Research widely (e.g. Niemi, Mietola & Helakorpi 2010; Båtevik & Myklebust 2006; Riddell et al 2001) suggests that the educational transitions of young people with special educational needs tend to be complicated, although the problems of transition are recognized and an extensive amount of resources has been put into place to prevent 'dropping out' from education (Niemi and Kurki 2013; Brunila 2012; Furlong 2006). In this paper, the authors consider the processes of educational choice-making and guidance of students regarded as having special educational needs. The context of the research is Finnish pre-vocational education and training. Not only in Finland but elsewhere too pre-vocational education is offered to the young people who have not been able to get a study place directly after comprehensive school or who ‘drop out’ from upper secondary education.

Listening to the educational subjects themselves, their hopes and future plans, has not been in the focus of the 'need-centred' discourse of special needs education (see Vehmas 2005; Allan 1999). By concentrating on the interview narrations of young adults who have participated in the pre-vocational training, we aim at exploring the negotiations of subjectivity while making educational choices. We operate with the concept of subjectification (Butler 1997; Davies 2006; Youdell 2006a,b) and understand it as an ongoing process through which one becomes a viable subject.

In the paper we ask, what kinds of educational choices become possible for students of the training programme and how do their educational hopes and future plans encounter the educational guidance given to them. In addition, we explore how do the limits and possibilities of the discursive and cultural practices of special needs education shape the subjectivity negotiations in educational choice-making (cf. Youdell 2006a,b).

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