Longitudinal youth research with Lithuania's soviet and post-soviet generations

Abstract

This chapter analyses the features, specifics, and challenges of a longitudinal youth study in Lithuania after the political, economic, and social system transformation of the 1990s. The authors discuss the study's methodological framework, which draws on qualitative empirical material—life history interviews and mixed methods data that captures retrospective stories of the past that include the period of youth when the socialisation of different birth cohorts took place in different periods of history. This analysis is based on life history interviews, collected within the framework of the implemented projects aimed at the twentieth century generations in Lithuania. The chapter reveals research designs that seek to understand the interplay between time, age, gender, geographic location, historical period, individual agency, and adaptive and structural factors to analyse young people’s experiences of social change related to socialisation and integration.