The adolescent phase is characterized in psychology as a period of strong upheaval due to the developmental tasks that adolescents face. At the same time, adolescents are confronted with strong social changes. These include, on the one hand, megatrends such as digitalization and climate change and, on the other, temporary and regional social upheavals and challenges special phases such as pandemics or wars.

It is of great social importance to focus on the group of young people, as they are the future adult generation that will strongly shape society. Education and support in the educational mission are important for the well-being of the individual as well as for society as a whole: On the one hand, young adults are equipped with competencies and resources such as resilience, which help them to shape their lives in a way that makes sense for them. On the other hand, young people are the social group and subsequent generation that are engaged in diverse sectors such as work, politics, society and contribute to overcoming social crises.

Thus, analyses of stability and change serve to generate both, findings for research, as well as  indications and recommendations for action in practice. As different as the individuals are, an entire generation always shows some similarities due to current trends or societal, political and structural circumstances. Hence, with the Young Adult Survey Switzerland (YASS), we could monitor the trends of young Swiss adults of both genders on the central topics of education, work and occupation, health and sports, politics and civic responsibility, as well as on cross-cutting topics such as values and value orientations, and capabilities and life perspectives in 2010/11, 2014/15, and 2018/19. At ECER, we would like to present findings to the research questions:

1)    In which of the recorded subject areas have the mean values remained stable between 2010/11 and 2018/19?

2)    In which of the recorded subject areas have the mean values changed between 2010/11 and 2018/19?

We refer to different theoretical frameworks that characterize the relevant developmental aspects of adolescence, i.e. the constructs of Quality of Life (Jenney & Campbell, 1997), identity formation (Erikson, 1973; Mead, 1991), developmental tasks (Havighurst, 1948), capability approach (Sen, 1993), and Bronfenbrenner's bio-ecological model (1996).

The development of a human being in his different systems (micro-, meso-, exo-, macro- and chronosystem) depends on various influences, which are shown on the basis of the bio-ecological model after Bronfenbrenner (1996). According to Erikson (1973), identity formation is an essential part of development during adolescence. In his stage model, he defines stage V (12-20 years old) as an area of tension between identity and identity diffusion.

According to Havighurst (1948), the respective challenges that arise in the context of identity development in certain stages of life are referred to as developmental tasks. Recognizing, understanding and accepting them are prerequisites for mastering them (Hurrelmann & Quenzel, 2016).

In extension to purely resource-oriented approaches, the capability approach focuses on the realization opportunities (capabilities) that individuals perceive on the basis of available resources (Anand & Van Hees, 2006; Sen, 1993). In the capability approach, social inequality is not evaluated on the basis of available resources, but on what can be done with them. The term Quality of Life means what belongs to a good quality of life for the individual. According to Bradlyn et al. (1996), this includes social, physical and emotional functions, which must also be able to change congruently with the development of the individual or the context in which he or she finds himself or herself.

The core indicator project of the Federal Youth Survey ch-x, which was established in 2006 and has been called the Young Adult Survey Switzerland, or YASS for short, since 2015, aims to establish a longer-term monitoring of young Swiss adults of both genders on the cen-tral topics of education, work and occupation, health and sports, politics and civic responsi-bility, as well as on cross-cutting topics such as values and value orientations, and capabili-ties and life perspectives. So far, data have been collected at three points in time: 2010/11 (Huber, 2016), 2014/15 (Huber, 2019), and 2018/19 (Huber, 2022), with which trends and tendencies among 19-year-old Swiss people could be illuminated. In each case, the data were analyzed descriptively and in terms of their differences, similarities and correlations, as well as changes between the different points in time. For each cohort, about 33,000 young adult males and a supplementary sample of about 2,000 young adult females participated in the survey. Compared to other youth studies in Switzerland, the following strengths and differences of YASS are particularly noteworthy: First, unlike many other youth studies, YASS focuses exclusively on young adults aged 19 to 21. This allows for a profound analysis of the transition from adolescence to young adult-hood. Second, the large sample allows for a desegregation of the statistical data down to very small units, which allows the analysis of even very small, specific groups of young adults in a reliable way, which is usually not possible in smaller samples. Thus, success in school ca-reers can be explained not only by individual but also by structural factors. Third, YASS has the advantage of an almost full survey of young men and a representative sample of women because of the survey setting. The survey setting of ch-x of young men at the time of their recruitment allows all social class groups to be represented in the popula-tion according to their proportions, including groups with low education and income. The female sample is significantly smaller, but still large enough to analyze different groups among women. Fourth, YASS allows the same data to be collected at repeated time points. To date, YASS has been conducted repeatedly at two-year intervals (2010/11, 2014/15, and 2018/19). Fifth, the YASS data are analyzed in a multi-step process and by an interdisciplinary team: First by the disciplinary teams according to specific questions of their discipline, then inter-disciplinary according to overarching questions.

