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The notion of employability has been dominating the higher education policies and strategies of the European Union and other western countries for two decades. From an employability perspective, individuals are responsible for acquiring the skills to find and move between jobs, market themselves, and effectively express their social, personal, and cultural capital. This article focuses on non-traditional students' perspectives of their transition from higher education to working life, especially on the pathways they have taken and the struggles they have experienced in becoming employable. A biographical learning perspective is used to analyse biographical interviews with five female students who were 25 years of age or older, with a non-Swedish background, studying full time. In the students' stories, four transition pathways from higher education to working life were identified: a linear, a parallel, a further education, and a changing career pathway. The five non-traditional students struggled with becoming employable and seemed to be anxious about not being good enough at Swedish; being an outsider as a student; being overqualified; and facing discrimination in the labour market. These employability struggles mainly arise due to the assumption that all graduates are young, Swedish, without children or disabilities, and competing only with their employability within an equal labour market. Thus, the notion of employability still gives little attention to non-traditional students and has negative consequences for them.

Es werden die Konsequenzen zunehmender Zahlen von nicht-traditionellen Studierenden an schwedischen Hochschulen für die Gesellschaft, für die Hochschullandschaft und für das Individuum aufgezeigt. Der Artikel basiert auf Ergebnissen des jüngst abgeschlossenen europäischen Forschungsprojekts RANLHE, an dem sieben Länder beteiligt waren. Nach einer Vorstellung der Rahmenbedingungen des schwedischen Hochschulsystems sowie des Forschungsprojekts wird eine Typologie von nicht-traditionellen Studierenden entwickelt, die vom Konzept der Identitätsbildung vor dem Hintergrund der Massenuniversität ausgeht. Abschließend werden einzelne Konsequenzen für den europäischen Kontext abgeleitet., This article discusses the consequences of increasing access of non-traditional students to higher education (HE) in Sweden for society, individuals, and HE. The findings are based on a recently finished European Research Project called Access and Retention: Experiences of Non-traditional Students in Higher Education (RANLHE) with seven countries involved. First, an introduction about opening access to HE is presented, followed by a review of Swedish HE policy. Next is a presentation of the RANLHE project including the project's research focus, methodology and a comparison between the partner countries. The Swedish case is highlighted and a typology of non-traditional students introduced which demonstrates a change in students' identity formation as a result of mass HE. The role of research and teaching institutions in regards to mature/ non-traditional students and their impact on students' identity formation is discussed. The article concludes with the general consequences for HE in Europe.

The aim of this paper is to present an autobiographical account on the prospects and process of academic career in Nordic countries, and specifically in Sweden. The method used is biographical, or self-ethnographic, dealing with life transitions including struggles and experiences when making the career. The point of departure is the final step in the academic career, i.e. Professorship, and reconstruction of the life events backwards, both as diachronic, a moment in time, as well as synchronic, over time dimensions. This includes research initiation, PhD writing, Postdoc experience, habilitation, and struggling to get a position of a senior lecturer and finally a professor. Involvement in various projects and international networking are presented. Biographical work and learning are used to understand how a woman researcher is navigating in a difficult male dominated terrain, including both negative and positive experiences.

The chapter is concerned with European policies for employability of graduate students from higher education to the labour market and a Swedish higher education system which has traditionally invluded widening access students. The chapter highlight issues of inequality relating to employability particularly in relation to working class an minority ethynic students. The study indicates that in relation to employability non-traditional students experience greater challenges than traditional students in the labour market resulting in a segregated labour market., 2014-1-UK01-KA203-001842-TP

This handbook is aimed at ‘non-traditional’ students and graduates who are looking for some support in identifying a career path that will build on their life experiences and their university education in a satisfying way. By ‘non-traditional’ we mean students and graduates from communities and groups who are, in some way, underrepresented in university. This includes quite a diverse range of groups such as mature students, working class students, students from ethnic minorities and students with disabilities. Over the past twenty years or so universities across Europe have begun to open their doors to non-traditional students. This has enormously enriched universities making them more vibrant, interesting and genuinely representative institutions. We wish to ensure that these students are fully supported throughout the various stage of their university experience including career development - not least because we know from this, and other research, that some non-traditional students continue to encounter barriers in the job market. The specific challenges faced by students from non-traditional backgrounds are not identified in a lot of career guidance material and important issues are often left unaddressed. We have developed this handbook because we think it is important to take account of the experiences and needs of non-traditional students as they seek to build their careers and make, the sometimes tricky, transition from university to employment.

This case of biographical interviewing is part of a biographical research approach. A biographical approach concerns people's stories and experience of everyday life and has a twofold purpose: to give the researcher rich material to analyse while the interviewees have an opportunity to learn about themselves. This account presents a case study conducted with non-traditional students in higher education by capturing ethical, practical and social aspects of biographical interviewing as well as presenting a way of working with rich biographical material (i.e. how to transcribe and analyse data from biographical interviews gained from this example). Finally, the case discusses some difficulties in conducting biographical research., SAGE Research Methods Cases., Access and Retention: Experiences of non-traditional students in HE

Access and Retention - Experiences of non-traditional students in HE

The aim of this paper is to deepen understanding of the forming of learning identities amongst non-traditional students in Higher Education (HE). Learning identities are related to how actors experience themselves as learners in relation to their previous experiences, social background and different academic cultures and contexts. The forming of learning identities is a part of the forming of overall identities, and we use three identity types for our analysis: multiple integrated, floating and adopted. The study is built on biographical interviews with six students (chosen from a pool of 100) and 37 semi-structured interviews with staff from three HE institutions in Sweden. The results show that non-traditional students tend to feel like outsiders, and that this seems to be related to class and age rather than ethnicity and gender. Nevertheless, they form different identities and learning identities. Those forming a multiple integrated identity define themselves as learners and sometimes even as independent learners, while students forming an adopted identity seem to identify themselves with the academy generally. The learning identity they form is that of a "good student". Students forming a floating identity have difficulty defining themselves within the academy. Finally, some students seem to form a pragmatic identity, identifying with their future profession rather than the academy. In doing this an instrumental learning identity is formed. In the academy and in the case of lecturers, status is related to research orientation, whereas in the case of students, the value of education seems to be related to gaining employment. This creates tensions in the HE system., Access and Retention: Experiences of non-traditional learners in Higher education

Ageing and learning: work and love in adulthood The chapter looks at challenges mature adults face in life, when ageing and learning are in focus, and where work and love are still important to live a life. The thesis is that if we have suitable or normal conditions we are able to adjust and change, and live a happy life as long as we live. The second thesis is that in the centre of ageing is learning, but it is defined broadly not as a formal learning but learning through life. Learning, as a concept, gets a new dimension and scope: it is a biographical learning. Biographical learning contributes to bridge the duality between body and mind. The article starts with the issue of ageing from the demographic point of view. It looks at the tradition of life course research that contributed to our understanding of phases in life and developmental tasks that we, at each period of life cycle, have to fulfil. Furthermore, article focuses on work and love as two important spheres or activities of life when ageing. In the concluding part, ten important issues that ageing adults can think about, and we as adult educators can help them to deal with struggles of life, are presented.