KOLONIZACJA PRZYSZŁOŚCI: ORIENTACJE PRZYSZŁOŚCIOWE W NARRACJACH MŁODYCH DOROSŁYCH STUDIUJĄCYCH W WARSZAWIE
COLONISING THE FUTURE: FUTURE ORIENTATIONS IN THE NARRATIVES OF YOUNG ADULTS STUDYING IN WARSAW

Summary/Abstract: The discussion between proponents of the extended present and advocates of the concept of life as a project, taking place at the intersection of educational sociology and youth sociology, has fo- cused on exploring the time perspective in which young people perceive their future. However, in recent years it has been increasingly pointed out that this approach makes it difficult to study future orientations, which may be planned in detail in one area and not thought through in another. The potential to reconcile the two approaches is instead shown by a. Giddens’ concept of colonizing the future, presented in this article. The narrative analysis of three selected cases from among the 45 narrative interviews with a list of semi-structured questions conducted with first-year male and female undergraduate students at selected warsaw universities, allowed for the reconstruction of the educational trajectories of the research participants and the ways in which they perceive the future in relation to their decision to continue their education at the university level. The results of the analysis indicate that the study of future orientations should attempt to identify three components: discursive consciousness, practical consciousness, and ontological security, which make it possible to interpret young adults’ future orientations in the context of their educational trajectories. The practical application of these findings for public policy in higher education would be to enable young adults to explore related educational pathways.

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