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Mobilities of youth: Social and spatial trajectories in a segregated Sweden
Umeå University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Education.
Umeå University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of applied educational science, Child and Youth education, Special Education and Counselling.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-5791-081X
2010 (English)In: European Educational Research Journal, E-ISSN 1474-9041, Vol. 9, no 2, p. 192-207Article in journal (Other academic) Published
Abstract [en]

This article explores youth mobilities in three geographic and socioeconomic diverseSwedish contexts. The concept of mobility has become an important feature ofindividualistic discourses of responsibility relating to inclusion, lifelong learning andself-regulating entrepreneurial behaviour. This article draws attention to the fact thatgeographical mobility, as a form of human agency, is closely related to social mobilityand hence to both spacial and social ineqalities. Using life history interviews andstatistical data, the paper explores how space, class and ethnicity are related to educationand social inclusion and exclusion as young people are spatially situated yet move, desireto move, dream about moving, seek to move and fail to move, as they migrate through,in and out of social communities. The analysis displays how these mobilities are framedby local traditions and circumstances that both enable and restrict. Such mobility mightinvolve processes of personal development and learning, and be the calculatedconsequence of each individual’s chosen life-career. However, mobility might also ariseas flight from a stigmatized place. In these cases, refusal to move can also be seen as aform of resistance.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Oxford, United Kingdom: Symposium Journals , 2010. Vol. 9, no 2, p. 192-207
Keywords [en]
mobility, biography, space, class, education, policy
National Category
Pedagogy
Research subject
Education
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-32539DOI: 10.2304/eerj.2010.9.2.192Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-77955824484OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-32539DiVA, id: diva2:304028
Available from: 2010-03-16 Created: 2010-03-16 Last updated: 2023-03-28Bibliographically approved
In thesis
1. Spaces, mobilities and youth biographies in the New Sweden: Studies on education governance and social inclusion and exclusion
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Spaces, mobilities and youth biographies in the New Sweden: Studies on education governance and social inclusion and exclusion
2010 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

The main theme of this thesis is the relation between education governance and social inclusion and exclusion. Overall the thesis is based on a life history approach were biographical interviews with young people are complemented with other contextual data such as survey data, longitudinal statistics, interviews with local politicians and school actors and local reports. Data were generated in three Swedish areas: a rural area in the North, an advantaged segregated area, and a disadvantaged segregated area in the South. The thesis consists of four articles that use the concepts of biography, space, and mobility. Article 1. examines the increasing usage of biographical registers in school. It suggests that biography as a form of education governance serves to construct the students as both objects for assessment and as a relay for continuous self-assessment. As such, this is a socio-political technology that is important to acknowledge in order to understand processes of social inclusion and exclusion. Article 2. addresses the following empirically generated question: How is it possible to understand the fact that disadvantaged students from a segregated area have such optimistic future orientations in relation to further education and work? Building on life history interviews with a small sample of refugee youth from a disadvantaged segregated area the paper presents a concept labelled Utopian diaspora biography (UDB). UDB describes a process whereby a high level of aspiration concerning education and labour is accumulated as a consequence of the social, temporal and spatial dynamic of the biography. Article 3. is an attempt to develop new understandings about local production of social inclusion and exclusion in a decentralised, individualised and segregated school landscape. Using a wide range of data the article suggests that local differences concerning schooling and the outcomes of schooling – both in terms of statistical patterns and the identities produced – are interrelated and are based on an amalgamation of local policy implementation, material conditions and spatially guided representations. Article 4. deploys the concept of mobility in order to explore how space and class become related to education and social inclusion and exclusion in the three chosen areas as young people are spatially situated but move, want to move, dream about moving, try to move, and fail to move through, in and out of different forms of communities. This paper shows that the possibilities of moving to desired places on the education- and labour market are unequally distributed between young people and between places. The analysis also seeks to move beyond schematic typologies such as those of ‘immobile working class’ and ‘mobile middle class’ by exploring how mobility is made meaningful and how notions about mobility are structured and enable action. In summary, the thesis contributes to the discussion on processes of inclusion and exclusion in contemporary society. These processes are understood as inter-disciplinary problematics that include the social production of spatiality, historicality, and sociality at both the societal level and on the level of identity. Crucial aspects concern aestheticisation and performativity in education which imply an increasing focus on discursive, or textual, dimensions of identity formation and the competitive strategies developed by students in order to secure social inclusion through the marketing of oneself. Under these circumstances, new identities and new forms of social inclusion and exclusion are produced.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Umeå: Pedagogiska institutionen, Umeå universitet, 2010. p. 92
Series
Akademiska avhandlingar vid Pedagogiska institutionen, Umeå universitet, ISSN 0281-6768 ; 94
Keywords
education governance, social exclusion, biography, space, mobility, performativity
National Category
Pedagogy
Research subject
Education
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-32542 (URN)978-91-7264-940-8 (ISBN)
Public defence
2010-04-09, Humanisthuset, Hörsal E, Umeå universitet 901 87, Umeå, 10:00 (Swedish)
Opponent
Supervisors
Available from: 2010-03-19 Created: 2010-03-16 Last updated: 2018-06-08Bibliographically approved

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Lindgren, JoakimLundahl, Lisbeth

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