Imagined Futures in Rural Contexts: The Role of Space in Shaping Students’ Aspirations and Educational Inequalities
Transitions to upper secondary education occur within a political context that emphasizes the rising and management of students' aspirations to ensure realistic choices (Hart, 2012), obscuring the role of social background and educational context in shaping these processes (Ball et al., 2000). As Appadurai (2004) points out, the capacity to aspire is unevenly distributed across different social groups. Scholars like Hart (2012) and Gale and Parker (2018) argue that aspirations are mediated by students’ habitus—shaping perceived opportunities—and by conceptions of the most valued educational pathways, which require capacities—conditioned by forms of capital—for their imagination and realization.
Research has increasingly focused on the spatial embeddedness of social inequalities and the importance of place in shaping young people’s biographies and identities (Farrugia, 2014). Thus, imagining the academic and professional future often involve thinking about (im)mobility. Mobility extends beyond physical movement (Urry, 2008) and relates to individuals' imagined spatial futures (Rönnlund, 2020), based on their sense of belonging and horizons of action (Hodskinson & Sparkes, 1997). This is especially relevant in Catalonia, where VET provision is unequally distributed and centralized, and vocational education is often devalued, considered a ‘second-best’ option suitable for disadvantaged students. How students envision their academic futures is strongly influenced by their capacity for spatial reflexivity (Cairns, 2014).
Drawing on 40 in-depth interviews with students from a rural area in Catalonia, this paper shows that aspired VET choices, as well as broader academic and professional aspirations, are closely linked to their capacity to imagine their spatial futures, where mobility becomes crucial for transitions.