Childhood as a resource and laboratory for the self-project

The biographies of individuals in today’s societies are characterized by the need to exert effort and make decisions in planning one’s life course. A ‘self-project’ has to be worked out both retrospectively and prospectively; childhood becomes important as a resource and a laboratory for the self-project. This empirical study analyses how the occupational choices of young people are connected with their occupational aspirations as a child. Children’s aspirations prove to be class-sensitive. Studying the importance of childhood in the self-project thus makes it possible to consider children’s agency in the interconnection of class and generational categories.