Mid Sweden University

The aim of this study was to create understanding of young people’s conceptions of the future in a rural region of Sweden, through a qualitative content analyses of 173 student’s texts. The question that guided the study was: what impact factors when it comes to geographical mobility emerge in the young people´s conceptions and how do the young people imagine that these factors will impact their future plans? During the analyses of the young people’s conceptions, the following categories were created: education, employment, nature and environment, the right format, social relations, personal development, new experiences and security. The impact factors that emerged in the young people´s conceptions were absence of or access to these categories. The theme that emerged from the analyses of the underlaying pattern of the categories, was opportunities for the individual. The result of the study was discussed in the light of Zygmunt Bauman´s analyses of society, theories of education of the ideal citizen and earlier research concerning impacts on the geographical mobility of young people. From the theoretical frame of reference and earlier research in the background of this study, the findings in the result could be understood through the modern context of society that young people are a part of, were individuals learn to examine, evaluate and pay attention to their own choices and opportunities and learn to put themselves in the centre.