Browsing by Author "Hällström, Jonna"

Objectives. Finland’s educational system and compulsory education ensure individuals to have extensive opportunities to study and thereby influence to their own career path. The welfare state has compensated the path of citizens and the Finnish education system has been praised for equality. On the other hand, previous studies have shown that there are many things, which influences to educational choices, such as the socio-economic status of parents and their experiences in primary education despite the principle of freedom of choice. The purpose of this study, which utilizes this educational and social science research data, is to describe and analyze the experiences of Finnish young people under the age of 30 on the formation of their educational choices. The starting point of the master’s thesis is to examine how the background factors of young people, such as family background, social factors and young people’s own experiences have influenced the selection and formation of educational choices. Methods. A qualitative research was selected as a research strategy. The target group of the study consisted of nine young Finnish person under the age of 30. All of them had different educational path. The material was obtained by interviewing the target group with theme in-terviews. Content analysis and theme making carried out the analysis of the material. The research results. According to the research results, the background of young people, like parents education or speak of that significantly influenced to interviewee’s educational back-ground. Higher educated parents set out more specific hopes and expectations regarding to youth educational choice. Professionally educated parents were more flexible with regards about educational choices. The values and thoughts of family education were very similar to the values and thoughts of young people (interviewee’s). The effect of vicinity and the effect of schools action seemed less than the effect of the family. The interviewee own interest and personal factors also influenced to the educational choices, but they did not undermine the impact of the background factors. In my master thesis interviewee’s show satisfaction with their choice of education and the opportunities what that serves.