TY - JOUR
T1 - Navigating Risk Discourses
T2 - A Narrative Analysis of Parental Experiences in the Career and Life Development of Youth not in Education, Employment, or Training
AU - To, Siu ming
AU - Victor, Cheong Wing Wong
AU - Daniel, Dick man Leung
AU - Lau, Cheryl Danielle
AU - Su, Xuebing
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was supported by the community-based interventions of the Career and Life Adventure Planning for Youth Project (CLAP for Youth @ JC) grant from the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust (Project ID: HKBU/HKJCCT/14-15/01).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS) and Springer Nature B.V.
PY - 2021/10
Y1 - 2021/10
N2 - Although the career and life development needs of young people not in education, employment, or training (NEET) have garnered interest from researchers and policymakers in recent decades, how parents experience their NEET children’s development and how they make meaning of their parental journeys remain underexplored. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine such parents’ experiences with their NEET children’s career and life development by conducting individual, semi-structured interviews with such parents, particularly in the Chinese cultural context of Hong Kong. Fourteen parents of NEET youth in Hong Kong were recruited via purposive sampling, each of whose NEET child was between 15 and 21 years old. Using narrative thematic analysis of interviews for data analysis, the results revealed that the parents had experienced a range of negative emotions and relied upon both contemporary and cultural conceptualizations of career, risk, and parenting to make sense of their children’s circumstances. Whereas some parents blamed themselves or their children for their negative experiences, others attempted to reinterpret their parenting decisions and actions, as well as their children’s career and life challenges, by reconstructing their personal meanings of parenthood. The results suggest that the parents’ self-perceptions and well-being were subject to the influence of risk discourses on parenting. They also suggest that though macro- and micro-environments were liable to heavily influence the parents’ self-perceptions, parents who could reconstitute their reflexive selves were more likely than others to form more positive views of themselves, their children, and their parental journeys.
AB - Although the career and life development needs of young people not in education, employment, or training (NEET) have garnered interest from researchers and policymakers in recent decades, how parents experience their NEET children’s development and how they make meaning of their parental journeys remain underexplored. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine such parents’ experiences with their NEET children’s career and life development by conducting individual, semi-structured interviews with such parents, particularly in the Chinese cultural context of Hong Kong. Fourteen parents of NEET youth in Hong Kong were recruited via purposive sampling, each of whose NEET child was between 15 and 21 years old. Using narrative thematic analysis of interviews for data analysis, the results revealed that the parents had experienced a range of negative emotions and relied upon both contemporary and cultural conceptualizations of career, risk, and parenting to make sense of their children’s circumstances. Whereas some parents blamed themselves or their children for their negative experiences, others attempted to reinterpret their parenting decisions and actions, as well as their children’s career and life challenges, by reconstructing their personal meanings of parenthood. The results suggest that the parents’ self-perceptions and well-being were subject to the influence of risk discourses on parenting. They also suggest that though macro- and micro-environments were liable to heavily influence the parents’ self-perceptions, parents who could reconstitute their reflexive selves were more likely than others to form more positive views of themselves, their children, and their parental journeys.
KW - Career development
KW - Hong Kong
KW - Life outcomes
KW - Narrative analysis
KW - NEET youth
KW - Parents
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85088819693&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s11482-020-09855-w
DO - 10.1007/s11482-020-09855-w
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85088819693
SN - 1871-2584
VL - 16
SP - 2039
EP - 2058
JO - Applied Research in Quality of Life
JF - Applied Research in Quality of Life
IS - 5
ER -