Multiple Transitions: Educational Policies and Young People's Post-Compulsory Choices

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Multiple Transitions: Educational Policies and Young People's Post-Compulsory ChoicesKristiina Brunilaa; Tuuli Kurkia; Elina Lahelmaa; Jukka Lehtonena; Reetta Mietolaa; Tarja Palmua

a University of Helsinki,

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To cite this Article Brunila, Kristiina , Kurki, Tuuli , Lahelma, Elina , Lehtonen, Jukka , Mietola, Reetta and Palmu,Tarja(2011) 'Multiple Transitions: Educational Policies and Young People's Post-Compulsory Choices', ScandinavianJournal of Educational Research, 55: 3, 307 — 324To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/00313831.2011.576880URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2011.576880

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Multiple Transitions: Educational Policies and Young People’sPost-Compulsory Choices

Kristiina Brunila, Tuuli Kurki, Elina Lahelma, Jukka Lehtonen, Reetta Mietola,and Tarja Palmu

University of Helsinki

Students in Finland are obliged to apply for upper secondary education during their 9thyear. The main divisions occur between general (academically oriented) and vocationalupper secondary education, and within vocational education between female and maledominated sectors. In this article we discuss the tension between these options andexplore young people’s hopes, choices, and transitions. These are related toexpectations imbedded in policies and practices. We present a contextualized andcross-cultural analysis in which interviews and ethnographic data from differentsettings are used. We suggest that there is a taken-for-granted backdrop to students’choices that includes norms and expectations concerning social class, gender, sexuality,and/or ethnicity. We suggest, moreover, that the analysis of educational choicesought to be situated within the larger context of the marketization of the politics ofeducation.

Keywords: upper secondary education, educational transitions, gender, difference

Basic education should provide young people with the knowledge, skills, values andattitudes necessary for further learning, entrepreneurship and employability and preparestudents to follow a general education pathway or a VET pathway or a combination ofboth. . . . Young people in VET1 should acquire skills and competences relevant tolabour market requirements, for employability and for lifelong learning. (HelsinkiCommunique, 2006)

The career counsellor is talking about post-compulsory education. She emphasises theimportance of thinking through the different options, and tells the students to startthinking now. She tells the dates by which these decisions have to be made and theapplication cards handed in.

ISSN 0031-3831 print/ISSN 1470-1170 online# 2011 Scandinavian Journal of Educational ResearchDOI: 10.1080/00313831.2011.576880http://www.informaworld.com

Kristiina Brunila, Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki; Tuuli Kurki, Institute ofBehavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki; Elina Lahelma, Institute of Behavioural Sciences,University of Helsinki; Jukka Lehtonen, Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki;Reetta Mietola, Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki; Tarja Palmu, Institute ofBehavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Elina Lahelma, Institute of Behav-ioural Sciences, PO Box 9, 00014, University of Helsinki, Finland. E-mail: [email protected].

1 VET is the acronym for vocational education and training, regularly used in e.g., EU contexts.

Scandinavian Journal of Educational ResearchVol. 55, No. 3, June 2011, 307–324

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“There’s time to decide, don’t make hasty decisions. . . . Time flies, it’s not too early tostart right now”. (Career counselor, Extract from Reetta Mietola’s field notes from thefirst school day of the 9th graders)

These extracts, the first from the Helsinki Communique’s report and the second from fieldnotes from the first school day of the 9th graders in a lower secondary school, set the scene forthe starting point and tasks of this article. Both of them—the EU-document that governs edu-cational politics and policies, and the field notes describing everyday life of schools—suggestthe importance of urging every young person to make choices and continue in upper second-ary education.

The analysis of this article draws from ethnographic and life-historical studies and it iscontextualized in current educational politics and structures; methodologically it can becalled cross-cultural ethnography (Lahelma & Gordon, 2010), policy ethnography(Troman, Jeffrey, & Beach, 2006) or multi-sited ethnography (Marcus, 1995). Followingthe analysis of several researchers (e.g., Komulainen, 2006; Rinne, 2000), we argue thateducation and training in Finland have been linked more closely to the global economy byEU-based programs, neo-liberalism, individualism, and marketization. The extract fromthe Helsinki communique’s report2 gives just one example of market-oriented governingtechniques. These aim to ensure the provision of policies that connect all young people tovocational training and/or higher education, making certain at the same time that theyacquire skills and competences relevant to the labor market. In other words, the making ofthe new EU-citizen in terms of particular talents or abilities can be seen as the product ofan investment of time and money. Due to the influence of the EU and other economic andpolitical organizations (such as the WTO and OECD), there seems to be a shifting of practicesin the politics of education towards a new kind of active citizenship which emphasizes flexi-bility, self-control, and self-reliance. The internalization of the thought of individual choicewithin this EU-discourse has at the national level strengthened worries concerning youngpeople’s educational choices.

Students in Finland are obliged to apply for upper secondary education during their 9thyear, at the age of 15 or 16. The main division occurs between general, academically-orientededucation and vocational education. Whilst there are structures and practices that strivetowards a combination of both, there are also contemporary political factors that strengthenthe dichotomy (FME, 2007b). In educational policy texts the general and vocational routesare presented as if they were different options but of equal value. Even if the vocationalsector includes both very popular, selective routes and routes with very low requirements,the division between vocational and general education is presented as the main divider. Asis demonstrated above in the extract from the field notes, the choice is presented in schoolas an important decision for young people, a choice that they cannot escape from.

