This thesis centers around the substantial number of young people who have not
completed a youth education and are unemployed. We aim to analyze how young
people, who are a part of a preparatory education, understand their own position in
a social context where education is a requirement. We will strive to capture how
these young people experience the increased societal focus on the individual skill
set in terms of education. In order to answer our research question we take an
offset in four questions. We wish to get insight into the young people's
understanding of their situation in relation to; Firstly how they experience the
requirements regarding education. Secondly how they experience other people's
reactions to their situation. Thirdly how they strategically relate to these reactions.
Finally what importance preparatory education has for the young people. The
empirical data consists of 18 individual qualitative interviews with young people
between the age of 16 and 24, from two preparatory educations in Copenhagen,
Denmark. The thesis is inspired by a philosophical and critical hermeneutical
approach. This allows us to view the young people as subjects that are created in a
relational relationship between the individual and society, with an offset in the
their own perspectives. We utilize the concept of the institutional individualization
by Ulrich Beck to illustrate how young people understand their own situation when
education is a requirement. Additionally we apply the theory of Erving Goffman
concerning Stigma to illustrate how young people experience being stigmatized and
how they strategically relate to this stigmatization. Furthermore we utilize Axel
Honneth’s recognition theory to illustrate the particular importance of preparatory
education. The thesis concludes that the young people are put in a vulnerable
position by experiencing education as challenging, however at the same time as
inevitable. Where as the majority of the research within the field highlights that
the young people who are not partaking in an education nor are employed view
themselves as the cause of their situation. Nonetheless, we have found that the
participants in our empirical study have been able to create a positive story about
themselves and are therefore less likely to view their situation as self inflicted.