also known as logical or scientific cognition, refers to understanding the world through abstract, systematic and rule-based thinking. It involves categorising information, identifying patterns, employing logical reasoning and developing themes.

After data collection and transcription, analysis shifted into a narrative mode grounded in narrative cognition, focusing on how participants make sense of their actions in context (Kim, 2016). Field texts were transformed into research texts through interpretive analysis, requiring openness to what Phillips (1994, p. xxv) calls “another story, one we haven't necessarily bargained for”. The primary analytic strategy was restorying, which integrated multiple interviews for each participant into coherent and meaningful narratives. This process was guided by Clandinin and Connelly's (2000) three-dimensional framework of temporality, sociality and place. Restorying is a collaborative and ethical interpretive practice that goes beyond summary, aiming to authentically represent participants' voices while situating their experiences within social, cultural and institutional contexts (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000). This process involves gathering and sequencing stories to transform fragmented experiences into coherent narratives through a collaborative, dialogical relationship between researcher and participant (Creswell, 2013). It emphasises the ethical responsibility to preserve participants' meaning-making and relational bonds while acknowledging that narratives are shaped by both individual agency and broader cultural, social and institutional influences (Kim, 2016; Riessman, 2008). As a methodological bridge, it preserves the authenticity of participants' voices while producing narratives that are both personally meaningful and analytically significant.

Narrative research seeks to explain how and why events unfolded in participants' lives (Kim, 2016). Following the construction of the 16 stories, analysis moved to a paradigmatic mode focused on categorising data, identifying patterns and applying logical reasoning, emphasising recurring elements across experiences (Polkinghorne, 1995). This involved coding and recoding narratives to identify repeated words, phrases and experiences, which were then organised into categories and developed into themes (Kim, 2016). The three main themes that emerged in the doctoral study referenced in this paper are continuity and change, the construction of identities through relationships and the landscape of transitions of the Maltese islands.

In narrative inquiry, the researcher and participant are in a dynamic, collaborative relationship (Pinnegar and Daynes, 2006; Connelly and Clandinin, 1990). This relationship evolves from a “spy” to a “friend” (Kim, 2016, p. 97), with knowledge production depending on trust and openness. Researchers are ethically responsible for safeguarding participant dignity and privacy (Josselson, 2013), upholding principles like free and informed consent, confidentiality and protection from harm (Smythe and Murray, 2000; Kvale, 1996). Ethics in narrative research is a continuous, relational process rather than a one-time procedural requirement (Gilligan, 1982), requiring careful balance between transparency and excessive formality (Wiles et al., 2008). Ethical obligations extend beyond data collection to responsible use and reporting of findings, avoiding harm to participants and wider communities. Ethical practice therefore demands ongoing reflexivity and vigilance beyond formal compliance (Adams, 2008). Narrative inquiry presents specific ethical challenges, including participant empowerment (Webster et al., 2013), the researcher's stance in interviews (Mishler, 1986), interpretive impacts on participants' self-understanding (Elliot, 2005), the dilemma of obtaining consent for third parties mentioned in stories and limits to anonymity due to narrative specificity (Riessman, 2008). These risks may be mitigated through strategies such as fictionalisation, blurring identifying details and transparent documentation of interpretive decisions (Caine et al., 2017; Clandinin, 2013).

Reflexivity is a crucial practice in qualitative research, allowing researchers to track their evolving thoughts and biases to enhance transparency and contribute to the confirmability of findings (Reinharz, 1997). It is a continuous, self-aware process where researchers recognise their own responses to the world and locate themselves within the stories being narrated, influencing their interpretations and decisions at every stage (Etherington, 2004; Hertz, 1997). In longitudinal narrative research, researchers are not just “disembodied recorders” (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000, p. 81) but are also having an experience of their own and must avoid letting their personal self completely dominate the text (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994). The goal is to discover new knowledge with a “not-knowing attitude”, rather than fitting findings into existing beliefs (Combs and Freedman, 2002). Researchers must carefully choose what to include or exclude to construct meaningful narratives and “write lives” (Richardson, 1990, p. 10). The challenge lies in balancing self-awareness with the need to avoid “navel-gazing” and giving the researcher undue privilege over the participants (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000; Sparkes, 2000).

This research makes a significant contribution to youth studies and youth transitions theory by offering findings that, while context-specific, have broader relevance. Its main contribution is the development of a typology of young people in transition that captures the diverse life-course trajectories of Maltese tertiary education students. Using Weber's (1904) ideal-type approach, participants were grouped according to similarities and differences in how they negotiated agency and structural forces, based on cross-cutting themes from longitudinal narratives (Hill and Knox, 2021; Gerhardt, 1994). The identification of four ideal types illustrates differing relationships to tradition, change and risk, highlighting the dynamic interplay between agency and structure and between “being” and “becoming”, in youth transitions.

The four ideal types are traditionalists, opportunists, pioneers and radicals.

