Youth in transitions – a qualitative longitudinal study on education and career trajectories among young people in rural Sweden (2015-2024)

This project explores how young people from rural environments navigate their way in education and the labour market over time.

It draws on a series of biographical interviews with 74 individuals who originate from three Swedish rural environments, covering a period of 10-years.

The aim is to address the urgent problem of youths’ extended and uncertain transitions from school to work/higher education in contexts where transitions tend to be particularly uncertain and problematic – in rural places where the local labour market is limited, and where there are few, if any, secondary and/or higher education institutions.

The project problematizes young rural people as both being subject to and co-actors in an accelerating uneven economic development between geographical regions in Sweden.

They may reinforce, in both the short and longer term, the on-going polarization between rural and urban areas, or, alternatively, they may contribute to reversing or resisting this major trend through their agency.

Findings from the projects will constitute an important knowledge base for the Study and career guidance program and can help to provide more effective counselling at schools and municipalities.

In the longer term, they may have significance for local and wider policies to address young peoples´ increasingly extended and uncertain transitions from education to work and between education.