Adolescents Constructing Their Imagined Futures Through Dialogues With and/or About Nonfamilial Adults

Adolescents actively explore future imaginings as they prepare for major educational, work, and personal transitions. Although family members may support exploration of imagined futures, adults outside adolescents' kin network provide access to resources not supplied within the family. The purpose of this study was to understand how adolescents actively draw on social resources of nonfamilial adults relative to their imagined futures.

Adolescents attending two schools in British Columbia, Canada participated in a year-long study involving at least three face to face sessions and biweekly telephone calls. Participants (N = 13; eight identified as boys, four as girls, one as nonbinary; mean age = 14.92, SD = 1.60) were asked to invite nonfamilial adults from their social network to conversations about the future.

Two youth invited an adult to the research while the majority of participants (n = 11) explicitly changed the protocol by engaging with the researchers rather than bringing nonfamilial adults to the research. The change in the protocol was incorporated into analysis to try to understand participants' engagement in the research. Analysis revealed participants' overall intentions were to engage with adults, using the connections to test and refine imagined futures. Imagined future projects aligned with three clusters: practicing claims, navigating the line in the sand (difficulties crossing into adult realms), and resisting incongruent views of themselves.

Findings illustrate adolescents' intention to alter the study protocol rather than dropping out and how adolescents' engagement with nonfamilial adults supported opportunities to test and refine imagined futures in the service of constructing identities.