Browsing by Author "Mäkelä, Essi"

The purpose of this descriptive literature review was to gather information of how family background, gender and education policy guides individual to higher education institution. The choice of education can be considered either as an individual choice or as a selection. Even if the individual has a clear idea of their own interests and desires, making the choice is not always dependent on these starting points. The choice of education therefore is not an individualistic process but is defined and guided by many social systems and limitations. In this descriptive literature review I make analysis and gather information about previous studies and results, which are important in this study. The function of this study is not to find or develop new information, but try to create wide understanding about the issue. The results of this descriptive literature review showed that family background, gender and education policy are big influencers to educational choices. This study showed also, that especially different dimensions of family background, like socioeconomic status, parents’ education and income level have a strong correlation with higher education. In addition, the role of gender appeared especially in the educational choices. Also the education policy can be said to have a strong influence as it determines the circumstances and situations according to which an individual needs to make the choices.