This paper reflects on the preliminary findings of a research project situated within a mixed-methods PhD, to answer the research question: In what ways do individuals understand and make sense of their own social mobility or lack thereof, and how do they perceive the role of higher education within this? The experience of social mobility across multiple routes is personally and socially complex (Reay et al. 2009, Hurst, 2010, Lee & Kramer, 2013, Attridge, 2021). This research will employ a workshop methodology that enables participants to co-create and explore meanings, narratives and experiences of social class, social mobility and participation (or not) within higher education. These will be followed by 1-1 semi-structured narrative interviews with a subset of participants. This method allows for detailed ‘thick and rich’ descriptions (Ahmed & Asraf, 2018, p.1504), offering insights into the ways such concepts are socially constructed (Lincoln and Guba, 1985), collectively understood (or not) and their assigned meaning. Participants of the study will be in their mid30s – this aligns this qualitative component of the wider study with its quantitative counterpart which explores trajectories and social mobility for a similar cohort. Once the research data has been collected, it will be analysed using a narrative, inductive approach allowing for the co-creation of understandings and conceptions (in NVivo). This research paper will present initial findings including the harmonies and tensions apparent in participants’ understandings of their own narratives. Considering the role of higher education in particular, this study seeks to explore how participants situate their own trajectories alongside wider neoliberal narratives of social mobility via higher education. Furthermore, this paper will end with considerations of the wider mixed methodologies. It will discuss the ways in which the findings presented are situated as part of a larger research narrative where interconnected themes are explored through varied large scale, longitudinal quantitative data and in depth, rich and personal qualitative data.

The present article addresses educational mediations between an institute and digital platforms. In a context marked by an increasing individualization of human experience through the use of digital platforms it reflects on the role of the educational institution as a social good and an entity that safeguards the common good. Through a case study and critical school ethnography, it observes and analyzes the main mediations that emerge within the educational community based on the testimony of students and teachers. The findings are structured into three categories: "digital self", which refers to the challenge of constructing identities; "self with others", focusing on the violence in socio-digital interactions; and "self as a consumer or user", addressing the phenomenon of information personalization. Finally, it identifies specific pedagogical strategies such as fostering connection through authenticity from a common vulnerability and utilizing artistic education as a resource for critical media education.

In late modernity, the discourse of individualisation is of paramount importance to understand young people educational transitions and choices. Within the dominant paradigm of lifelong learning (Dale & Parreira do Amaral, 2015), individuals become entrepreneurs of themsselves and their choices are viewed as the result of a reflexive process based on their individual capacities, needs and desires. Despite the dominant rhetoric of transitions and choices as rational and free, sociological research demonstrates that they need to be approached as socially embedded processes that reflect young people’s classed, gendered and ethnically informed constrictions and identities (Tarabini & Ingram, 2018). The notion of vocation is indeed a key discursive tool in sustaining dominant narratives about young people’s life trajectories and choices (Tarabini, Rujas & Gil, 2022).

Despite this, there is scarcity of sociological research that has addressed the concept of vocation as a “sense of calling” (Hansen, 1995), that is, as those activities linked to the sense of self, of personal identity and personal fulfilment (Dubois, 2019; Lahire, 2018). The objective of this paper is to reinforce the sociological understanding of vocations by exploring its association with the notion of choice and its impacts in terms of (re)production of social inequalities. We understand vocations as a particular form of taste (Bourdieu, 1984), which is generated within specific social positions, trained through social situations along individuals’ biographies and a way of classification that classifies the individual according to its preferences. With this idea in mind, we aim at exploring how young people use the notion of vocation to explain their transition to upper secondary education and, particularly, to different academic and vocational programmes. We also aim at identifying the social factors influencing the genesis of vocations, as well as differences between students (in terms of gender and social class) and upper secondary tracks. The analysis is based on 95 in-depth interviews with first-year upper secondary students in Barcelona and Madrid (Spain).

⁽¹⁾ Aims: This article analyzes the school experiences and lives of young adults facing multiple disadvantages, aiming to understand their choices and perception of themselves as active agents shaping their lives within societal changes.

General framework: Youth, as a life phase, emerges as a transitional time marked by changes (biological, psychological, social, and cultural), uncertainties, and vulnerabilities. Resulting from various and rapid social, technological, political, and economic changes affecting society, the market, and forms of work. Several studies (Pikkarainen et al., 2022, among others) emphasize the importance of education and training in promoting equity, social cohesion, and active citizenship in this ever-changing social landscape. In this context of uncertainty and increasing risks where education plays a strategic role as a shaper of awareness, citizenship, and critical thinking, we aim to analyze the experiences and lives of young adults with a background of school failure/dropout.

The focus is on problematizing the school as a reproducer of social inequalities (Bourdieu, 2007) and on exercising agency as an adaptive strategy adopted by young people when faced, on one hand, with the freedom of choice amid a variety of options, and on the other hand, with a series of constraints, limitations, and obstacles offered by the structure they are part of (Elder et al., 2003; Giddens, 2003).

Theoretical/conceptual framework: We adopt a critical approach to problematize the role of the school in reproducing social and cultural inequalities, following the thoughts of authors such as Philippe Perrenoud (2002) and Pierre Bourdieu (2007). We analyze how educational structures may perpetuate and even exacerbate social inequalities, becoming a vehicle for the reproduction of social hierarchies that will shape the life trajectories of young people, influencing the opportunities they will have access to, their choices, and actions throughout their life course. This leads us to the analysis of the dynamics of individual and structural agency, incorporating the critical contributions of theorists such as Anthony Giddens (2003) and Glen Elder (2003), highlighting the interdependence between agency and structure as a way to analyze the choices, opportunities, and challenges faced by young people in a neoliberal context. Thus, we present a nuanced understanding of the interaction between agency and structure and the intentional actions, rules, and pre-existing resources that shape these actions, problematizing the hegemonic neoliberal narratives

Methodology: The research aligns with a qualitative approach anchored in the use of the biographical method. Eighteen biographical interviews were conducted with young adults aged between 18 and 29 years old with a history of school failure/dropout.

Results/Conclusions: Ongoing research suggest (1) the school's inability to engage and captivate young people in learning processes; (2) employment opportunities strongly conditioned by low educational attainment; (3) a shortage of local job opportunities; (4) development of adaptation strategies by young people, enabling them to nurture their aspirations within a neoliberal context, and (5) the influence of neoliberal policies on the availability of local opportunities.

⁽¹⁾ The presented data were collected as part of the CLEAR Project, funded by Horizon Europe under Grant Agreement No. 101061155