We have undertaken a research project entitled Citizenship, Agency and Difference inUpper Secondary Education – with Special Focus on Vocational Institutions.3 Thegeneral aim of the project is to analyze how citizenship and differences are constructed in

2 It was followed by the Copenhagen process and is formed by the European Ministers of VocationalEducation and Training, the European Social Partners and the Commission.

3 The project is supported by the Academy of Finland (2010–2013), responsible leader ElinaLahelma.

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upper secondary education, and how teachers and students are positioned and position them-selves as agents in this field. The ideas of the present article arose from discussions within theproject. These revealed that similar patterns manifested themselves in the different data. Wefound extracts that suggest the choice between general and vocational upper secondary edu-cation is taken for granted from an early age, as well as metaphors and dichotomies that recur,for example in memories from a girls’ school of the 1970s, in reflections of boys in specialeducation, and in teachers’ comments concerning girls with immigrant backgrounds. Recur-ring dichotomies include, for example, hand–head; technically competent hand–caringhand; and traditional choice–modern choice (see also Lahelma, 2009).

Thereby, in this article we discuss the tension between the two main educational optionsand explore young peoples’ many hopes, choices, and transitions. These are related to thetaken-for-granted expectations imbedded in policies and practices. In addition, we examinethe gendered patterns in the division. Instead of understanding gender as a strict dichotomy,we pay attention to differences within each gender, as well as within each person, as theyintersect with other dimensions of difference such as class, sexuality, ethnicity, and locality.By presenting findings of empirical studies from each author, we suggest that the maindivision between general and vocational pathways, as well as between male- and female-dominated sectors within vocational education, is affected by taken-for-granted culturalassumptions.

We begin the article by contextualizing our analysis to the Finnish educational systemand the position of vocational upper secondary education within it, with some observationson constancy and change in the system. Using data from our own respective studies, we thenmove to a cross-cultural micro-analysis and discuss patterns that seem to recur in differentcontexts.

Data and Analysis

Our aim is to present a contextualized and cross-cultural analysis in which data from differ-ent educational settings are used. We begin by using official statistics and policy documents tocontextualize the qualitative analysis of young people’s experience of their transition into theupper secondary education. Through a critical reading of the statistics on educational tran-sitions we demonstrate how gender segregation and patterns of other dimensions of differenceare made explicit or are hidden. As Ozga and Lingard (2007) have argued, numbers havebecome a central element in the move from government to governance within neo-liberalpolicy agendas. Thereby our analysis takes into account the populational discourses employedby quantitative indicators and other statistical data (cf. Lindblad & Popkewitz, 2003). We askwhat indicators are used in the official reports on educational transition, in addition to what thecompared categories are, how they are measured, and how the results are presented and inter-preted (cf. Connolly, 2006).

In the main section we discuss and problematize the taken-for-granted post-compulsorychoices, using analysis that draws from our studies. Our focus is on young people’s reflec-tions concerning their forthcoming or past educational transitions after comprehensiveschool. In our respective data we have scrutinized relevant themes and earlier analysis. Allauthors have produced their own data. Yet because we have worked together withinseveral projects we have enjoyed long-standing experience of co-operation and knowledgeof each other’s work. Elina Lahelma, Tarja Palmu, and Jukka Lehtonen have researched

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young people in compulsory education.4 Lahelma, together with Tuula Gordon, has then con-tinued with the same young people in an ethnographically grounded, life-historical study onyouth transitions.5 Palmu, in her post-doc study, has analyzed how women born in the early-1960s locate themselves and understand their histories in the light of educational transitions,and how they memorize and reflect on the process of “learning to become a female citizen.”In his post-doc study, Lehtonen produced data on young non-heterosexual people’s livesafter compulsory education and analyzed their experiences in the education and workenvironments. Tuuli Kurki and Reetta Mietola conducted their ethnographic research in com-prehensive schools: Kurki collected material concerning the post-compulsory educationaltransitions of young people with immigrant backgrounds, and Mietola the transitions ofyoung people in special education. Kristiina Brunila’s post-doc study examined educationalpolicy documents and interview data from young and unemployed adults in her analysis ofeducational governing techniques.

For the article at hand, we collected extracts from interviews with students of differentages, teachers and career counselors, as well as other data drawing from the authors’ ethno-graphic and other studies. The data that we discussed and used in our analysis includes thefollowing:

. ethnographic data in comprehensive schools in the 1990s and interviews with stu-dents of approximately 13 years of age (90 interviews) and three sets of follow-upinterviews with the same young people at approximately 18 years of age (63 inter-views), 20 years of age (53 interviews), and 24 years of age (24 interviews)(Lahelma, together with Gordon);

. 15 life historical interviews and two focus group interviews with middle-aged womenwho went to girls’ school in the 1970s (Palmu);

. 36 interviews, 9 stories and 248 survey questionnaires in connection with non-heterosexual young people in the 1990s–2000s (Lehtonen);

. a 9th grade ethnographic study focusing on young people with a special educationbackground in the 2000s, including interviews with 26 students and 8 teachers(Mietola);

. an ethnographic study, including interviews with seven students and four teachers,focusing on the transitions of girls with immigrant backgrounds 2006 (Kurki);

. 12 interviews with young and unemployed adults who have employed variouseducational governing techniques in the 2000s (Brunila).

