Transitions to adulthood are life-making projects—efforts to construct meaning and possibility even amid uncertainty. In post-independence Africa, higher education has historically been presented as a pathway to independent adulthood and social mobility, facilitated by the state. In contemporary times, higher education systems have become sites where young people invest in futures that are increasingly uncertain, while simultaneously internalizing discourses of individual responsibility for success. However, the interaction of gender and generation in the making of self-hood has been under-theorized in both youth studies, where ‘the youth’ are predominantly imagined and constructed as male, and in gender studies, where there has been relative neglect of the temporal and transitional aspects of gendered selfhood. Drawing on literature from youth studies, gender studies, and the sociology of education, I investigate how young women configure higher education within the project of becoming adult women, against the backdrop of socioeconomic uncertainty and moral regulation.
