Abstract
Division between academic and vocational education is a predominant feature of both upper secondary and higher education in Finland as well as in many other country contexts. This article focuses on a minority of higher education students, those who have not proceeded to higher education through the traditional academic track but have enrolled through the vocational route. We deploy the concept of institutional habitus and utilize Eurostudent VI survey data ( N=7318) to analyse the backgrounds and study experiences of higher education students with different kinds of educational backgrounds. Our findings indicate that those enrolling through the vocational route are more often mature students from lower parental educational backgrounds. They have often completed a longer study path and began to see themselves as future higher education students later in their life course. There are also differences in how students with diverse educational backgrounds experience their sense of belonging to the higher education community. This paper focuses on Finland but has relevance for other European countries as the institutional structures and practices discussed in this paper are evident internationally.
Highlights
In Finland, as in other European countries, a widely shared discourse is that access to higher education (HE) should be open and fair regardless of one’s social background
This paper focuses on Finland but has relevance for other European countries that want to develop transitional pathways from vocational education to HE
In our earlier research on non-traditional access to universities, we discovered that prior education was a significant factor in gaining entry to HE (Haltia et al, 2018)
Summary
In Finland, as in other European countries, a widely shared discourse is that access to higher education (HE) should be open and fair regardless of one’s social background. Widening access is a question of student admission policies but concerns the overall quality and flexibility of the post-compulsory educational system. The key question here is how open the pathway from vocational education to HE is. From the systems and policy perspectives, the potential to increase the fairness of access lies not just in participation in HE, and in where and how students with vocational backgrounds participate (Hoelscher et al, 2008). We are interested in these under-researched policies to widen access and aim to investigate the backgrounds, choices and experiences of students who have accessed Finnish HE through the vocational education pathway
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