BIPAJE

This project aims to demonstrate the relevance of the notion of bifurcation as a tool to study the trajectories of entry into adulthood. The bifurcations represent a significant and widely unpredictable change in the personal school and working path which transforms durably the individual course in its orientation as well as in its aim. It indeed constitutes a moment of tension which crystallizes the way personal resources, inheritances and constraints are mobilized by individuals. These features contribute to define the ways their professional future can expand. One of the aims is to show that behind the contingency of these changes, there are regularities in the combinations of events. It also shows that institutional and societal structures delineate the individual action. The interest in the confrontation of three different societies (France, Québec and Argentina) is to make possible the comparison of forms of bifurcations and to examine how the combinations of criteria do differ. The originality of the project rests on the research links between three aspects: analyse of the interviews in the longitudinal dimension, articulation of qualitative and quantitative surveys, research of dynamic procedures and types, and international comparison. We intend to improve conceptual and methodological tools likely to renew the way to study trajectories as processes.