What if it’s not about where you are going?

By Jo VanEvery. In my last post, I suggested that you don’t have to figure out what to do with your life. I want to explore that idea a bit more. As Barrie Thorne noted back in 1987, we often look at children as who they are becoming rather than as who they are in a specific time and place. Despite the rise of other modes of studying children, this tendency to think in developmental time still dominates discourses of childhood (scholarly and otherwise). I would argue that it frames most discussions of postsecondary education (undergraduate and graduate) and early career jobs. This is not only infantilizing but, as Thorne noted, diverts attention from the specific historical and personal conditions in which you are “developing”. Read more...