Browsing by Author "Hollström, Kristiina"

In recent years, ways to increase education-based immigration has been growing its popularity in public discussions. Even though immigration has been a popular research subject in the field of discursive research for a long time, education-based immigration hasn’t been studied as much. This study examines, how education-based immigration is discursively constituted in the context of argumentative texts regarding education-based immigration, and what type of subject positions are offered for the international students in this context. The research findings are examined by using neoliberal ethos and the ideal subjectivity provided by neoliberal education policy. In this study, discourse analysis is used as an analysis method. The research data consists of 43 argumentative texts regarding education-based immigration and international students, published in 2012-2020. The texts were chosen with the criterion that they discussed the meaning of education-based immigration and international students for Finland. Three discourses were raised from the research data: ”Well-being and competitiveness – international students building Finland’s future”, ”International students as a threat to Finland”, and ”Education-based immigration as an individual’s project”. The discourses offered four different positions for the students: a desirable international talent, a builder for the economy, an abuser of the system and an individual actively growing their own educational capital. This study doesn’t provide an answer to the question: Would these international students coming to Finland accept these positions or reject them.