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This article advances critical theoretical and methodological approaches to employability. From the perspectives of neoliberal governmentality and positioning analysis, we investigate graduate employability as a process of creating value for the self in the labour markets. The study analyses how young Finnish business graduates (n = 19) who work in business organisations perform themselves as valuable labouring subjects in their interviews. Based on our analysis, we develop an argument that being a young business professional is simultaneously presented as a problem and a virtue in terms of a valuable labouring subject. The analysis shows that graduates cultivate themselves as easily employable, mature job seekers and successful young employees equipped with personal social skills, enthusiasm and youthful energy and drive. They draw on the neoliberal discourse of employability to negotiate issues identified as problematic – their young age and lack of work experience – in terms of their value. Their performances of the self are thus purposeful responses to the contextual expectations and pressures they encounter while competing for jobs and striving to gain recognition as novice professionals in organisations. The study reveals that graduates' whole subjectivity is at the core of the process of value creation in contemporary labour markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This post-structural policy analysis examines Finnish government programmes through the lens of neoliberal governmentality and the concepts of the entrepreneurial self and active ageing. In the context of Finland, as a Nordic welfare state in transition to a competition-state model, this study examines how government programmes construct an ageing workforce, especially regarding older entrepreneurship. The results suggest that older people are not only constructed as a difficult-to-employ workforce but also as passive and vulnerable care recipients. Furthermore, as a construction, older entrepreneurship is absent from the studied documents, suggesting that the older entrepreneurship is a marginalized group that has been silenced. This article increases knowledge about this silencing in terms of governmentality and provides perspectives via which to develop a more inclusive entrepreneurship policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This discourse analytical study explores how health professionals (HPs) construct burnout as a form of mental distress in the context of Finnish burnout rehabilitation framed with a particular rehabilitation ethos. Burnout is a fuzzy concept and lacks a disease status. Therefore, it calls for context-specific definition and justification. By highlighting the socially and interactionally produced character of categories of mental distress, the study investigates the kinds of discourses HPs use to formulate "the problem" and its solutions, and how people dealing with burnout are categorized in these discourses. The data consists of field notes from the observation of group discussion sessions in two 1-year burnout rehabilitation courses. As a result of the analysis, five partly overlapping discourses were identified: psychological, evolutionary, healthy lifestyle, biomedical, and welfare. Within these discourses, people who experience burnout were categorized as over-conscientious employees, "good girls," "primitive people," self-responsible rehabilitees, patients, and (aging) employees with social and legal rights. Burnout rehabilitation and HPs' views reproduce a cultural and clinical discourse around burnout in which work-related problems are treated as individual-level problems and individuals are responsibilized for the management of mental distress. Based on the results, it is concluded that the hybrid type of interventions that attempt to influence both individual- and work-related problems behind burnout would help to prevent people dealing with burnout from being over-responsibilized for solving problems at the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the construction of master narratives related to age, gender and entrepreneurship in the context of entrepreneurship education (EE) in Finnish higher education (HE). This is important as master narratives create and limit our understanding of entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach: The data comprises 30 student interviews generated in one multidisciplinary Finnish university. The data were analyzed using narrative positioning analysis to examine what kinds of master narratives are (re)constructed in relation to age and entrepreneurship by Finnish university students and how gender intertwines with age in the construction of entrepreneurship. Findings: Three aged and gendered master narratives were identified: (1) youthful, masculine, startup/growth entrepreneurship; (2) middle-aged feminine, expert entrepreneurship and (3) modest, feminine, senior entrepreneurship. The paper makes visible aged and gendered master narratives and cultural norms related to entrepreneurship in the context of EE and HE. Authors argue that the youthful, masculine startup/growth entrepreneurship is the hegemonic master narrative in the context of EE in Finnish HE. Femininity is mostly excluded from this master narrative. Originality/value: The paper contributes to critical literature on entrepreneurship as an aged as well as gendered phenomenon in the context of EE and HE. So far research on entrepreneurship as an aged and gendered phenomenon in EE and in the context of HE has been virtually non-existent. Moreover, the theoretical and methodological focus on master narratives in entrepreneurship and EE literature is novel. The master narratives identified in the study show that HE students are not addressed equally in relation to entrepreneurship, but aged and gendered hierarchies are sustained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employability is an increasing concern for university students. Our survey set out to examine university students' perceptions of their employability and the ways in which these perceptions relate to positions that subsequently connect students to working life: students' self-representational position or "ability self", and students' life-historical positions such as chosen field of study, phase of degree and working life experience. The participants comprised a sample of students (N = 1819) from two Finnish universities, representing diverse fields of study. It was found that apart from the field of study, the perceived proximity to graduation and working life was associated with the perception of employability. Furthermore, a set of self-attributed capabilities was associated with students' perceptions of employability, particularly extroversion, ambitious