Reflexivity in navigating one’s learning and life pathways is a central transversal skill for young people in today’s fast-changing and increasingly insecure societies. Especially for those young people who have limited resources due to their vulnerable and multi-disadvantaged life situations, it is a demanding task to be reflexive (Kim, 2023; Maclure, 2017) in making and executing biographically meaningful, flexible, and realistic educational and occupational plans that account for personal, structural, and spatial limitations, dealing with ruptured pathways, finding alternative routes to goals, and adjusting aspirations when necessary. This requires, for example, knowledge and understanding about the opportunity structures within which one navigates. 

At the individual level, reflexivity is forced upon young people by structural fragmentation and insecurity. Thus, to cope with the changing institutional constraints and ever-present risks and uncertainties, individuals need to be reflexive in building and adjusting their identities and biographies (Beck et al., 2003). Although reflexivity is linked to agency, they are distinct: reflexivity may exist even when structural barriers prevent agency from being exercised (Threadgold, 2011). Policy measures can hinder or promote young people’s reflexivity, for instance, by emphasising specific goals (e.g., labour market placement or individual exploration). The relationship between reflexivity and agency can be affected by the perception of institutional constrains (and opportunities), i.e., by how individuals experience rules, measures, and interactions with policy providers as aligned or clashing with their expectations. We underscore that both reflexivity and agency are embedded in contextual opportunities within a certain space, for instance, thriving or lagging regions which offer or hinder chances for labour market participation and access to training and education. The consequences of contrasts and misalignments among expectations, institutional constraints, and contextual opportunities are at the core of the present study.

Drawing from the theoretical perspective of life course research (Mortimer & Shanahan, 2003) and theorisations of opportunity structures (Roberts, 2009), the research question we aim to answer is how young people’s reflexive skills are supported, ignored, or hindered by their lived experiences of educational and labour market policies and practices in differing spatial contexts of thriving and declining regions in Austria, Finland, and Portugal. By highlighting the interplay between reflexivity, structural barriers, and policy frameworks, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of how reflexivity shapes young people’s ability to navigate their life course transitions and pathways. The results emphasise how young people’s reflections on their life paths interact with the structural and policy contexts they face, as well as with the territory they live in, thereby illuminating their capacities for agency and decision-making in complex and unequal environments.

The data of our study, which was collected in a European research project ‘Constructing Learning Outcomes in Europe: A multi-level analysis of (under)achievement in the life course’ (CLEAR), consist of biographical narrative interviews with young people in vulnerable and multi-disadvantaged life situations (N=67). Data collection was carried out in 2024 in two socio-demographically contrasting regions in each country: Upper Austria and Vienna in Austria, Southwest Finland and Kainuu in Finland, and Tâmega e Sousa and Amadora (Area Metropolitana de Lisboa) in Portugal. The interviews focused on young people’s educational experiences and pathways, current situation and future plans, but also their perceptions of regional/local conditions and opportunities. The biographical interview approach allowed interviewees to highlight and focus on the events, processes, emotions, and opportunities for reflexivity that were most relevant to their personal transitions and policy experiences (Aaltonen, 2013). A narrative approach that did not prioritise chronology was used, recognising that young adults’ most notable life events and reflections might fall outside the critical transition points and chronological narratives commonly focused on in youth research (Harding, 2006). We conducted qualitative content analysis (Drisko & Maschi, 2015), which was chosen for its usefulness in ‘addressing not only manifest content but also the themes and core ideas found in texts […] [including] contextual information and latent content’ (ibid., p. 85). We started the analysis process by constructing a tentative analysis grid by drawing on our insights from preliminary analyses of the interview data carried out in the CLEAR project (Järvinen et al., 2024a; 2024b). The analysis grid included: 1) family background; 2) vulnerabilities and disadvantages; 3) life course and current situation; 4) future plans; 5) displayed (lack of) reflexivity; and 6) institutional factors and regional conditions promoting or hindering reflexivity. The interview transcripts were treated in the original language by a native speaker. The grid was filled in based on several rounds of thorough reading of the transcripts. Throughout the analysis process, the authors convened regularly to collaboratively suggest, revise, and finalise analysis at frequent intervals, including revisiting and modifying analysis categories. This iterative approach based on ‘close teamwork’ between co-researchers supported inter-subjective validity (Döös & Wilhelmson, 2014) and allowed the leveraging of both insider and outsider positionalities in the analysis (Chavez, 2008).

In their narratives, the young interviewees in vulnerable and multi-disadvantaged situations navigating their lives in the differing regional conditions in Austria, Finland, and Portugal displayed varying degrees of reflexivity and ability to turn reflexive awareness into agency. These variations were associated with the severity of their vulnerabilities and the surrounding institutional and opportunity structures. Intersecting vulnerabilities created additional challenges to and needs for individual reflexivity. Limited regional/local opportunity structures meant that for many, reflexivity in planning one’s educational and occupational pathways turned into a painful awareness of the lack of biographically meaningful options (Adams, 2006). Instead of well-informed or strategically reflexive decisions, educational (and occupational) choices were often shaped by lack of guidance, lacking support for individually ascribed vulnerabilities, socio-economic pressures, gendered (family) expectations, and urgency to secure income. Thus, the typically low levels of reflexivity displayed in the youths’ narratives was not an individual shortcoming or inherent lack of abilities of the individuals. Instead, as illustrated time and time again through their lived experiences of policies and practices, it was the institutions that often fell short by failing to provide young people in vulnerable and multi-disadvantaged situations with individualised, context-sensitive, and timely support for navigating their pathways in biographically meaningful ways. What followed was that early school leaving and school drop-out, which often followed circumstantial educational decisions made with low levels of reflexivity, emerged as an end result of a process of systemic disconnection and lack of differentiated support, not as an individual lack of aspirations and motivation to engage in education. Nevertheless, internalised meritocracy beliefs (Ho, 2024), which dominated many young people’s narratives, led to feelings of guilt and self-blame affecting their self-images and adding to the burden of the vulnerabilities of their situations.

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