Young people’s development of agency: Explored from their perspectives on everyday school life

The purpose of this article is to explore young people’s development of agency in relation to their everyday school life. In the article, I present empirical examples of how young people (15-16 years old) act in relation to contradictory structural conditions in the form of the expectations and demands on youth in school. I argue that, to gain knowledge about the various meanings of such conditions in young people’s lives, it is necessary to employ concepts suitable for situated analysis of young people’s narratives about everyday school life and the conflicts they face and act in relation to. Through such analysis I illustrate how young people in school are constantly engaged in complex, collective processes of prioritising and dealing with multiple considerations and the conflicts they experience. The young people’s personal perspectives on conflicts situated in their conduct of everyday life represent a resource for developing situated knowledge about the personal meanings of structural conditions in relation to youth development.