2025/11/24 by Hernán Cuervo, Nadishka Weerasuriya · 1 voice
Social Sciences · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Indigenous and Place-Based Education #Rural development and sustainability #Oral History, Memory, Narrative Analysis
paper · doi:10.1080/00131911.2025.2589410
openalex publication_date 2025/11/24 · openalex created_date 2025/11/25 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/20
Research studies have repeatedly reported the under-representation of rural youth in higher education, mainly focusing on their aspirations as well as opportunities and barriers to accessing university pathways. Less attention has been placed on the experiences of rural young people transitioning through higher education. In this article, we explore working-class rural youth experiences of belonging, recognition and social disrespect in a metropolitan university. Empirically, we draw on data from semi-structured interviews with rural young people attending university and living on campus. Conceptually, we draw on Axel Honneth's third form of recognition, esteem and solidarity, to examine how youth from rural and working-class backgrounds form a sense of belonging and struggle for recognition with other students and the institution. Our data shows that participants experienced social misrecognition and disrespect due to their social class and rural background. Participants negotiate feelings of exclusion and misrecognition by forming friendships and intra-solidarity with other like-minded rural and regional students. While this can be a first step to the construction of a form of belonging, we argue that the disrespect, misrecognition and external judgements of worth from others hindered rural youth's sense of belonging and recognition at university and their potential for self-realization.