Ammattiin opiskelevat ja hyvä elämä: työntekijyyttä vai jotain ihan muuta?

Abstract

Vocational education places many expectations on vocational students regarding working life. According to previous studies, vocational students regard paid work as an important premise for a good life. However, this narrative may ignore other perspectives of their good life.<br/><br/>In this article, we focus empirically on what kind of understandings of a good life various vocational students have and how these narratives emphasising work relate to those understandings. The empirical research data was collected from 185 young vocational students during workshops held between 2018 and 2020. According to our results, for vocational students, a good life is not only connected to the framework of paid work, but also to love, hobbies and related dreams. We propose that vocational students should be seen as individuals with many dreams regarding a good life, instead of being discussed only as a group of future workers. We find that this influences how they experience themselves as being heard and valued in society.