competitiveness, mental strength and the desired characteristics of a good employee; however, the attribution of academic skills showed opposing effects. It was concluded that both self-representational and live-historical positions are part of the construction of students' optimism regarding their employability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The methodological article explores the process by which identity rupture generated by work‐related burnout is encountered and managed over time. The article presents an in‐depth case study based on follow‐up interviews with a woman in her sixties. The study attempts to discover what kinds of continuities and changes in meaning making patterns are included in the burnout process and how these meaning making patterns are used to perform and negotiate identity stabilities and changes in the life course. The study is part of a larger longitudinal qualitative investigation following a group of Finnish middle‐aged employees in the context of burnout rehabilitation. As a result of analysis, four thematically and temporally overlapping meaning making patterns were identified: defining and legitimating illness, encountering and resisting the 'vulnerable' Other in self, developing and testing a new identity, and recapturing the past self. The burnout trajectory seems to consist of temporally stable meaning making patterns, such as legitimation of illness, preservation of the past self and resistance of the patient role. However, it also includes changes in meaning making that imply positively interpreted self‐change. The study contributes to the methodological development of qualitative health and life course research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to critically investigate how collective identity is constructed and regulated by board members and other active members of student entrepreneurship societies (ESs). Design/methodology/approach: A discursive analysis focusing on collective identity construction and regulation based on focus group discussions in two student-led Finnish ESs affiliated with higher education institutions (HEIs). Findings: ES members construct and regulate collective entrepreneurial identity based on a shared narrative of entrepreneurship and the affective state of positive energy and thinking, i.e. "positive buzz." Being entrepreneurial was constructed as having the right kind of mentality to cope with uncertain and rapidly changing working life and to break free of old moulds of working. The shared narrative was coherent, and critical reflection on the values or risks of entrepreneurship was mainly silenced. Research limitations/implications: As ESs are a relatively new phenomenon future research could explore ESs in different cultural and regional contexts and compare the identity construction and regulation of ES student members and non-members. Practical implications: Strong collective identity and sense of commitment to doing things together may mitigate the pressures of being entrepreneurial and taking charge of one's life. Social implications: Educational practice and research could benefit from better understanding of the informal context in which entrepreneurship education takes place. Originality/value: The paper contributes to the relatively new research stream on ESs as student-led entrepreneurial organizations in HEIs. The research demonstrates how ES members participate in constructing a collective and coherent identity that is regulated by shared values and a positive state of mind. This study extends the understanding of ESs from the functional perspective to viewing them as a social community. It contributes to the definition of ESs and the self-understanding of ES actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine to what extent Finnish university students endorse entrepreneurial intent and the ways in which they position themselves in relation to entrepreneurship according to their self-perceived abilities or "ability self". Design/methodology/approach: The study was conducted by means of an e-survey, and the participants comprised the sample of students (n =1,819) from two Finnish universities, representing diverse fields of study. Findings: It was found that a great majority of the students showed a relatively low intent to become an entrepreneur. The perception of abilities, such as innovativeness and ambitiousness-competitiveness, was positively related with entrepreneurial intent, whereas the perception of academic abilities and "conventional" employee skills indicated inverse associations. Social implications: The findings suggest that in terms of self-perceived abilities, entrepreneurship in an academic context is perceived as a rather restricted category to which only a few specific individuals have access. Accordingly, there is a certain tension between the tenets of entrepreneurship and corresponding abilities, and the ethos of universities and related high-valued abilities such as theoreticality and criticality. Originality/value: Although employability and entrepreneur intent have been widely studied, little is known about students' identification with entrepreneurship according to their ability perceptions. The present study contributes to the existing body of knowledge on university students' "internal employability" that involves students' self-assurance and views of work-related relevance with regard to supposed abilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to examine what sort of ability expectations university students have about the requirements of working life, and how the perception of these expectations relate to students' perceptions of their own employability. The participants comprised a sample of students (N = 1819) from two Finnish universities, representing diverse fields of study. They were asked to describe themselves according to a set of abilities and to then indicate those abilities that would be particularly important for them in the labour market. It was found that being stable and getting along with others were the most commonly considered generic capabilities for coping in working life. Furthermore, those university students who identified entrepreneurial skills and extroversion as predominant ability requirements were prone to have relatively pessimistic perceptions of their employability possibilities. Accordingly, the results of the study suggest that students' views of their expected abilities tend to shape their perceptions of their employment prospects, particularly with regard to entrepreneurial skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study sets out to investigate the university students’ perceptions of their current and expected ‘ability selves’ and the contribution of such perceptions to students’ views of their own