Educational trajectories of immigrant-origin youths in Finland: a mixed methods analysis

Abstract

This article examines the educational trajectories envisioned by immigrant-origin youths. The mixed-methods research draws upon quantitative (N = 445) and interview data (n = 112). Whereas most prior research focuses on educational achievement or educational attainment of immigrant-origin youth, this article focuses on their outlooks concerning education and occupation. We determined the educational and career aspirations and expectations immigrant-origin youths have and in the ways their aspirations differ from those of Finnish-origin youths. We also seek to discover how this possible aspiration paradox is reflected in the trajectories envisioned by immigrant-origin youths. We confirm earlier findings showing that immigrant-origin youths have both a strong belief in education and the will to achieve success in tertiary-level education. We also argue for diversity of vocationally oriented youth: whereas Finnish-origin youths often share determinate vocational outlooks, immigrant-origin youths are more likely to aim for tertiary education via vocational education.

The reasoning behind the envisioned educational trajectories of young people from Finnish and immigrant origins

“…(#435) The conceivable trajectory from vocational education to a university of applied sciences challenges the common presumption on general upper-secondary education as the only, taken-for-granted pathway to tertiary education and later associate professional careers. Following our previous mixed-methods analysis (Holmberg et al, 2018), this trajectory typically seems to be discovered by youths of immigrant origin, like the young person (#435) in previous excerpt, who was born in East Asia and whose parents were well educated and employed in teacher and interpreter professions.…”

“…The aim of this article was to portray the patterns and reasoning of envisioned educational trajectories of young people with a special focus on immigrant origin and social class. Continuing our previous mixed-method classifications (Holmberg et al, 2018) we construed six combinations of educational choices and occupational destinations for this article and focused on the reasonings of these choice-process narratives. To conclude, we summarise the findings under two concepts: elective and standard biographies.…”

“…Their reasoning typically followed parent's or siblings' occupations, and hence (re)constructed their working-class identities (Hollingworth & Williams, 2009;Archer, Hollingworth & Halsall, see also Skeggs, 2004). If the immigrant-origin young people reasoned their occupational destinations with the emphasis on "working" and "doing", they were commonly aiming at post-tertiary education occupations and negotiating one solution to the "immigrant paradox" (see also Holmberg et al, 2018;Suárez-Orozco et al, 2009).…”

“…The first, content analysis, focused on understanding students' decision-making whilst applying for entry to upper-secondary education. All informants were categorised according to their envisioned educational choices and occupational destinations (see also Holmberg et al, 2018). The dimension of choice links previous experiences and the imagined futures via assessment of interest and skills with regard to the type of education or training.…”

“…Nevertheless, parents' short educational history and workers' occupation is a significant premise for the quick trajectory from vocational upper-secondary school to the labour market. It is a matter of a working-class culture or tradition that matches some of the Finnish-origin families; this envisioned trajectory consists solely of youths of Finnish origin (see Holmberg et al, [2018]). "Finding yourselves" (Reay, 2001) from educational trajectories leading to working-class occupations seem to be acceptable reasoning for some young people of Finnish origin but is almost missing from the decision-making narratives of the immigrant-origin young people.…”