Based on data from a researcher-generated activity and with the overall objective to gain insight into how students talk about themselves as readers, the study examines how, in a conversation with two classmates and a research assistant, 12-13-year-old students embrace or reject different figured worlds related to literacy. The analysis…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study different aspects and tensional forces that play a role in the internal and contextual negotiation that takes place within students in the exploration of the possible identity of entrepreneur. It expands the knowledge of how the university context influences student entrepreneurial processes from a…

In the EU, ambitious objectives have been set for education and training since the adoption of the Lisbon Agenda in 2000. The policies aim among other things to empower the individual through participation in lifelong learning which is seen as both a right and a duty: 'People need to want and to be able to take their lives into their own hands--to…

This paper utilises the conceptual lens of intersectionality to explore gendered academic career trajectory in the context of one participant's challenge to a normative reading of the link between her private life and its relation to a "successful" academic career. The paper then charts the recalibrations that needed to take place to…

"Education, education, education" has been a mantra in transnational and national policies since the mid-1990s: everybody has to take part in learning activities throughout their lives in order to stay employable. Hereby lifelong learning establishes a dividing practice between active and inactive lifelong learners constituting the…

To understand student drop-out from university, research must explore students' first-year experiences and the challenges they encounter. This article analyses the first-year experiences of non-traditional students in Danish science and engineering university programmes. Focusing on identity theory and the framework of integration processes…

In 2008, the European Council agreed on a Resolution on better integrating lifelong guidance into lifelong learning strategies. The Resolution promoted lifelong guidance as a policy to support people during the multiple transitions provoked by a more volatile labour market. However, when looking into the guidance policy of Denmark, the Resolution…

In European Union policy, Denmark is often referred to as a model country in terms of its flexicurity model and provision of financial support and access to education and training during periods of unemployment, i.e. during transitional phases in a working life. However, in the research on flexicurity and its implications for labour market…

This article will address the issue of using understandings of psychodynamic interrelations as a means to grasp how social and cultural dynamics are processed individually and collectively in narratives. I apply the two theoretically distinct concepts of inter- and intrasubjectivity to gain insight into how social and cultural dynamics are…

This paper presents the first results from a longitudinal qualitative study following 38 Danish students' choice of higher education. By using a narrative psychological framework it is shown how the choice of higher education is embedded in various dilemmas, making it difficult for the students to make meaningful choices. They believe the choice…

The study, upon which this special issue focuses, used narrative interviews to investigate how learning can support workers' transitions in the labour market in five European countries (Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Spain). The five countries were chosen to represent very different contexts in the way learning can support career and labour…

We have followed a group of students in the potential pipeline for science through their last years of upper secondary school and in the context of a university mentorship program. The student group is defined by their choice of Mathematics at A-level which is mandatory for admission to tertiary STEM education in Denmark. Rich data (repeated…

Students' science choices have long attracted attention in both public and research. Recently there has been a call for qualitative studies to explore how choices create a sense of fit for individual students. Therefore, this paper aims to study how science students' choices of higher education are performed and to uncover the patterns of…

In the literature, there is a general concern that a less number of students choose to study science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM). This paper presents results from a Danish longitudinal study which examines students' choice of whether or not to continue studying STEM after upper-secondary school. In particular, this study focuses…

This article focuses on the methodological approaches used in the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop) research project "Learning for Career and Labour Market Transitions--individual biographies". In particular, it illuminates how biographical approaches were employed to help the in-depth understanding of…