Introduction to the Special Section. Mastering Youth Transitions: Italy as a Case for the Contemporary Complexities

Historically youth transitions have been a central feature of how youth studies have conceptualized and theorized the notion of youth. This special section aims to continue and contribute to the reimagining of transitions in a complex and ever-changing world. What is interesting to note is that social acceleration processes have an impact on people’s lives. This impact involves many aspects of personal and social life, and, compared to the previous era, the speed of these changes has visibly increased. What emerge from current debate on youth is the pressure to be part of a mechanism that predisposes people to be constantly active, without having the possibility to stop and reflect, or simply to enjoy the moment they are living. In this sense, Italy is a particularly relevant case as it shows the multifaceted and complex reality with which young people have to cope nowadays when imagining and planning their future. Stemming from these data and considerations, this special issue of IJSE aims at investigating the multifaced nature of youth transitions, using the Italian setting as fertile ground. Its main goal is to bring together research and analyses on educations policies, experiences and interventions dealing with life transitions and adulthood by collecting contributions that examine the situation in Italy, comparing it with other similar or contrasting settings to delineate the state of the art and research gaps on youth transition studies in a controversial high-speed society.