The causes, the nature and consequences of dropout problem has been explored by several perspectives (Archambault et al. 2008, Rumberger 2011, Sacco, Le Rose 2022) and actions to fight it –– with particularly attention to some Italian regions and neighbourhoods where dropout rates­­ are higher ­–– have been recently declare as one of the main goals of Italian Ministry of Education. The aim of this contribution is to propose a tool to find a solution to the dropout problem. The main idea is to rethink the way we describe to students the need to go to school, using some suggestions from prospect theory.

Prospect theory has offered a possible explanation for the behaviour of agents’ choices under risk. Specifically, Kahneman and Tversky (Kahneman and Tversky 1979, 1981) showed that agents, when faced with a risky choice that leads to a gain, avoid risk and prefer the choice with a certain outcome (albeit with a smaller gain). However, when faced with a risky choice that leads to losses, agents behave in order to avoid losses and become inclined to take risks. Since certain loss is very aversive and pushes agents to take risks, the psychological value of losses and gains isn’t equal to the agents. Prospect theory explain this behaviour in terms of euristics and biases due to our emotions, instincts and passions (Kahneman, 2011).

Despite some of considerable criticism we have to take into account (Gigerenzer 1991, Mandel 2014) –– and keeping in mind that the theory is a descriptive and not a normative one (Labinaz, 2013) ­–– I propose to use prospect theory as a tool to rethink students' behaviour and for finding solutions to school dropout. Let’s start with thinking about a student as an agent who has to make choices (showing up at school every day, paying attention in class, studying for the exams) under conditions of uncertainty (without actually knowing the effects of these decisions) or risk (for example showing up everyday at school and being sure to obtain a good mark at the next exam or accepting the risk of missing a few lessons, skipping school a few times to go out with friends and probably getting a bad mark). The famous Asian Disease task proposed by Kahneman and Tversky (Kahneman and Tversky 1981), show us that agent changes decision when faced with the same choice problem if it is presented in different ways. They call this behaviour of agents framing effect (Kahneman and Tversky, 1981, Gilovich, Griffin and Kahneman 2002). The hypotesis is that if we start framing the activities in school to our agent-student with no longer as a sure gain ('you must study and go to school because then you will get a good job', for example) but in terms of certain losses, we may be able to convince adolescents to take some risks and don't drop out of school.

Since the 1970s, the question of free choice in the process of educational orientation has been the subject of debate in the sociology of education in France. In its caricatured form, the debate could be presented as follows : at one end of the spectrum, the pupil is a rational actor making cost-benefit calculations to determine his or her choices (Boudon, 1972), while at the other, pupils' educational paths are strongly influenced by the capital available in the various families, and the educational institution fails to compensate for the inequalities present at birth, thereby reproducing the social order of things (Bourdieu, 1970).

Because of its concentration of the social inequalities, vocational training is a good field to investigate that question of choice : students whose parents are employees or blue-collar workers are over-represented, while the children of managers are under-represented (Bourdieu, 1970 ; Merle, 2002 ; Palheta, 2012 ; Dubet, 2014). Gender inequalities are also strongly represented in vocational schools, notably through the gendered distribution of students in the various specialties (Mosconi, 1983, Moreau, 1995).

Since its creation in 2011, the Support, Care, Personal Services vocational training (Bac Pro ASSP in French) has provided training in the care and support professions, starting in the second year of secondary school. The majority of students involved in this training are young women from working-class backgrounds, most of whom are immigrants. Our interpretation of this phenomenon is that the registration into this field is a way for these young women to move into a sector where the tasks they will have to perform are close to those they have long performed in the family sphere (Cresson, 2004). These young women, who do not feel that they have "succeeded academically", have therefore seen this pathway as a way of enhancing the skills they have acquired through domestic work (Cartier, 2012). From an orientation point of view, we can say that the risk for them is to confuse what they are socially predestined to do with what they really want to do.

While their orientation is strongly linked to their social background and gender, we will show through our monographic survey and through repeated interviews in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd years, as well as observations in classrooms and at internship sites, how these young women's conviction that they are "made to take care of others" will be questioned through the experience of apprenticeship.