While the amount of our data is massive when amassed, we have used it selectively forthe purpose of this article. From the coded sets of data we have analyzed themes thatdiscuss post-compulsory choices, and have tried to choose extracts that illustrate theoften complex and problematic ways young people negotiate this transition. We havefocused on extracts that either maintain or challenge the expectations concerning typicaleducational transitions, and which also emphasize the multiple and often contradictory

4 Research project Citizenship, difference and marginality in school – with special reference togender (Academy of Finland 1994–1998, directed by Tuula Gordon).

5 Several projects of the Academy of Finland and University of Helsinki, the latest being Learning tobe citizens: Ethnographic and life historical perspectives (Academy of Finland 2005–2008, directedby Lahelma).

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elements in relation to gender, social class, sexuality, ethnicity, locality, and special edu-cation background. We have read each others’ extracts and held meetings to discussingthem. This kind of analysis through discussion (Gordon et al., 2006; Gordon, Holland,& Lahelma, 2000) has allowed theoretical reflection that draws from different contexts;this is the cross-cultural element in our analysis.

The Educational Division

Upper secondary education in Finland consists of general upper secondary education andvocational upper secondary qualifications. General upper secondary education is an all-roundeducation preparing students for a matriculation examination. The purpose of vocational pro-grams is, instead, students attaining vocational competence. Educational policies and officialstatistics address post-compulsory choices in a way that presumes general and vocationaleducation to be equal options open to each student, with possibilities for further transitionsto university from both. However, this official rhetoric hides several taken-for-granted struc-tural and cultural barriers. It also bears implicit neo-liberal ideas of individual choice and life-long learning as a possibility and responsibility for all (Ball, 2006; Filander, 2009). Forexample, the official education system chart of the Finnish National Board of Education(FNBE, 2008) shows similar transitions in the form of arrows from both general and vocationalupper secondary routes to the universities and polytechnics. But actually less than 1% of stu-dents come to university from a background of only vocational upper secondary education.Moreover, young people who do not continue within these two sectors, but rather in youth edu-cational activation projects or in working life, for example, are invisible on the chart.

More than 90% of youth continue to upper secondary education immediately after finish-ing their compulsory schooling. Traditionally, vocational education has been chosen by lessthan half of each cohort, whilst a slight majority proceed to general upper secondary edu-cation. Transitions of the completers of comprehensive school to general and vocationalupper secondary educations in 2004 and 2007 are shown in the Table 1.6

Over the past few years the numbers of applicants to vocational education have beengrowing, and to general upper secondary education, declining. This new trend started2008 when the number of applicants increased in the technology and transportation sectorsin particular (Statistics Finland, 2008). In 2010, 33,000 applicants marked vocational edu-cation, and 32,000 general upper secondary education, as their first choice (FNBE, 2010).This can imply that the division between general and vocational education is losing itshold. However, the growing numbers of people applying to vocational education can alsopartly be explained by the overall movement of the young people from the labor market toeducation due to the economic recession (FNBE, 2009). The popularity of vocational edu-cation and various sectors within it is related to the situation in the labor market.

The gender division has not changed, however. As is shown in Table 1, close to 42% ofboys choose general upper secondary education and 49% vocational education, whilst thefigures for girls are 60% and 32%, respectively. Gender difference in this choice is minor

6 Vocational education is also chosen after general upper secondary education. Some young peopletake more than one vocational qualification or start in one sector and move to another. Therefore thenumber of students starting vocational education is approx. 50,000 compared to the 35,000 in generalupper secondary education (cf. FME, 2007a).

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in relation to the strong gender segregation between and within sectors of vocational edu-cation. Table 2 shows that a vast majority of students in vocational education study insectors with more than 60% of students having the same gender. Only 5% study in asector where the balance between males and females is between 40 and 60%. In addition,educational programs are gender-divided within each sector of vocational education.Related to these figures, gender division in general education is more even: 57% of thosewho began general education the same year were female and 43% male (FNBE, 2006).

Both the structure and the curriculum of vocational education have changed several timesduring the latest decades. For example, it is now possible to combine vocational to generalupper secondary education and do so-called double qualification. However, the structuresof the educational paths that young people take seem to remain rather similar. The main div-ision between general and vocational upper secondary education has not changed much fromthe early-1980s.7 In 1981, close to 44% of young people continued to general upper second-ary education following compulsory education, and 33% to vocational education or folk highschools, whilst 23% remained outside these options. General education was already thenchosen more often by women than by men (55 and 34%, respectively) (Lahelma, 1982).

