Does Vocational Training Have the Potential to Attract Young People to Rural Areas? Educational, Social and Territorial Factors of Rootedness in Andalucia (Spain)

Abstract

This paper analyses the relationship between post-compulsory educational pathways and the expectations of rural youth to settle in rural areas by means of a survey carried out in 2022 among students from different educational pathways and fields of study in seven secondary schools in six rural Andalusian municipalities. First, we analyse the factors that influence the choice of academic or vocational pathway by rural students in the transition to post-compulsory education. Second, it explores whether there are differences in students' academic and mobility expectations depending on the pathway taken. Thirdly, we analyse the aspirations to remain in the territory according to the pathway followed, gender, social origin and the level of vulnerability of the territory. The results show differences in access to educational pathways according to social origin and gender. At the same time, the pathways contribute to projecting different academic and employment expectations in rural students. Finally, the potential of Intermediate Vocational Training as a factor of rootedness to the territory is evidenced, although this does not act in a singular way, but rather in conjunction with the territorial context, gender and social origin.