This article explores the idea that effective education policymaking necessitates an improved understanding of how students, as micro-scale actors, position themselves in operational terms in the globalised context. The article introduces the concept of perceived operational space as an analytical and methodological perspective to support this understanding. The theoretical and methodological foundations of the proposed approach are primarily based on dwelling and territoriality, imagination, and well-being. The article presents the findings of a mixed methods and qualitative research project, based on reflexive cartography and elicitation interviews conducted with 212 vocational education students aged 14-19 from Italy, France, and Greece. The study reveals an unmapped type of disadvantage, which is manifested as an absence of positioning in time, space, and a growth-oriented perspective. The article concludes by theorising this disadvantage as a form of expulsion situated in the students' imaginative space of possibilities.