This abstract concerns the methodological combination of two multi-sensory and participation-oriented approaches to the process of interviewing in a current research project titled “How Does it Make Sense to be Young in VET?”, which focuses on young VET-students creation and perception of meaning in the intersection of youth life and work life in Denmark. The researchproject is part carried out within the Danish Knowledge Centre for Vocational Training and Education (CEVEU).

In Denmark VET programs continue to face challenges, including low enrollment and high dropout rates (Mahler et al. 2023; DEA 2022). This research project seeks to provide insights into the lived experiences of young VET students under the age of 25 and how they create and perceive meaning in the intersection of youth life and work life while also gaining new perspectives on preventing dropout and enhancing completion rates. Based on the research question: How do young people under the age of 25 create and perceive meaning in the intersection of youth life and work life in their training courses as part of their vocational education and training? westudy how VET students under 25 y/o experience and create meaning in balancing everyday youth life and first encounters with the professional labor market in their training.

The Danish VET system is characterized by its dual-education model where over half of the training occurs in apprenticeship settings. This unique structure raises questions about how young people balance the demands of youth life with the responsibilities and expectations of their professional training. Our research investigates the emergence of meaning and meaning breakdowns in the tension between youth life and apprenticeship, focusing on how young people perceive their apprenticeship experiences as part of this dynamic intersection.

Apprentices in training are methodologically challenging to study without conducting observations, which demand substantial time and resources. Furthermore, access to individual training sites can be difficult to secure. This paper aims to share experiences with youth-inclusive methods, where young people act as primary co-creators of the data, thus shaping the narratives of their own youth lives. These methods involve joint exploration between the young person and the researcher through chats and image exchanges, ensuring their experiences of meaning in training, intertwined with their youth lives, are authentically represented.

This is important, because the young students’ everyday life and youth perspective remain underexplored in VET research both in Denmark and internationally in relation to other education settings. By adopting a holistic lens, this study identifies moments of meaning-making and meaning breakdown in the students’ educational and youth lives. This dual focus is crucial to understanding the factors that contribute to student retention, completion, and the creation of more sustainable educational pathways. Insights from this study may inform interventions aimed at reducing dropout rates and enhancing the well-being of VET students.

The theoretical framework combines Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of the body (Merleau-Ponty, 1994) and Hartmut Rosa’s concept of resonance (Rosa, 2021). Together, these frameworks provide a nuanced understanding of how young people experience meaning, coherence or fragmentation in their educational and personal lives.

In this research project, we combine two interviewing methods: 1) mobile ethnography and 2) jour-ney mapping, to explore the complex intersections between school life, vocational training, youth development, and general life for young Danish VET-students. Mobile ethnography will be conducted over approximately one month during spring 2025 with 20-25 participants, followed by 20-25 qualitative journey mapping interviews with some of the partici-pants. These interviews will build on data (co-)produced by the young people during the mobile eth-nography phase. Mobile ethnography is a qualitative, digital method where participants use their mobile phones to document daily actions, habits, and reflections related to a specific phenomenon (Albrechtsen & Pedersen, 2023). This approach emphasizes the participants’ perspectives, giving them the role of co-creators in the research process. By engaging VET students in this method, we can capture their lived experiences both inside and outside their apprenticeships. Throu

The final data collection and the analysis of the data has yet to be completed. Hence the following are tentative ideas of the expected findings produced by the methodological combination of mobile ethnography and journey mapping interviews. We expect that the combination of these co-creative and relational methods will provide rich, multi-sensory understandings of the interplay between ap-prenticeships and youth experiences, highlighting what young apprentices value and prioritize in their training and everyday youth experiences. Through the analysis of participants' photos, chat exchanges, and reflective discussions, we aim to identify how their sense of meaning is constructed and challenged across different contexts. The mobile ethnography phase is expected to capture participants’ daily routines and interactions in both apprenticeship and youth settings, shedding light on how training experiences impact their pro-fessional development and youth lives. Journey mapping interviews will deepen this understand

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