employability. The participants consisted of a group of male and female students (N = 104) who were asked to describe their present and anticipated abilities and to respond to a set of statements describing self-perceived employability. The students highlighted social aptness, extroversion and enterprise skills in particular as features related to ability selves in current discussions of working life. These interpretations were subsequently related to the optimism they had about their own employability. ‘Ability selves’ seem to play a role in the multifaceted process of subjective confidence formation regarding one’s employment prospects after graduation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study set out to investigate parental attitudes toward entrepreneurship education as evaluative directing components of social representations. A nationwide sample of parents (N = 625) was asked to indicate their opinions on a set of statements about entrepreneurship education. The parents' attitudinal orientation suggested that they would rather avoid entrepreneurship education than approach it. Additionally, parental evaluations contained indecision and polarised opinions, and most parents saw it as unlikely or were unsure whether their children would become entrepreneurs. Parental attitudes correlated with the established representations of education and subsequent policy stands, suggesting that entrepreneurship education has been made familiar by anchoring attitudes in the field of educational debates. It was suggested that current trends in educational policy and work life may stimulate the formation of polemical social representations pertaining to entrepreneurship education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on entrepreneurship education (EE) has not discussed the comprehensive school’s traditional discourse of abilities and the related aim of categorising pupils according to their ‘natural’ talents. It has also neglected pupils’ perceptions of entrepreneurial abilities; however, these perceptions are important for understanding the implementation of EE at school and its impact on how pupils position themselves at school and in working life. This study examined the ways entrepreneurial abilities were constructed by pupils in comprehensive school. The data were gathered through qualitative group interviews with 29 pupils (15–16 years old) from a school in eastern Finland. The following six interpretative repertoires were identified in the interviews: ‘academic talent’, ‘predetermined career’, ‘diligent student’, ‘common sense’, ‘personal characteristics’ and ‘loyal friendship’. The former three reproduced the school’s meritocratic notion of abilities and the related class- and gender-specific distinctions between head-on and hands-on abilities. The latter three challenged the value of academic talent for entrepreneurship. The findings demonstrated that while the school’s traditional discourse of abilities guides the pupils’ perceptions, in the pupils’ views entrepreneurial abilities are not evaluated according to the school’s intelligence criteria alone. In their accounts, a discourse of an enterprising self, which characterises the European and Finnish policy for education and training, is emerging. This new discourse will create new dimensions for the categorisation of individual differences at school. The results are discussed in relation to the trait approach to entrepreneurship, the ability ideals of EE and the related proposal for inclusive pedagogy, and the teachers’ perceptions that were explored in a previous study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finland has been celebrated as a country where everyone has the possibility to educate themselves and to get ahead in life through education. However, social differences of educability continue to persist and social differences of employability are further construed in the neo-liberal market economy. In this article we will examine 2 adult graduates’ educational and working life histories based on an 8-year qualitative follow-up study. Lisa with a working-class background and Henri from a middle-class family have both graduated from general upper-secondary school for adults and also accomplished higher education degrees in adulthood. Lisa and Henri's cases show how class and gender, as well as age, intertwine in the construction of educability and employability in different narrative environments. Based on our analysis, academic education may turn out as a broken promise instead of a great salvation with good occupational prospects for individuals like Lisa with a working-class background. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study set out to explore the narratives of entrepreneurship that 15–16-year-old pupils in their last grade of comprehensive school produced in the Finnish annual writing competitionGood Enterprise!We focused on narratives that can be categorized as tragedies, satires, comedies, and crime stories (N = 219). In these stories, the pupils challenge the political ideal of the risk-taking entrepreneur by arguing for sustainable development and social justice as bases for entrepreneurship. On the one hand, the critical representations of entrepreneurs arise from the Protestant work ethic, and thus the values constructed in these stories are close to stories that can be characterized as romances of the modest entrepreneur where the motive for entrepreneurship was not the accumulation of material wealth. On the other hand, these critical stories represent “entrepreneur and consumer pathologies,” and hence make a mockery of the core neoliberal values of autonomy, competition, and choice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study set out to replicate a survey conducted 20 years ago on Finnish parents' social representations of educability. A nationwide sample of parents (N = 642) were asked to indicate their opinions on a set of statements pertaining to topical educational issues. The results indicated that educational discussion is still structured by two major competing representations of intelligence, the 'natural' and the 'social', and the corresponding educational policies, the 'selective' and the 'comprehensive'. Further, some novel and still relatively independent representations, such as the diversity of human abilities and entrepreneurship education, were identified. The comprehensive representation found support particularly among the vocationally educated parents, who were worried about social equality, while the selective representation, i.e., the ideology of natural giftedness, found support among the academically educated fathers. The representational field of educability seemed quite established, indicating relative continuity of educational discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study