Table 2

Students Accepted for Vocational Upper Secondary Education According to Gender (Spring 2006)

Transitions to vocational upper secondary education Women % Men % Both %

Vocational education with a min. of 60% women∗ 11,713 74.7 3,588 19.0 15,301 44.3

Vocational education with 40–60% women∗∗ 904 5.8 856 4.5 1,760 5.1

Vocational education with a max. of 40% women∗∗∗ 3,054 19.5 14,462 76.5 17,516 51.0

Together 15,671 100.0 18,906 100.0 34,577 100.0

Note: Figures for Table 2 to be found from the Finnish National Board of Education (FNBE 2006).∗humanities and teaching; culture; social sciences, business and administration; social and health care services and

physical education; tourism, catering and home economics; other education; ∗∗ natural resources and environment;∗∗∗ natural sciences; technology and transportation.

Table 1

Transitions of the Completers of Comprehensive School (Spring 2007 and 2004)

Transitions to post-

compulsory education

Women

(2007) %

Men

(2007) %

Both

(2007) %

Both

(2004) %

General upper secondary 19,173 59.7 13,979 42.2 33,152 50.8 34,380 54.1

Vocational upper secondary 10,185 31.7 16,363 49.4 26,548 40.7 24,374 38.4

Outside these options 2,762 8.6 2,773 8.4 5,535∗ 8.5 4,769 7.5

Total 32,120 100.0 33,115 100.0 65,235 100.0 63,523 100.0

Note: Based on Statistics Finland 2004, 2007.∗These figures also include the additional comprehensive education, so called 10th grade.

7 The first nationwide statistics concerning transitions were available in 1981 when the first cohortsfollowing the comprehensive school reform moved to upper secondary school.

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Women have formed the majority in general education since the 1940s, but the gender differ-ence has been small. From the early 1980s onward, the proportion of women among thosewho begin in general education has stabilized to 57–58%. However, in media discoursesthe “feminisation” of general education is a recurrent worry (see e.g., Lahelma, 2005).This can be interpreted as a testimony of the cultural appreciation of general education; inthe current masculine hegemony of Finnish culture, the fear that women would “evade”the most valued route must constantly be challenged.8

Gender equality discussion from the 1970s on has emphasized reducing gender segre-gation, with dozens of equality projects being financed by national as well as EU sources.Although many of the projects have equated equality promotion with work towards achange in girls’ and women’s education, training, and career choices within male-dominatedbranches (see Brunila, Heikkinen, & Hynninen, 2005), sustainable change has not takenplace. Whilst there is a constant worry about boys’ poor achievement in comprehensiveschool (Lahelma, 2005) and less frequent transitions to general education in relation togirls, gender segregation in vocational education seems not to be an issue that school auth-orities pay equal attention to. For example the section on vocational education in Quantitativeindicators of education (FNBE, 2009) does not include a single table or graph with gender asa variable.

Along with gender, differences that are related to young people’s cultural and social back-ground have an impact on educational routes. Several studies suggest that white middle-classyouth from educated families proceed more often to general upper secondary education thanyoung people with working-class or ethnic minority backgrounds (e.g., Jarvinen & Vanttaja,2000; Vanttaja, 2002). However, unlike the taken-for-granted gender dichotomy, class andethnicity rarely appear as categories in educational statistics9 (see also Connolly, 2006,2008).

In addition, what is missing from the most statistics and official charts are those youngpeople who do not continue their studies in general, nor in vocational upper secondaryeducation straight after finishing compulsory education. Despite the fact that thenumber of these young people has slowly diminished since the 1980s,10 there is a constantworry in the media and in educational policy about social exclusion of these so-called“risky” youth. In order to diminish the number of these young people Finnish Ministry

8 Spring 2010, after the first information about the applicant numbers to post-compulsory educationwere released, the main Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat (2010) had an article “Tytot haluavatmaalareiksi” about successful girls filling up the study programmes for interior painting, which tra-ditionally has been a male dominated area. The breaking of gender stratification was not celebratedin the article. Instead, girls’ choices were constructed as a problem because the girls took placesfrom the male students with lower grades. In the article and the following public discussion themale–female and head–hands dichotomies were repeated, constructing the traditionally male domi-nated sector of vocational education as the wrong choice for academically successful girls. It seemsthat wherever the academically successful girls are, they are in the wrong place (cf. Lahelma, 2005).

9 In some FNBE statistics there are categories such as mother tongue “Finnish,” “Swedish,” and“Other,” this way connote that young people from immigrant backgrounds have an “Other” mothertongue. Parents’ educational background is a variable in, for example, PISA studies, but is presentedonly in very few tables (e.g., Valijarvi, Linnakyla, Kupari, Reinikainen, & Arffman, 2002).

10 The figures were 23% in 1981 (Lahelma, 1982) and 8.5% in 2007 (Table 1). The figures are,however, difficult to compare directly because of several changes in the educational structures.

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of Education has set a target called education guarantee to immediately place at least97.5% of the completers of comprehensive education to upper secondary education orto additional comprehensive education (FME, 2007a). The idea of education guaranteegoes back to the 1970s and to the earlier development of upper secondary education. Itis also a result of the neo-liberal education policy of recent years when StatisticsFinland began to publish figures on post-compulsory educational choices (see Kivela &Ahola, 2007). Most of the young people who find themselves outside of upper secondaryeducation are directed into educational activation projects, mostly funded by the EU,which emphasize the neo-liberal values of trainability, competitiveness, and continuousself-development (e.g., Commission of the European Communities, 2005; Lahteenmaa,2006; Pitkanen et al., 2007; Vehvilainen & Paju, 2001).

