Suchergebnisse

This article examines the spatial dynamics of youth educational subjectivity formation. Drawing on qualitative interviews conducted in sparsely habited northern Finland, the article focuses on the experiences of 15–16-year-old young people making choices regarding post compulsory education. Employing a sociospatial-relational framework, the paper explores how youth educational subjectivities are constructed in relation to educational policy discourses and structural opportunities, as well as young people's own imaginaries of life and education in specific places. In attending to spatiality in a regional context, the analysis brings into view multiple spatialities that are present when young people are making choices regarding education and mobility. The article concludes that the formation of young people's educational subjectivity is best understood as a relational process that is inherently a sociospatial one.

The paper studies the changing spatial rationalizations of Finnish education policy with a particular focus on upper secondary education, which has gone through significant reforms in recent decades. The fostering of social and spatial equality has long represented the cornerstone of Finland's Nordic welfare state education system. The establishment of a widespread network of educational institutions also formed an important means of building social and territorial cohesion in the country. Since the late 1980s, Finnish education policies have turned towards neoliberal ideals, underlining economic rationalizations, individualization and flexibility. Also, education policy has come to play an increasingly important role in the constitution of the knowledge-based economy and embedded spatial restructuring. The paper scrutinizes recent state upper secondary education reforms from the perspective of spatial justice and its scalar dimensions, underlining the consequential juncture of choosing between upper secondary education paths. It is shown how the rationalization of Finnish education policy differentiates places, favouring urban over rural, and produces particular citizen-subjects: while general upper secondary education forms a site for producing skilled and globally minded citizens, vocational education prioritizes the availability of regional workforce and the prevention of youth marginalization. Rather than providing equal opportunities, it is argued that the dual-path Finnish education policy reinforces spatial differentiation and the differential inclusion of citizen-subjects in the knowledge-based economy.