Session Information
05 SES 06 A, Children and Youth at Risk and Urban Education
Paper Session
Contribution
The main goal of this paper is to present and reflect on expectations and fears related to the possibility of young people from rural border regions to leave their home regions, (during the first months of the announced economic crisis). As specific goals we look for: a) analyze if there are differences between basic and secondary school students regarding to expectations, behaviors and fears related to the possibility of leaving the place of belonging; b) analyze if the sense of belonging – Regional identity versus European identity – affects these expectations, behaviors and fears.
Leaving home regions or staying-on are decisions that young people from border regions have been facing for a long time if they seek for job opportunities or if they want to invest more in their education, namely in higher education. For those young people the investment in education always meant to leave. Analysing this decision making process and their relationship with going abroad to study or find a job demands a closer look to young people connectedness with their home area (Yndigegn, 2003). Young people pathways are organised accordingly with available opportunity but also influenced by their cultural, social and geographic standpoint. In fact, place, their place, provides for them a strong sense of belonging.
If it is well known that border studies is an emerging field, especially in sociology (Aitken et al., 2011; Christous & Syprou, 2012) and research in those regions involving children and young people is still developing. In Portugal, studies from Portela (2000) and Dornelas (2010) have highlighted this invisibility.
The study has been developed in a rural border region that aims to gives space to different understandings about young people growing up in remote, rural border regions, challenging some unchanging ideas about those who live in these regions (Bell & Osti, 2010;). Stereotypes concerning isolation, lack of opportunities or dreamscapes idyllic views needs to be overcome (Hedberg & Carmo, 2012; Löfgren, 2008)), especially because some young people does not understand border, for example, as an obstacle: “young people see the border less an obstacle and more as a possibility for networking on local and global issues.” (Silva, 2014)
Drawing this study the paper tries to understand young people positions about the possibility of leaving their home region, capturing fears and expectations and how they positions themselves in what concerns attachments towards place, community family and friends. Geographical identity is strong and is transversal to their standpoints, also when referring to leaving or staying in their regions. For some young people being on the move means experiences of ambiguity, disorientation and loss, but for other is an escape opportunity (Costas, 2013). This theoretical discussion is informed by a survey study among rural teenagers in a remote rural region in Portugal close to the Spanish border The regions is Trás-os Montes, which literally means behind the mountains and is remote, hard to reach, forgotten and with limited access to jobs and educational opportunities, being in the margins at educational, political, social and cultural level. Further exploration of the influence of community-level factors on youth decision to leave or stay in their home regions are needed.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Aitken, S., Bosco, F., Herman, T., & Swanson, K. (eds) (2011) Young People, Border Spaces and Revolutionary Imaginations. London: Routledge.Bell, M.; and Osti, G. (2010) ‘Mobilities and Ruralities: an Introduction’, Sociologia Ruralis, 3, 199-204. Christou, M. and Spyrou, S. (2012) “Border Encounters: How Children Navigate Space and Otherness in an Ethnically Divided Society”, Childhood, 19, 3, 302- 316. Costas, J. (2013) “Problematizing Mobility: A Metaphor of Stickiness, Non-Places and the Kinetic Elite”, Organization Studies, 10, 1467-1485 Dornelas, A.; Oliveira, L.; Veloso, L.; Guerreiro, M. D. (Orgs.) (2010) Portugal Invisível (Editora Mundos Sociais, CIES, ISCTE-IUL: Lisboa). Hedberg, C. and Carmo, R. M. (eds.) (2012) ‘Translocal Ruralism’: Mobility and Connectivity in European Rural Spaces (London: Springer). Löfgren, Orvar (2008) Regionauts: the Transformation of Cross-Border Regions in Scandinavia European Urban and Regional Studies, 3 ,195-209. Portela, J.; Gerry, C.; António, P.; Marques, C. and V. Rebelo (2000) Young People: From Vocational Dreams to Pragmatism: Policies and Young People in Rural Development’ (Vila Real DES/UTAD). Silva, S. M. (2014) Growing Up in a Portuguese Borderland. In S. Spyrou & M. Christou (Eds.), Children and Borders (pp. 62-77). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Sinkkonen, M. (2012) Attachment of Young People to Their Home District, Youth Society, 4, 523-544 Yndigegn, C. (2003) “Life Planning in the Periphery: Life Chances And Life Perspectives For Young People In The Danish-German Border Region”, Young, Nordic Journal of Youth Research, 11, 3, 235-251.
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