It seems that numbers and statistics have visible power in the public debate. They connoteobjectivity or, at the very least, legitimacy. Because numbers and statistics are perceived ashaving a certain force just by being quantitative, they shape the perception of the world andthe issues people perceive as important. Numbers present selective information and thuscenter discussion on specific topics and make some things visible, while silencing and con-cealing others. Policies based on statistics shape practice as well as future public policydebate (Dorn, 1998). Numbers are thus an act of governance through which power andpolicy can be executed. Further, politics can be obscured by the policy of numbers (see,e.g., Grek, Lawn, Lingard, & Varjo, 2009). From this contextualization, we move on todiscuss young people’s reflections on their plans and choices.

General Upper Secondary Education as a Culturally Self-Evident Choice

General upper secondary education has a very special role in the Finnish culture, whereeducation is appreciated. Its status is emphasized, for example, by the celebrations andmedia attention surrounding the newly graduated each year—whilst graduations in vocationaleducation get much less space in the media. The white student cap (that is given to students inthe celebration of matriculation from general secondary school) is a living symbol of a tran-sition that young people still want to include in their life stories. “White cap, driving licenceand military service certification” was the answer of a young man, aged 17, to Elina Lahelma’squestion about the important steps to adulthood.

In the process of restructuring, vocational upper secondary education has gone through manychanges, while general upper secondary education has held its position as a separate bastion subjectto less change.11 The position of general upper secondary education as the self-evident choicecould be partly explained by feelings of safeness and familiarity. Due to it having changed less,it is seen by parents as the choice they and their peers made years ago—and they can pass onthis cultural knowledge to their children. Upper secondary culture is also made familiar to thestudents through their experience of the academic culture of lower secondary school, while thefield of vocational education and its culture remains less familiar. In addition, general uppersecondary schools are often located in the same building as lower secondary schools, and sharesome of the same teachers. For Janne, a boy in Elina Lahelma’s data, choosing general uppersecondary education and then progressing forward has always been a self-evident choice:

11 The most important change was in the 1990s when the classless or all-inclusive general uppersecondary education was introduced; it is now the main structure.

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Elina: When you started to think about continuing your education, was it clear to youimmediately. . .has it always been self-evident that you want to go to generalupper secondary school?

Janne: Yes, it has.. . .Or actually, in the 7th grade, when I still did not know kind of, howthese school systems are [it was not clear]. But then, I have like always thoughtthat general upper secondary school. . .

Elina: Yes. . .Janne: . . .and then forward.

The career counsellor in Reetta Mietola’s study suggests that the choice of general uppersecondary education is often already made in the 7th grade. She believes that cultural expec-tations—the white cap as part of the dominant storyline—are behind this. Young peoplebelieve that it is “the thing that one has to carry out”:

For example, if you ask a new class of 7th graders “well, how many of you have alreadythought about going to a vocational school” they look at you amazed—“uuuu?” Andthen when you ask “how many of you are thinking of choosing general upper secondaryeducation?” you know, still it is so that 90% of the students raise their hand. (Careercounselor)

General upper secondary education is also an option for those who want to postpone thechoice of education. According to Tarja Palmu’s study, this was the case already in the 1970sfor girls who went to girls’ middle school. Mari is a girl from a middle-class backgroundwhose mother is a teacher:

Well, I’d say that general upper secondary education was like a nursery too, you just hadto pass it. I didn’t have those abilities—I mean when we finished middle school—to doanything else than go to general upper secondary education. (Mari)

Most of all, general upper secondary education is normally a self-evident choice forthose whose parents are more educated and share similar values and lifestyles (see alsoAllatt, 1993). Drawing from his study on youth transitions, Vanttaja (2002) suggests thatstories about the easiness of schoolwork and commitment to it are typical for those fromeducated families. School was also easy for Arja, a girl whose parents had academicdegrees. She misunderstood Elina Lahelma’s question concerning the choice betweengeneral and vocational upper secondary school, and answered that she knew whichgeneral upper secondary education institution she wanted to get into—one of the topschools of Helsinki:

Elina: . . .And then to the transition. Was choosing general upper secondary educationclear to you?

Arja: You mean which one of them? Yes, I knew immediately, or I kind of wanted to goto the Central School.

A hierarchy is emerging among general upper secondary education institutions in termsof differing entrance criteria. Some of the most popular schools have a special emphasis for

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example on the Arts, Sciences, Languages, or Sports. The results of matriculation examin-ation tests are published and schools are presented in ranking orders in the main dailypaper Helsingin Sanomat. This has aroused much debate about the growing inequalityamong schools (e.g., Jarvinen, 2003). Both Elina Lahelma’s and Jukka Lehtonen’s datasuggest that while choosing general rather than vocational upper secondary education isoften a taken-for-granted choice, choosing between schools might be stressful.