set out to explore how a group of Finnish school teachers constructs the meaning of entrepreneurship education and produces related characterizations of the abilities of the pupils in their interviews. In their discussions, the teachers deployed the discourses of ‘internal entrepreneurship’ and ‘external entrepreneurship’. Internal entrepreneurship was associated with the pupils' responsible attitude to (school) work; it was represented as an ideal subjectivity for all and accepted as the natural aim of schooling. The promotion of external entrepreneurship, however, was seen to be beyond the aims of basic education. Within the discourse of external entrepreneurship, the teachers explicated the differences between the pupils' abilities; they saw potential for entrepreneurship particularly in those boys who are not academically accomplished but are socially talented, creative, easygoing and risk-taking or competent at practical things. High-performing students, especially girls, were not included in the characterizations of “the entrepreneur type of pupil”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study set out to examine Finnish and Russian children's images of intelligence as contextualized in the systems of the school and gender. Finnish and Russian pupils, aged 11-12 years, were asked to draw pictures of an intelligent and an ordinary pupil and a good and an ordinary pupil. A distinctive feature shared by the children in both countries was that intelligent pupils were depicted as positively orientated to knowledge and studies and as similar to good pupils. The Russian children's pictures emphasized academic performance, suggesting that the contribution of the school to children's representations was greater in Russia than in Finland. In regard to gender appearance, the intelligent pupil was usually pictured in gender-neutral or childish features, suggesting that being defined as intellectually competent entailed deviating from the heterosexual ideal. In the discussion, the ambivalence associated with social definitions of intelligence is addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the conditions of entrepreneurship education in Finnish schools from the perspective of the school’s tradition of national and territorial socialization and the new aim of educating European and global citizens. Entrepreneurship education presents a new challenge for the school system with regard to territorial socialization and the construction of the spatial self. The theme is discussed by using data consisting of Finnish pupils’ narratives of entrepreneurship which were produced in the essay writing competition Good Enterprise! in 1986–2006. The analysis focuses on the prize-winning narratives which reflect both the pupils’ possible selves and the ideals of entrepreneurship education. The article explores what kinds of representations of space, place and possible self young people produce in their narratives and what kinds of representations are favoured by school. Narratives representing entrepreneurship as familiar, domestic, rural and local activity constantly succeeded in the competition whereas the ideal of the global self was not so much appreciated. Moreover, the images of entrepreneurial spaces and places reproduced conventional representations of femininity and masculinity. The competition seemed to construct local and national versions of self and citizenship which were gendered, too. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the spread of the neo-liberal educational policy in Finnish schools by considering entrepreneurship education. We examined the kinds of gendered and classed enterprising selves that were narrated in the Finnish writing competition Good Enterprise! written by pupils in the 9th grade of comprehensive school. In their narratives of enterprising selves, the pupils constructed the middle-class version of the self, where the person was not contingent upon external effects but an autonomous self-governing individual. Moreover, the possible selves of boys matched the culturally valued representations of the autonomous, risk-taking entrepreneurial individual more closely than the self-representations of girls did. However, it was especially the boys' narratives of modest entrepreneurship with the traditional virtues of the respectable citizen that were successful in the competition. This finding is in conflict with the educational policies of the European Union, which call for risk-taking abilities and competition as pre-conditions for achieving progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Investigates the collective nature of stories of war and the constructions of nationality embedded in these narratives. Collective nature of stories by Karelian evacuees after the wars between Finland and the Soviet Union; Construction of abstract nationality with the help of the image of the family and the gendered construction of family loyalty.

Education has been the main channel through which Finnish women have attempted to achieve the status of an individual. But what has the story of women's individualisation been like? The article examines women's educational life stories - 'independence narratives' - and highlights the gendered interpretations women have made of their lives. The gender difference in these stories is a temporal difference within the self: through the rhetorical construction of a dualistic division between the past and the present self, a qualitative hierarchy is introduced between a (past) woman and a seemingly gender-neutral individual. Moreover, the use of the woman as the temporal other of the individual reflects the timeless character of the individual. The individual constitutes a norm that determines the perspective from which the past and the present are viewed. While the individual is timeless, the difference is historicised and projected into the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education has been the main channel through which Finnish women have attempted to achieve the status of ''the individual''. But what has the story of women's individualization been like? Can women seek individual status specifically as women? This article examines how women use biographical work in their educational life stories to relate to their own gender. The women used various constructions the self as vehicles for processing their views of themselves, as they sought dignity and recognition as individuals. Different selves served to locate the protagonist in different ways within an ''ideology of the individual'' . The life stories about the attainment of adulthood and independence suggest that, despite their formal equality, Finnish women do not necessarily enjoy clear social standing as individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]