Standardized individuality: cosmopolitanism and educational decision-making in an Atlantic Canadian rural community

With the rise of network society, consumerism, individualization, globalization and contemporary change forces, students are pressured to both perform well in standardized academic assessments while at the same time constructing a non-standard, unique project of the self. I argue that this generates a particular set of place-based tensions for rural students. The paper analyses data from a three-year study of youth educational decision-making to explore the tensions between place-based habitus and the mobility imperative in formal schooling.