Matti, in his interview with Jukka Lehtonen, related that his parents were middle-classand academic, and that they supported him in his opting for an academic career. For himgeneral upper secondary education was an automatic choice, even if earlier he had plannedto become a baker or an artist. As Matti recalls, his mother had supported his dream: “Ithink, my mum, she always said that a baker is a good profession. But I think I was quitea young child then.” His father, on the other hand, was not happy with the “feminine”choice of an artistic career. Matti said that his parents’ dream job for him was academic,and one which would be economically dependable: teacher, doctor, engineer, or architect.Matti eventually chose general upper secondary and university education in a field thatwas not economically secure. In the case of Matti, who was non-heterosexual, his careerplans and decisions were framed and challenged by his parents’ gendered and classedexpectations.

It is a cultural expectation that young people with educated parents and good gradeschoose general upper secondary education. The untypical choices—those of young peoplewith special education or immigrant backgrounds choosing general upper secondary edu-cation—are constructed against these expectations. Their choices are wondered over andadmired. As exceptions to the rule they demonstrate apparent “freedom of choice” (e.g.,Ball, 2006; see also Lappalainen, Mietola, & Lahelma, 2010).

Such an exception was Tiiu, a girl with an Estonian background in Tuuli Kurki’s study.For Tiiu applying for general upper secondary education was a self-evident choice. Sheapplied to three schools and was admitted into her first choice, a school with a good repu-tation and high entrance requirements. She also had a clear vision of her future followingupper secondary education: she would continue at university. Teachers talked about Tiiu’ssuccess in the future as being self-evident, too. According to the teachers, for her, unlikegirls with Somalian backgrounds, culture and ethnicity would not be a problem since Esto-nians and Finns are ethnically close. Teachers described her as “kind of Finnish,” a girl whodid not differ from “a basic Finn” because she behaved, dressed, and talked “like us.”However, the possibility of being perceived as Finnish is not equally available to everyonewith immigrant backgrounds, since this is based on culture, ethnicity, and appearance(Kurki, 2008; Tiilikainen, 2008).

Vocational Routes for Competent and Caring Hands

Vocational education has always been associated with doing, rather than reading. In TarjaPalmu’s study, Elisa’s post-compulsory choice was to train to be hairdresser in vocationalschool, following middle school for girls in the 1970s. School was easy for her but sheargued that she had “never really been reading type.” She wanted a career that wouldallow for a quick transition to working life.

Differences between general and vocational upper education are often connected to thetheory–practice and head–hands dichotomies. These dichotomies are found in numerousstudies (e.g., Gordon, Holland, & Lahelma, 2000; Kauppinen, 2008; Kayhko, 2006;

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Lahelma, 2009). In discussions that took place in Reetta Mietola’s subject school, the differ-ences were often exaggerated: general education was described as a culture of reading andvocational education as a culture of doing and making. Students’ descriptions of vocationaleducation were often in terms of another culture that felt so strange and distant that it seemedto be difficult to associate with it such things as reading, exams, or report cards—in theirminds, the features of academic culture. In response to Olli’s question: “Do you really geta report card from vocational school as well?” the career counselor went on to explain thedifferences between general and vocational upper secondary education—saying that ingeneral upper secondary school academic studies are emphasized and in vocationalschools the studies are more work oriented—“But you have to do lots of work in both.”

When students choose either general or vocational education, they seem to be choosingeither reading or doing, head or hands. For some students, as for Olli above, the fact that onemust also read in vocational school can come as a surprise during career counseling. Inaddition, Lappalainen suggested in her study on social and health care education that intheir first year of vocational studies students had been surprised by how academicallydemanding the studies were (Lappalainen et al., 2010).

The dichotomy between general and vocational studies has diminished by therestructuring of vocational education, as basic vocational studies are becoming for moreand more students a base for further vocational studies in the polytechnics. For some stu-dents the decision to continue studies after vocational education is made during vocationalstudies, when their educational and vocational wishes and their image of themselves aslearners and workers are reshaped (see Lappalainen et al., 2010). Akseli, a boy inElina Lahelma’s study, had learned at home the value of manual work—work withone’s hands. He chose vocational education despite having good grades in comprehensiveschool. In later interviews, it turned out that he was disappointed with the hard and mono-tonous work that this education meant, and suggested that it was good to use one’s headas well. Aged 24, he actually worked semi-professionally in sports and planned to con-tinue his studies (See Lahelma, 2009).

Vocational studies have traditionally acted as a quick route for working-class youth intoworking life. In Reetta Mietola’s study, vocational education was also repeatedly discussedas a choice for those who already know what they want to do. In Tuuli Kurki’s study, Mirjeta,a girl with a Kosovo-Albanian background, dreamed about moving back to Kosovo to openher own hair salon. She described herself as a person more manually than intellectuallyoriented. Therefore, general upper secondary education would be “just a waste of timesince from there, you graduate to nothing.” This argument in favor of vocational studieswas in Mietola’s study also used by the career counselor and other teachers when encoura-ging students to choose vocational studies. They also repeatedly talked about how students,who hesitated over what to choose, selected general rather than vocational studies.

