Struggling to Belong: Learner Identities and Institutional Habitus

A significant number of young people under the age of 25 in Denmark and the rest of Europe remain neither in employment nor in education (NEET). Many of these young people on the margins of education carry negative school experiences and struggle to see themselves as learners, making it difficult for them to envision themselves in a legitimate position within the formal schooling system.

This study investigates how institutional habitus (Reay, 2010) shapes young people's experiences of belonging and exclusion within educational settings. Specifically, it examines how marginalized youth, who have previously struggled in the mainstream school system, experience learning and identity formation within alternative educational institutions such as the Preparatory Basic Education and Training (FGU) program.

The study addresses the following research questions:

How do marginalized youth experience and negotiate institutional habitus in mainstream and alternative educational settings?
In what ways do alternative learning environments influence the formation of their learning identities?
What implications do these experiences have for broader discussions on educational inclusion and social mobility?
Theoretically, the study builds on the concept of institutional habitus, which refers to the embedded values and practices of educational institutions that shape students' experiences and trajectories (Reay, 2010). Additionally, the analysis incorporates perspectives on learning identities (Reay, 2001) to explore how educational settings either enable or hinder students’ sense of legitimacy as learners. This framework allows for a critical examination of how educational structures reproduce inequalities and how alternative institutions might offer pathways toward greater inclusion.

Method
This study employs a qualitative research design and draws on data from my PhD project Youth on the Margins, conducted in connection with the Erasmus+ project COSI.ed (Co-created Education through Social Inclusion). The project examines how students in vulnerable positions experience and understand their own life conditions, as well as the opportunities and barriers they encounter in relation to their educational trajectories and transitions. The empirical foundation consists of extensive ethnographic fieldwork at a Preparatory Basic Education and Training (FGU) school during the autumn of 2022 (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007; Hastrup, 2020) and ten in-depth, life-world interviews with FGU students. The interviews follow an exploratory approach known as The Indirect Approach—an unstructured ethnographic interview method without a predefined interview guide, allowing for a high degree of responsiveness to the informants' voices and perspectives (Frostholm & Walker, 2021; Moshuus & Eide, 2016).

Expected Outcomes
Findings indicate that many marginalized students perceive mainstream education as a space of misrecognition, where institutional habitus operates to exclude rather than integrate them. Students describe a lack of alignment between their own dispositions and the expectations of mainstream schooling, leading to the development of fragile learning identities. In contrast, FGU appears to foster a different institutional habitus—one that enables students to recognize themselves as legitimate learners. The study argues that institutional habitus is not merely a reflection of individual agency but is structurally embedded within educational systems. Consequently, addressing educational exclusion requires more than individualized support; it demands structural changes in how educational institutions recognize and accommodate diverse student populations. The findings contribute to ongoing debates on how alternative educational models might inform broader educational policy and practice, particularly in addressing educational inequality and social mobility.

References
Frostholm, P. H., & Walker, S. (2021). The Indirect Approach – The Basics, the Craft and the Ethics. In D. T. Gravesen, K. Stuart, M. Bunting, S. H. Mikkelsen, & P. H. Frostholm (Eds.), Combatting Marginalisation by Co-creating Education (pp. 61–75). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80043-448-620211006 Hammersley, M., & Atkinson, P. (2007). Ethnography: Principles in practice (3rd ed). Routledge. Hastrup, K. (2020). Feltarbejde. I S. Brinkmann & L. Tanggaard (Red.), Kvalitative metoder: En grundbog (3. udgave, s. 65 – 95). Hans Reitzel. Moshuus, G. H., & Eide, K. (2016). The Indirect Approach: How to Discover Context When Studying Marginal Youth. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 15(1), 160940691665619. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406916656193 Reay, D. (2001). Finding or losing yourself?: Working-class relationships to education. Journal of Education Policy, 16(4), 333 – 346. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680930110054335 Reay, D. (2010). Identity Making in Schools and Classrooms. I M. Wetherell & C. Mohanty, The SAGE Handbook of Identities (s. 277 – 294). SAGE Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446200889.n16