Unlike previous generations, whose modal life courses had a securing and constraining nature, in which rigid institutional structures and clearly demarcated social origins and identities combined to define destinations (Beck, 1992; Levy, 1991; Zerubavel, 1981), today's youths are confronted with a variety of options and challenges as they begin the transition to adulthood. As the discourse shifts from describing individuals, lives as the extent to which they adhere to socially prescribed normative patterns (Hogan, 1978) toward a description of individuals as detraditionalized, individualized actors who live destandardized, disordered, and differentiated forms and conditions of existence (Beck, 1992; Kohli, 1986; Rindfuss, Swicegood, & Rosenfeld, 1987), the notion of a “normal biography” becomes less tenable in aiding our understanding of the courses of complex lives (Heinz, 1991a, 1996b; Marini, 1984b). It is increasingly recognized that “transition” no longer entails a simple or predetermined passage from one social institution to another and that “life courses should be understood in the light of the organization of the total social space in which our lives evolve” (Levy, 1991, p. 90). Despite the call to examine the relationships among the various roles and activities in which individuals participate, however, little empirical research has embraced this complexity.

Typically, a given transition space is conceptualized as either single institutional participation defined by a given institutional sector or as discrete sequential transitions between various sectors.