There and Back Again: The intertwining of educationally related (im)mobility choices of young adults from peripheral regions with contemporary identity and place narratives

Young adults’ educationally related (im)mobility choices have received an increasing amount of attention in recent decades. The number of young adults who migrate from peripheral to urban regions–where they often chose to stay–to enroll in higher education programs creates a cumulative problem for the coherence and demographic balance between peripheral and urban regions in many European countries. With an increasing number of young adults enrolling in higher education programs, these young adults’ educationally related (im)mobility choices are relevant not only for themselves, as they make one of their first important life choices, but also for those regions, municipalities and educational institutions that endeavor to attract academically oriented young adults and graduates. This Ph.D. thesis engages in the novel call for the inclusion of identity and identity narratives in research concerning educationally related (im)mobility choices among young adults from peripheral regions and small cities. The goal of this project is to contribute to the examination of the ways in which young adults’ educationally related (im)mobility choices are intertwined with identity and place narratives and how this connection relates to the capacity peripheral regions have to retain and attract academically oriented young adults. This project lies at the intersection of youth studies, higher education studies, mobility studies and spatial research. The literature has adequately described the motivations of young adults who move away from peripheral areas to reach core urban areas. However, the young adults who stay in or move to peripheral regions to enter higher education have been understudied. Furthermore, research on young adults’ educationally related (im)mobility choices has supported a binary understanding of the ‘stayers’, who remain in the peripheral regions, and the ‘leavers’, who move to larger cities. This approach incurs the risk of limiting the understanding of (im)mobility choices as an on/off event, rather than as part of a process. Moreover, students’ sense of belonging to their home location after having outmigrated has received only scarce attention. Hence, the time is ripe for the development of new concepts that can help understand young adults in peripheral regions and their educationally related (im)mobility choices. The project is rooted in a broad empirical basis of both quantitative and qualitative data collected through two different questionnaires, in-depth narrative interviews and focus group interviews with young adults ranging from 18 to 35 years old who are currently attending a higher education institution in the peripheral regions of Denmark or the Netherlands. By analyzing the collected empirical data in light of the literature about youth and educational and migration research, this project contributes new concepts and previously uncovered nuances about young adults’ education-related (im)mobility choices. First, the location-specific insider advantages of young ‘stayers’ who have remained in their home town when starting their studies is identified (Chapter 4). Earlier research has primarily attributed location-specific insider advantages to older individuals who have lived in one place over their lifetime, but this project shows how these advantages are also present among young adults. Simultaneously, this project (Chapter 5) finds that, on one hand, the young adults who ‘move against the current’ by choosing an educational institution in a peripheral region risk stigmatization by friends and family; on the other hand, findings reveal that some young adults actively choose to go to a small city for their higher education because they prioritize living close to nature and to their social relations or because of a specific educational program being offered there. Together, these results point to unexplored dimensions about why young adults choose to leave their peripheral home regions even when there is a higher education institution nearby. This question is answered through the concept of ‘symbolic mobility capital’ (Chapter 6), which describes how young adults utilize mobility experiences, regardless of distance and duration, in their own identity narrative to escape the stigma associated with choosing to be a ‘stayer’ to maintain a connection to their peripheral home region. These results are interpreted in the policy context (Chapter 7), where the opportunities of peripheral regions to positively influence young adults’ return migration intentions are found to be mostly indirect; however, this influence can be exerted through communication about the possibilities available in the home region, making it attractive for young adults who have recently graduated and already feel a strong sense of belonging to their home municipality. Ultimately (Chapter 8), the different chapters are linked, and the overall conclusions of the project are presented: The educationally related (im)mobility choices of young adults from peripheral regions must be viewed as part of a complex, multidirectional process, where being able to narrate the ‘right’ identity in relation to contemporary place narratives and higher education culture, as well as perceived understandings of transitioning into successful adulthood, is of vital importance. However, in some cases, these identity narratives seem to function in favor of the peripheral region. While the mobility imperative indeed upholds importance for young adults in peripheral regions, differences in geographical scale, personal preferences for small university towns and location-specific insider advantages provide nuance in the image of the one-way stream of young adults toward urban regions. The results show that peripheral municipalities and regions could benefit from reframing young adult ‘leavers’ as ‘potential returners’. Instead of focusing on preventing outmigration, peripheral regions might communicate about the possibilities available there for people in later stages of their life and thereby influence the return intentions of the young adults who have outmigrated. After graduation, young adults from peripheral regions seem to perceive that they have obtained enough symbolic mobility capital, and their identity narrative of transitioning into adulthood during higher education seems to be achieved. At this stage, the qualities of the peripheral region, seem to (re)emerge as a motivational factor for the previously outmigrated young adults, so that some of them indeed go ‘back again’.