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- Puaca, Goran
(författare)
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Educational choices of the future : a sociological inquiry into micro-politics in education
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis investigates how students’ practical considerations for future choices in education and occupations correspond to policy objectives of socially productive educational choices. This is conveyed through the primary aim of analyzing the correspondence between on the one hand educational policy intentions and on the other hand students’ educational choices and the social and cultural conditions that structure them. These concerns are addressed with specific aims in four different articles. However, the following research questions have been of central guidance for framing the main issue: (1) How are economic, political and social processes brought together on a policy level for motivating and regulating individuals’ educational choices (Article I)? (2) How do students’ educational choices correspond with policy intentions and the assumptions of rational choice that the latter are founded on (Article I-II)? (3) How are students’ educational choices shaped by wants and identities (Article II-IV)? (4) What is the relationship between students’ want formation and relevant social and cultural conditions (Article II-IV)? The empirical material consisted of interviews and semi-structured questionnaires with young people in secondary education and higher education, and interviews with school staff in secondary education. Empirical inquiries were also conveyed via a semiotic content analysis on recent policy: specifically the Swedish Long-Term Surveys from 2008 and 2011. In comprehensive terms, the rationality of choices from both how choice is practiced and what is desired has been of primary interest. These concerns are addressed by the following emphases in the different investigations. In Article I the form of government that aims to shape actors’ wants and decisions in relation to productive educational choices in the Long-Term Surveys is investigated. The forms of rationality in general, and the suggested implementation of rational choices in particular, are here analyzed through a critical semiotic analysis. The result of the study lifts forward critical distinctions of ontological and epistemological assumptions in how to delineate social and economic claims for the righteousness, reasonableness and necessity of choices. Article II focuses on how students’ wants and choices are formed in a vocational (vehicle maintenance program) and a theoretical (social science program) upper secondary education. By examining students’ want-lists complemented by interviews with students and school staff the study argues that it is important to view wants in an organic totality based on individual and collective experiences. The results show a pragmatic rationality in students’ decision-making, which challenges instrumental rationality in educational choices. This is importantly about how structural support guides students’ decisions over the future under conditions of the radical uncertainty that marks decisions in open social systems. In article III the analysis of vocational and theoretical upper secondary students’ want formations are further developed in relation to their educational environment. Through analysis of interviews with students, teachers, principals and student counselors the article pays particular attention to institutional school effects and school habitus. The results showed that different forms of school habitus in the investigated programs could be empirically attributed to how students form their wants. Article IV investigates identity work via a semi-structured questionnaire and group interviews with students from a Swedish Human Resource program in higher education. What in particular was investigated was how symbolic signification of education and occupations occurred within education. The actual meaning students attributed to education rested importantly on collective sense-making. Indicated in the results is that the meaning of being a student incorporates an awareness of social status and an ability to form relatively autonomous personal projects related to social forces. The result of the thesis points to a lack of correspondence between, on the one hand, political notions of how rational and utility maximizing choices should be made based on effective matching of education and working life and, on the other hand, how young people form their paths into the future in practice through education choices. Students often make their educational choices due to a lack of better alternatives and are often uncertain about where their choices will take them in life. These results show that there is a need for concrete support in schools in order to turn students’ insecurity about the future into useful strategies for educational and occupational paths.
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| 3. |
- Puaca, Goran, 2007, et al.
(författare)
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Gender and social stratification in higher education: A Swedish case
- 2007
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Ingår i: Presentation at the GEA conference 28-30 March 2007, Dublin.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This research project addresses the conference theme of citizenship and inclusion. Variables of class, gender and ethnicity are here vital in evaluating the meaning of inclusion – both in a wider societal context, and how it affects individuals’ perspective on opportunities. This project description is part of a doctoral thesis, and addresses the issues: (1) which student groups are entering an average-sized Swedish University College, and (2) how students allocate their education as a resource in relation to their social grouping. The selected University College for a case study is characterised by advocating closeness between study programmes and working-life, and the social background of the students is fairly heterogeneous. Many of the students are women, and the issue of gender in relation to qualitative and quantitative goals of higher education is essential. The working hypothesis states that patterns of social stratification persist in Swedish higher education, and this leads to the question of how an increased number of students in higher education relates to goals of equality and diversity. Methods used are both qualitative and quantitative.
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| 4. |
- Puaca, Goran, 2007, et al.
(författare)
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Om att vilja sig en framtid
- 2009
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Ingår i: En realistisk sociologi i praktiken. Nio texter om samhället. - Göteborg : University of Gothenburg. ; , s. 111-135, s. 115-135
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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