Beschreibung

How do adults incorporate sustainability into their professional lives? Based on biographical interviews, the author reconstructs the individual processes of finding meaning in the context of career transitions. Various strategies emerge, ranging from radical transformations to leading by example or adapting sustainability to fit one’s lifestyle. These findings offer valuable insights into the unique ways in which individuals navigate the challenges of balancing career and sustainability.

Sustainability, more than just a key concept in contemporary political movements and educational programs, can be seen as co-constructing the meanings and practices of individuals in this context—shaping consumption habits, the understanding of work, and how they make sense of their professional trajectories. This doctoral research examines how work-life trajectories are shaped at the intersection of work and sustainability transitions. The focus is on individual processes of meaning-making in career change experiences within this context. The theoretical approach draws on Practice Theory to emphasize the role of social practices in shaping individual trajectories and to unpack the complexity of the ongoing processes involved. Using a qualitative, empirical approach, biographical narrative interviews were conducted, and the Documentary Method was applied to reconstruct how individuals engage with sustainability through their work. From the analysis, two typologies emerge: (1) three distinct modes of recounting work-life transitions and the role of sustainability within these narratives, and (2) four approaches to understanding and practicing sustainability in professional settings. The findings highlight the significance of personal narratives in shaping sustainability transitions and underscore the biographical learning processes embedded in contemporary work transitions.

The author:
Elisa Thevenot is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Social Pedagogy at the Institute of Education at the University of Tübingen, Germany.

The subjects:
Education, Sociology

Zusätzliche Informationen

Autor*innen

Elisa Thevenot

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Keywords

biographical learning, biographical narratives, Career, life course, professional trajectory, qualitative methodology, transition