Rethinking Social Exclusion and Young People in Rural Places: Toward a Spatial and Relational Approach in Youth and Education Studies

Abstract

This chapter focuses on a range of concepts borrowing from disciplines such as education, sociology, and geography to examine how the intersection between youth and education policies and place can be a central aspect of processes of exclusion for young people in rural areas. The chapter argues for the need of a spatial and relational approach to education and youth studies in rural places that moves beyond universal constructions of youth transitions that reflect certain dominant values of prescribed policy patterns that are understood as normative, neutral, and natural. It proposes that to understand and interrupt these processes of exclusion, it is essential that biographies, identities, relations, and localities are rendered visible. The chapter highlights different studies and conceptualizations that promote a spatial and relational approach, which work toward subverting homogeneous and hegemonic views of youth in rural spaces in favor of multidimensional understanding of what it means and entails to grow up beyond the metropolis.