Browsing by Author "Räsänen, Saara"

Immigration has increased and with it the need for research dealing with matters concerning immigrants employment and integration processes. This thesis aims to analyze educational and labour paths of immigrants in Uusimaa, who have started literacy training in the course of the year 2010. Literacy training is organized mainly for the purposes of labour market training aiming at further developing immigrants' human, cultural and social capital. The aim is to discover, which viewpoints the immigrants already completed literacy training and the providers of integration services are able to provide to education and employment. Furthermore, an analyses of the types of capital that are closely connected to these viewpoints will be conducted. The area of research is Uusimaa for the reason that, the largest part of the migration wave is directed at the largest cities and especially to the metropolitan area. The data analyzed in this research consist of nine interviews collected from immigrants, heads of educational division and a teacher of the literacy training. In addition to this, quantitative data extracted from the information system of the labour policy administration on data registration of students of literacy training will be examined. The time period under examination here extends from the year 2010 until 2017, during which, many significant changes have occurred regarding the literacy training and integration training. The contents of the integration training have altered as the point of direction of the integration training has shifted toward a more employment type of direction and the amount of vocational training has been increased. According to interviews, such developments include, changes in the literacy training programme's student profiles and improvements on the student's guidance to educational paths. Teaching groups of immigrants are very heterogeneous in terms of immigrants learning ability, life situation and education background. These differences influence their consequent progress and the formation of various capitals. Guidance and support provided at a right time were found to be important factors in building student's paths and furthering employment. However, current teaching model does not automatically support all students in their educational path. In conclusion, in order to provide accurate guidance, it is relevant to recognize what type of a learner a student is. Three of the immigrants interviewed for the purposes of this research had found entry level employment in the labour markets and one interviewee was carrying out a vocational upper secondary qualification. Their most important objective in Finland was to find employment. The data has clearly revealed how different capitals form a synergetic relationship with each other. A work placement period pertaining to the training was an integral tool in increasing forms of capital in various ways. The work placement period was found to increase factors of human capital such as language skills and work experience. Cultural capital manifests in the form of acquired norms on Finnish work culture. The relevance of social capital was intensified through furthering of employment and support in the integration process, because it was through social networks, which immigrants retrieved information on employment and education.