Sub-study 1

Contextualized and cross-sectional analysis of the relative value of education and social selectiveness in HE graduate employability

Research problem:

Educational positionality entails that individual’s relative position in the labour market queue, which is affected by education and other background characteristics (class, gender, age),  becomes a more important indicator of employability than her/his absolute educational credentials. However, only a few empirical studies have striven to develop methods that capture such positionality and its role in mediating social inequalities in large scale samples (see however, Shavit & Park 2016). Education as a positional good is highly contextual (Bills 2016) and therefore, we need research that focuses on the particularities of one national system of higher education at a definite time period.

Research questions/hypotheses:

The key question is, in which ways educational level, educational field, social background and gender, and the various combinations of these factors, influence the employability of graduates. Which graduates gain the best jobs (in terms of occupational status and income) in relation to their highly educated peers? Based on our prior studies (Isopahkala-Bouret 2018; 2015a; Ojala 2017; Aro 2014), we can expect that both the higher level (Master’s degree over Bachelor’s degree) and the academic profile of a degree (disciplinary orientation at university over vocational orientation of UAS) provide advantage in graduate employability. Moreover, the value of education is dependent on graduates’ social background and gender and we will investigate how social selectiveness varies in different levels and settings of higher education in the Finnish context. Recent studies indicate that there are widening social biases of access to different degree programmes (Kivinen, Hedman & Kaipainen 2012; Nori 2011) and therefore, we can expect social selectiveness in relation to graduate employability to reflect similar patterns. In addition, we will ask specifically how graduates with professional UAS Master’s degrees, which still is a novel degree in Finland and has not stabilized its market status, demonstrate positional employability and labor market trajectories (Ojala 2017; Isopahkala-Bouret 2015a).

Studying positionality in relation to HE and employability in large-scale data-sets presents a novel approach that will contribute to a better understanding of the structural and institutional context in which graduates from different levels and institutional settings of the Finnish HE system enter the labor market and manage their employability. The Finnish case will offer a valuable point of comparison to other (European) HE systems with a binary structure.