Provinsens oversete uddannelsesopgave

Abstract

Based on an ethnographic fieldwork in the municipality of Tønder, Denmark, this article addresses what it means to grow up far from the major centres of education, but subject to explicit expectations to every young person of the need to take education. The massive focus on education affects the individual's self-perception and experiences of local opportunities and limitations as well as the life-forms and social cohesion that forms the base of provincial communities. The article focuses on undesirable implications of the ’education-imperative’, yet also argue that schools and educational institutions can help to counter some of the challenges that people in the provinces face by the development of a more place-sensitive educational approach.