Even if the metaphor ‘hand’ can be viewed positively, as in the cases of Akseli andMirjeta, negative images of vocational upper secondary school still exist. Mietola’s fieldnotes suggest that bad grades, stupidity and inability to advance to general upper secondaryeducation are associated with those who choose vocational education: “that’s the place whereall the stupid ones go—to screw a nut or something.” Hence, students who choose a voca-tional route have to explain and defend themselves against these negative images—stressingthat they choose vocational education not simply because they cannot get into general uppersecondary school. The presence of negative images and accounts affect the way vocationaleducation is marketed to students and how it is discussed in career counseling. These negative

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images are responded to with positive ones and success stories, emphasizing good employ-ment prospects and possibilities to study further in the polytechnics. The counselor inMietola’s school told of a boy who knew what he wanted to do. He began with vocationaleducation and ended up studying to be an engineer at university. Simo, a boy in Lehtonen’sstudy, had a similar strategy:

My school achievement was normal with an eight-plus [out of ten] on the final compre-hensive school certificate. It would have been easy for me to get into general upper sec-ondary school, even to something better.. . .On the other hand, I knew that even if I wentto vocational upper secondary school, I could still apply for tertiary education. . .I alreadydecided in comprehensive school that I would go to a polytechnic through vocationalupper secondary education, and that is the case now. In spring 2008 I will graduatefrom a polytechnic as an engineer. (Simo)

These examples suggest gendered routes. Simo’s career counsellor saw him as a boy withmany possibilities, even if he was more likely expected to choose general upper secondaryeducation than the vocational education he chose. However, when vocational education issuggested to girls, the reasons might be different. Whilst the metaphor ‘hand’ recurs in thereflections of students and teachers when vocational education is chosen, it is interestingthat the hands are often divided into technically competent hands and caring hands.Girls’ and boys’ vocational routes get divided. Kurki’s data suggest that caring vocationsmight be automatically suggested to girls with certain immigrant backgrounds (see alsoMirza, 1992):

I believe that both those girls [with Somalian backgrounds] are very good at domesticwork. They are proficient in such manual skills because they’ve had to take care oftheir little siblings at home and they’ve had to participate in housekeeping there.(Teacher)

Here we can see continuities. The choice of domestic school was gendered in the 1970s,based on interest in female domains, as shown in Tarja Palmu’s data:

Tarja: I was going to ask you something.. . .Yes, about domestic school, how come youwent there?

Iida: Well it just kind of, there was like this intermediate phase, so I just went to that dom-estic school. For sure, I’ve always liked to cook and bake and such. So it was nice togo there.

In Finland, nursing was one of the first professions women could educate themselves for(see Laiho, 2001, pp. 165–169). It was thought that educating working-class girls to becomenurses and maids, for example, would help them to be better housewives later. Whereasnursing and household education were for working-class girls, middle-class girls wereguided into more versatile education (Jauhiainen, 2001, pp.110–113). The idea of teachingdomestic skills has not been only about learning practical skills (such as cooking and baking),but teaching (working-class) girls other domestic as well as childcare skills, along with learn-ing how to be careful, clean, and well-behaved (Jauhiainen, 2001, p.108; Kayhko, 2006).Beverley Skeggs (1997, p. 98) has argued that femininity is the process through which

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women are gendered and become specific sorts of women. Central to this process is theexperience of what kind of femininity is acceptable and what kind is available for specificwomen in specific contexts. In the twenty-first century, it is women with immigrant back-grounds who are often employed in service and healthcare work (Forsander, 2003, p. 68)or study in these fields (Statistics Finland, 2007).

In Lehtonen’s study, non-heterosexual Simo had many reasons for choosing vocationaleducation instead of general upper secondary education. Further, his choice of chemistrywas gendered: choosing an education that might lead him to work in the local factory wasseen as a good choice for a boy in his locality:

I was very interested in chemistry in lower secondary school. Moreover, I was brought upin the shadow of a paper mill, and was interested in paper production. I found it quiteinteresting to study paper, and I got a children’s microscope as a Christmas present,when I was young. I knew that laboratory work includes chemistry and research in aninteresting way. Vocational training would be easier for me and I would get a professionquickly. (Simo)

Simo also explained that he would not have been interested in repairing motorbikes ormachines, which would have led him to choose metalwork or other more “masculine” edu-cational options. Laboratory work takes place indoors and is clean. Simo reflected that it fitsboth women and men. He said he was not physically strong enough for “real men’s jobs” andthat he enjoyed the company of women. This kind of gendered analysis concerning careerchoices is typical of non-heterosexual men who more often than heterosexual men choosefemale-dominated educations, professions, and workplaces (Lehtonen, 2004, pp. 171–172;Lehtonen, 2010). Heterosexual young men do not often have the same resources to challengegendered career expectations.

In Mietola’s research one girl, Minna, was positioned as a very successful student, onewith good marks and opportunities. She was expected to head towards an academic edu-cation. In the 9th grade she decided to apply to a male-dominated technical vocationalschool with a male-dominated training program. In her teachers’ discussions Minna’s casewas constantly referred to. Her decision seemed to be celebrated as a choice traversing gen-dered stratification. Also the fact that an academically orientated and successful student wasapplying for vocational education was seen as a choice that challenged the head–hands div-ision. At the same time, Minna’s choice seemed to underline the traditional assumptions, andto show how difficult it was to challenge them. In a teachers’ meeting the career counselortells the others that Minna has decided to apply to a vocational school, even if her finalgrades are over eight [out of 10]—“Well it’s good that someone a bit smarter goes there too.”

