Negotiating Multiple Spatialities: Geographies of Youth Educational Subjectivity

Abstract

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.