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This paper explores how shy adolescents approach the transition from middle to high school, focusing on how their agency manifests in this process and which personal, relational, and institutional resources shape their anticipations and preparations. Shyness often intensifies during adolescence (Eggum-Wilkens et al., 2015) and is understood as a developmental sensitivity and socially mediated identity that heightens vulnerability in the face of novelty (Kagan, 1997). The study highlights how agency emerges within constraints (Hopwood, 2022), including social hesitancy, institutional structures, and emotional experiences.
Drawing on a cultural-historical perspective, the transition is conceptualized as a consequential developmental crisis (Vygotsky, 2019) that may open possibilities for identity reconfiguration. The study is based on interviews with ten shy students in Norway, their parents, and their teachers, conducted as students prepared for the transition to high school. Analyses employ cultural-historical concepts of relational expertise, common knowledge, relational agency (Edwards, 2010, 2017), and transformative agency to examine how adolescents construct narratives of imagined futures and mobilize them as resources for navigating uncertainty.
The findings show that students’ agency unfolds through engagement with personal interests, relational dialogue, and imaginative exploration of future trajectories. Parents play a crucial role by acknowledging motives, scaffolding confidence, and gradually stepping back to allow autonomous decision-making. Where familial support is limited, students seek encouragement from teachers or peers. Schools provide functional guidance but rarely engage with students’ future narratives.
The study contributes to Nordic educational research by highlighting how agency develops within the relational and institutional contexts of comprehensive schooling. It demonstrates how families and schools can collaborate to create equitable conditions for future-making, particularly for students who are easily overlooked in educational transitions. A novel contribution lies in the integration of relational and transformative agency, showing how future-oriented narratives co-constructed in caring relationships enable adolescents to act within and against constraints. These insights emphasize the importance of fostering relationally mediated pathways to support students in educational transitions.