Educational choices are set on a political backdrop that emphasises the need to increase the participation in upper and higher education, while stressing individual’s capacity for reflexivity (Ball et al., 2000). Despite the neoliberal rhetoric of free and rational choice, social inequalities are still central in understanding educational transitions. Indeed, educational inequalities are embedded in more complex forms of horizontal stratification, conditioning access to and experience of education according to students’ social position (Furlong & Cartmel, 2009). In this sense, in most European countries, transitions to upper secondary constitute a turning point in students' trajectories, as they occur within the division between hierarchically differentiated tracks – academic and vocational (Lahlema, 2019). This division therefore explains the degree of stratification, segmentation, and selectivity of the different educational systems (Termes, 2022). Moreover, upper secondary transitions constitute the moment when students must face the first real decision about their future, produced by the interaction of their objective opportunity structures and their subjective dispositions (Tarabini, 2022). In other words, they choose, according to their horizons for action, what is (un)thinkable for the "people like them” (Hodkinson & Sparkes, 1997).

On the other hand, post-compulsory educational decisions often involve decisions about (im)mobility. Indeed, the spatial dimension of transitions is of crucial relevance to understand the complexity of social and educational inequalities and young peoples’ identities (Farrugia, 2014). As research has pointed out, mobility permeates much of social life (Urry, 2008) and goes beyond the physical act of moving between spaces. The capacity to exercise spatial reflexivity (Cairns, 2014) in educational transitions is conditioned by the objective position of young people, but also by their imagined spatial futures (Rönnlund, 2020) and belongings. Space is thus understood as symbolically and materially constituted through the materialities, practices, relations, interpretations, and narratives that produce it (Farrugia and Wood, 2017). Finally, although research has focused on mobility towards higher education (Fin, 2017), it is important to dig into the multiple (im)mobilities that occur in post-compulsory education, especially when the VET supply is unevenly distributed throughout the territory.

This paper aims to contribute to the analysis of the intertwining of social and spatial inequalities. More specifically, we analyse how structural variables - class, gender, migratory origin - and place of residence influence student’ post-compulsory aspired choices and imagined mobilities in a rural area of Catalonia (Spain). Including the rural dimension allows for a deeper understanding of rural youth, often taken for granted in youth studies (Farrugia, 2014). Moreover, it is in these areas where the very distribution and planning of the educational supply makes mobility an imperative for transitions. To this end, a questionnaire was distributed among students in their final year of compulsory secondary education with the aim of collecting information on their social profile, educational trajectories and experiences, and intentions regarding choice and mobility. The results show that both in the educational track choice and in the identification of spaces that are (un)thinkable for them, there is a "a sense of ones' place" that is related to structural variables.

Educational trajectories are entrenched within the global paradigm of individualism (Giddens, 1991), wherein choices are perceived as pivotal moments for self-investment (Dale & Parreira do Amaral, 2015). In this context, young people endeavour to envision futures that are suitable and desirable for themselves (Appadurai, 1988), mediating and negotiating their aspirations with broader institutional structures and social actors (Gale & Parker, 2015). Alongside the pressure to make educational choices that facilitate upward social mobility, students are encouraged to search for authenticity (James et al., 2021). The future encompasses not only making educational choices to secure a good job but also imbuing it with a sense of purpose; happiness becomes imperative (Vieira et al., 2013). However, the ability to construct solid and meaningful imagined futures is constrained by the structures of capital possessed by young people (Bourdieu, 2011) and the lives of those around them, both in their immediate environment and on social media (Archer, 2007).

The aim of this paper is to explore students' employment of the notions of vocation and predestination to infuse a sense of transcendence into their educational choices and aspirations. We conceptualize vocations as a particular form of taste (Bourdieu, 1988; 2020). Like taste, vocations are developed within specific social positions, cultivated through social encounters throughout individuals' biographies, and a classification method that categorizes individuals based on their preferences. Conversely, much of the existing sociological research utilizing the notion of vocation associates the concept with the idea of occupation or profession, thus primarily focusing on its economic aspect (Dubois, 2019). Furthermore, fewer sociological studies have addressed the concept as a "sense of calling" (Hansen, 1995), highlighting the necessity for further exploration of its meaning and implications beyond its religious and economic dimensions (Dubois, 2019; Lahire, 2018).

This contribution is grounded in a qualitative longitudinal study conducted in three academic upper secondary schools in a semi-rural area in Catalonia. The data comprise in-depth interviews with 24 academic upper secondary students from diverse social backgrounds, genders, and programs over the course of two years (2021-23).

The analysis of young people's future narratives in this domain has yielded significant insights into understanding their strategies for navigating pressure and uncertainty about the future within such a demanding context. The results reveal how, for some students, discourses surrounding vocation, predestination, and transcendence in career planning may be of paramount importance in ensuring their educational choices and identity construction. Simultaneously, for other students, this absence of vocation may be perceived with cynicism or as if something were wrong with them.