Career choice and counselling in rural northern Norway

Abstract

Rurality and career choices. This article explores how teenagers from a small rural community in northern Norway experience making career choices, in the intersection between individual needs and community values. Interviews with 10th graders in the process of making their first manifest career choice – choosing upper secondary – shows that whether or not the teenagers identify with the community and see a future there or not, is of major importance. The consequential preference for education and acquisition of competence, either strengthen or weaken the ties with the community, becoming a determinant of who leaves, and who stays.