Counselling to stay or to leave? - Comparing career counselling of young people in rural and urban areas

Abstract

ABSTRACT Sweden may be wealthy, but uneven distributions of resources still affect students’ access to higher education and career choices. Some variation is linked to rural/urban divides, but myriads of other factors may also influence young people’s options in transitions. Here I explore these issues, using data collected from interviews with study and career counsellors in both rural and urban areas of Sweden, using a framework including Masseyian concepts of place, and horizons of action. The results confirm the general poverty of access in rural areas linked to limitations of locally available educational programmes, an associated tendency for counsellors to promote ‘learning to leave’, and hence ongoing ‘metrocentric’ flows to city centres. However, they also highlight (inter alia) the importance of students’ resources, which enable or constrain their ability to leave and breadth of opportunities (in rural and urban areas), and gendered socialisation factors that may promote or counter the flows.