The analyses provided us with the following results: 1. Persistence / stability of mean scores: - Health literacy - value dimensions - Value types - Political interest - Political participation 2. Change / Differences in mean scores: - Political orientation - Increase in psychological stress - Change in lifestyle (smoking, alcohol, sports) There was a stable mean score among health literacy, value dimensions value types, politi-cal interest and political participation. We saw, that the self-assessed health literacy was >90% and that 1/3 of the young adults had trouble understanding instruction leaflets or in-formation brochures. Regarding the value dimensions, it could be shown that private harmo-ny and independence still have the highest relevance for young adults. Moreover, there is the gender tendency of young women prioritizing idealistic values and young men prioritizing materialistic values. Political interest was shown among about the half of the sample (2010/11: 44%, 2014/15: 46%, 2018/19: 45%) and the political participation lies in all three points of time at 64%. A change can be seen in the political orientation, i.e. towards a left-wing oriented political opinion. Regarding their lifestyles, we can see that the psychological stress increased from 11% (2014/15) to 19% (2018/19). Negative thoughts could be seen among 16% of young women in 2010/11 and among 24% of them in 2018/19. Furthermore, there are changes in the lifestyles, i.e. that less people smoke (2010/11: 25%, 2018/19: 17%), but more people excessively consume alcohol (2010/11: 10%, 2018/19: 17%) and less people do sports (2010/11: 84%, 2018/19: 74%). What we can also see is that there is a strong relationship between education and life satisfaction: Young adults without education are less satisfied than young adults with post-compulsory education.

Anand, P., & Van Hees, M. (2006). Capabilities and achievments: An empirical study. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 35(2), 268–284. Bradlyn, A., Ritchey, A. K., Harris, C. V., Moore, I. M., O’Brien, R. T., Parsons, S. K., Pat-terson, K., & Pollock, B. H. (1996). Quality of life rsarch in pediatric oncology: Research methods and barriers. Cancer: Interdisciplinary International Journal of th American Can-cer Society, 78(6), 1333–1339. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1996). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard University Press. Erikson, E. (1973). Identität und Lebenszyklus. Suhrkamp. Havighurst, R. J. (1948). Developmental tasks and education. University of Chicago Press. Huber, S. G. (Hrsg.). (2016). Young Adult Survey Switzerland. Junge Erwachsene heute. Band 1. BBL / OFCL / UFCL. Huber, S. G. (Hrsg.). (2019). Young Adult Survey Switzerland. Junge Erwachsene heute. Band 2. BBL. Huber, S. G. (Hrsg.). (2022). Young Adult Survey Switzerland. Junge Erwachsene heute. Band 3. BBL / OFCL / UFCL. Hurrelmann, K., & Quenzel, G. (2016). Lebensphase Jugend. Eine Einführung in die sozial-wissenschaftliche Jugendforschung (13. Aufl.). Beltz Juventa. Jenney, M. E., & Campbell, S. (1997). Measuring quality of life. Archives of disease in childhood, 77(4), 347–350. Lussi, I., Gassmann, Y., & Huber, S. G. (2019). Sprachregionale und geschlechterspezifische Unterschiede in den Werten. In S. G. Huber (Hrsg.), Young Adult Survey Switzerland (Bd. 2, S. 106–111). BBL / OFCL / UFCL. Lussi, I., Huber, S. G., & Ender, S. (2019). Wie die Bildungswege junger Erwachsener ihre Zufriedenheit beeinflussen. In S. G. Huber (Hrsg.), Young Adult Survey Switerzland (Bd. 2, S. 20–24). BBL / OFCL / UFCL. Mead, H. (1991). Geist, Identität und Gesellschaft aus der Sicht des Sozialbehaviourismus. Suhrkamp. Sen, A. (1993). „Capability and well-being“. In M. Nussbaum & A. Sen (Hrsg.), The Quality of Life. Clarendon Press.