Representational Perceptions of Future University Students in Rural Areas. the Analyses of Two Ethno-Methodological Dimensions

The present study aims to contribute to the development of scientific knowledge about the representational perceptions of future university students in rural areas regarding their interest in university studies. The representational perceptions of these prospective university students relate to two ethno-methodological dimensions: the private dimension and the academic dimension. Perceptions of the private dimension are represented in members’ stories about family and friends, whereas perceptions of the academic dimension are represented in narratives of the academic environment and the importance of research to the academic environment as a whole. The ethno-methodological private dimension is asserted in narratives about the importance of members’ social context, social world, and world of study. The verbal tensions in the representations depict an uncertain and dependent relationship in relation to members’ family and friends in the rural area where they all live. The social context, social world, and study world of the members also are reported as significant in the ethno-methodological academic dimension. In the representational perceptions in the study, a series of chains of perceptions is created and reproduced, all interconnected in the ethno-methodological sense and consisting of verbal tensions in narratives. They suggest an ethno-methodological balancing related to interactions between representational perceptions about verbal conflicting interests and verbal downplays of those conflicts; representational perceptions of members’ fear related to choice of study programs and university; orientation points in narratives that seem to facilitate self-positioning in the current social context, social world, and world of study; and a battlefield of various conflicting interests that seem to influence the members’ representational perceptions. In the last case, the conflict seems to relate mostly to the representational perceptions of the common aspects in the social context, social world, and world of study that members find difficult to relate to, oppose, or manage.