When Reetta Mietola talked to Minna about her decision, it turned out that her choice, onewhich was supposed to challenge gender segregation, was actually founded on this segre-gation. Minna stated that her interest was partly raised by the information she had receivedat school about the good employment prospects in this male-dominated area. She also sawher gender as an advantage in the application process:

Reetta: What do you think your possibilities are of being admitted [into the school]?Minna: I’m quite sure I will be. I have visited there so many times, so the teachers will

almost probably remember me already. And it is a good thing to be a girl, youget extra points, and they like taking girls anyway.

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Minna’s choice was at the same time carefully calculated (in terms of employment prospects,admission chances, etc.) and also based on more personal reasons: she explained that most ofher friends were boys and she preferred to spend time with boys.

Vocational education, which is currently becoming more popular among young people,still seems to be, however, a less valued option—education for less reading-oriented individ-uals. It is, however, possible to challenge and negotiate with the idea of general upper sec-ondary education being the better choice as well as gendered expectations.

Conclusion

In Tarja Palmu’s data, Kati, a woman who went to girls’ school in the 1970s, suggestedthat the division between vocational and general upper secondary education is not as strongnow as it was in her youth:

I think that the situation in society then, in the 1970s, was kind of different; it was clearlya kind of general upper secondary education world and vocational school world. Theywere kind of different, and they had different aims. (Kati)

Statistics suggest that the change at the level of educational politics has not been that sig-nificant. Drawing from different data that reflect the post-compulsory educational choicesof young people from different decades, we suggest that the dichotomies between generaland vocational upper secondary education, as well as between male and female sectors invocational education, are still maintained through various unquestioned practices andimplications.

The stubborn persistence of this dichotomy with respect to post-compulsory educationalchoices suggests the importance of maintaining segregation and hierarchies in the labormarket. This is more overt today than in the 1970s and 1980s, when equality was emphasizedin Nordic educational policy (e.g., Gordon, Lahelma, & Beach, 2002). Still, over the lastdecades numerous projects (earlier with national or Nordic resources, lately with EU-funds) have aimed to challenge these dichotomies—without any sustainable results.Instead, it seems that more and more public sector areas, including education, are shiftingtowards EU-led project-based activities, which means a strengthening of the market-orientedapproach and a perpetuation of hierarchical differences (Brunila, 2009; Rantala & Sulkunen,2006).

We suggest further that there is a taken-for-granted backdrop to students’ choices thatincludes norms concerning social class, gender, sexuality, and/or ethnicity. In our interpret-ations these norms are expressed, for example, through students’ awareness of the generaland vocational upper secondary school hierarchy through the metaphors that are repeated.There are no fixed gendered, classed, sexual, ethnic, or local identities that the reproductionof options draws from. Decisions that young people make are constantly interpreted throughthe dominant discourses and the representations constructed within them. Interpretations ofhow easy or difficult and how traditional or individualistic the choice is are made basedon a view of how a young person is positioned in relation to different paths. Even if thenumbers of students that apply for vocational education has grown during the last years,through this statistical data it is not possible to make interpretations about the changes inthe meanings that young people attach to different educational options. There is a need to

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study further the conceptions of the young people leaving comprehensive schools to find outmore about the meanings and motives attached to their decisions.

The possibility of free choice is demonstrated for young people as if it were a question oftheir personal competences and interests only. The structural differences are silenced. Theimportance of making choices is emphasized in educational policies and practices thatcareer counselors repeat. Students are encouraged to take the routes that are expected for“their kind”: those with any type of learning difficulties to the routes where special help isavailable and those with immigrant backgrounds to the routes where their expected abilitiescan be used. When young people then make “traditional” choices or choose neither option,the moral responsibility is left on their shoulders. In order to be heard, young people mustknow the “right” way to speak when discussing their educational choices. However, ourresearch shows that choices are also negotiable and that young people are able to makechoices that are not necessarily seen as the “right” ones.

We suggest that the analysis of educational choices that young people make ought to besituated within the larger context of the marketization of the politics of education, whichaffects on the ways societal differences, such as gender, age, and social background, areregarded. The marketization of education emphasizes inclusive politics, which means thatsocietal differences are to be placed in hierarchical order in accordance to economic needand their economic value. In this article we have viewed these societal differences as simul-taneous and interrelated and by doing so we suggest this kind of approach as one way to rejectmarket-oriented inclusive politics.

The marketization of the politics of education also means that we can talk about the newrationality of governing (Ball, 2006), where learning is becoming a personal responsibility,where one must become developable and trainable, where institutions and governments areless responsible, and where teachers and counselors act as coaches or facilitators. Ball hasalso asked whether this is the end of the age of education. Are we perhaps witnessing a pro-found epistemic shift, leaving behind the authentic modernist welfare learner to create a flex-ible, responsive, and responsible learner, worker, and citizen?

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