(The English summary of) this dissertation focusses on ‘new learners’ with trendsetting learning biographies. Their biographies seem a prototypical fulfilment of a new cultural script as disclosed by for example education innovation and youth sociological discourses. Education innovators proclaim that learning processes of new generations will (have to) be fundamentally different. Youth sociologists emphasize today’s individualization of life courses. These changes are perceived as imperative in the shift towards an individualized knowledge society in which learning and life course constructing become almost synonym.

Empirical research that focuses on all aspects of learning and life courses of a new generation is scarce and a coherent conceptual framework is lacking. General aim is to connect the - at this moment separate - discourses on learning and life courses. An integrated conceptual framework is developed with which learning biographies can be studied. This framework functions as a heuristic for the empirical study: analysing biographical narrations of expected ‘new learners’. Specific aim is developing a theoretically informed and empirically underpinned ideal type of a trendsetting learning biography. Central question: In what type of contexts do favorable conditions emerge for, and what are key factors in trendsetting learning biographies of a new generation?

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