1. Traditionalists tend to follow a linear and conventional trajectory into adulthood, adhering to established norms and values, such as family and religion, while resisting forms of change that may challenge their worldview. They typically pursue conventional university pathways leading to established professions and transition directly into the labour market. Their aspirations centre on securing stable employment as the foundation for financial independence and family life.

2. Opportunists remain grounded in tradition and tend to follow culturally prescribed life trajectories. They demonstrate openness to unforeseen opportunities that present themselves, occasionally using such moments to redirect the course of their lives. Their opportunism is not motivated by self-interest. They engage with chance as a potential catalyst for transformation, yet do so within the parameters of established social and cultural norms.

3. Pioneers negotiate tradition and change, maintaining strong ties to family and religion while embracing new possibilities. They exhibit a high degree of agency and reflexivity in their decision-making, integrating contemporary aspirations with traditional values. Their life trajectories are characterised by planning and purposefulness, illustrating how adaptation and continuity can coexist harmoniously without directly challenging established social norms.

4. Radicals actively depart from traditional expectations, eschewing conventional life trajectories in favour of contemporary and self-determined aspirations. Characterised by a willingness to take risks, they frequently reconfigure their career paths or seek opportunities abroad as expressions of autonomy and personal agency. This signifies a conscious disengagement from Malta's traditional social anchors, undertaken in the pursuit of independent and nonconformist futures.

Fluidity is a key characteristic of these ideal types. Recognising that ideal types are mental representations rather than exact mirrors of reality (Hill and Knox, 2021) and that participants exhibited blended traits (e.g. Pioneers with Traditionalist values), the researcher utilised the fuzzy cognitive mapping approach (Kosko, 1986). This technique positioned the four types, with Traditionalists and Radicals at opposite ends, along a continuum (Figure 1). This conceptualisation simplified complex and uncertain realities, illustrating how young people may move between types, with their positioning reflecting the varying influence of structure (high for Traditionalists) versus agency (high for Radicals). This typological framework serves as a vital starting point for better understanding the complexity and fluidity of contemporary youth transitional journeys.

The findings support the shift from linear youth transitions to fragmented and reversible pathways, shaped by an ongoing negotiation between structure and agency, positioning young people as active agents in constructing their biographies (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002). In Malta, this process is further influenced by the coexistence of tradition and modernity within a context of uncertainty and risk (Beck, 1992). The integration of narrative inquiry and QLR enabled rich insight into how participants negotiate these tensions over time, while ideal types functioned as interpretive tools rather than direct representations of reality (Hill and Knox, 2021). By positioning participants as storytellers, the narrative methodology addressed a conceptual void in the contemporary landscape of youth transitions in Malta.

This empirical investigation demonstrates the profound and penetrating capacity of longitudinal narrative research to capture the evolution of youth transitions over time. The resultant typology offers a novel contribution to youth studies by illustrating the varied trajectories and destinations young people pursue, underscoring the complex and multifaceted negotiations inherent in the journey to adulthood. The source of this paper has been a modest study of a small group of Maltese young people pursuing studies in the only public university on this small island. By following young people's stories over time, the researcher was able to capture the fluidity, uncertainty and complexity of growing up in late modern societies. A longitudinal design illuminates not only the pivotal moments of change but also the subtle shifts in identity that might otherwise remain invisible in cross-sectional studies. Narrative inquiry places young people at the centre of knowledge production, enabling them to articulate their lives in their own terms while acknowledging the wider structural and cultural contexts in which they are situated. This approach reveals how transitions are not linear or uniform but negotiated across time through the interplay of agency, opportunity and constraint. Importantly, restorying participants' accounts across multiple research encounters allows for a richer understanding of how past experiences are reinterpreted in the present and projected into imagined futures. In methodological terms, longitudinal narrative research contributes a powerful lens for exploring the temporal dimensions of youth transitions. It provides a means of recognising both continuity and change, offering insights that are theoretically significant and practically relevant for educators, policymakers and practitioners supporting young people. Ultimately, the strength of this approach lies in its capacity to honour participants' voices while critically situating their narratives within the broader dynamics of social life.

The methodological integration of narrative inquiry and QLR offers unique advantages by generating depth, temporality and contextual richness, capturing not only the evolving meanings individuals attribute to their experiences but also the ways they continually negotiate the tension between structural forces and personal agency. Longitudinal narratives reveal patterns of continuity and change, highlight how past experiences shape present choices and uncover how individuals reinterpret their trajectories in response to shifting social, cultural and institutional contexts.

This paper has demonstrated how longitudinal narrative designs are particularly advantageous for researchers. Repeated engagement builds trust and rapport, which often leads to richer, more candid accounts (Calman et al., 2013). They allow researchers to observe processes rather than isolated events, tracing how change unfolds or how stability is maintained (Holland et al., 2006). They also provide opportunities for reflexivity: researchers can refine their understanding iteratively as participants restory their lives across interviews. This capacity to trace the dynamic interplay of structure and agency through time, while simultaneously deepening the researcher-participant relationship, makes longitudinal narrative research uniquely positioned to capture the complexity of the lived experience of transitioning to adulthood.