Growing Up Rural: Qualitative Longitudinal Explorations of Young People Living in the Nordic Countries

This open access book explores the everyday lives of young people living in rural areas in Nordic countries, drawing on qualitative longitudinal methods. The young people’s life stories are set against a backdrop of Nordic welfare states under increasing global pressure. Growing Up Rural contributes to the growing literature on spatialized youth studies by providing a refreshing antidote to one-sided stories about depraved young lives in rural areas. By drawing on novel empirical analyses of longitudinal data, thereby foregrounding processual shifts and changes over time, it highlights the vast varieties in young people’s lives as well as the agency and navigation skills required to master vulnerabilities in transitions to adulthood. It contributes to ongoing discussions about how longitudinal qualitative research design provides a deeper understanding of the lives of young people as they unfold. This book provides useful and inspiring insights for scholars and students of youth studies, rural studies, life course studies, and qualitative research more generally.

Kaisa Vehkalahti is Senior Lecturer at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She leads the multidisciplinary project The Future of Nordic Youth in Rural Regions: A Cross-National Qualitative Longitudinal Study in Four Nordic Countries (2022-2026). Her research interests include rural youth, qualitative longitudinal research, and history of childhood and youth.

Ingunn Marie Eriksen is Research Professor at NOVA Norwegian Social Research, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway. Her primary analytical focus is on young people’s diverging life chances through well-being, education, material resources, leisure time and values. Other interests include parenting, class, gender, school environment and mental health. She is the co-editor-in-chief of Nordic Journal for Youth Research.

Jeanette Østergaard is Research Professor at the Rockwool Foundation, Denmark. Her research interests are young people’s transition to adulthood as explored from the perspective of everyday life, marginality, and risk behavior (drinking and drug use), often from a longitudinal mixed methods perspective.