Between hopes and possibilities? Educational paths and agency of young adults with special education background.

Author(s):

Anna-Maija Niemi(presenting / submitting)Reetta Mietola

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

04. Inclusive Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

04 SES 07 B, Paths, Transitions and Agency

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-09

17:15-18:45

Room:

206.Oktatóterem [C]

Chair:

Jonathan Rix

Contribution

Special needs education is commonly targeted at children and young people with various kinds of difficulties and impairments with learning and schooling. However, in spite of differences between the "needs" of the students, the practices of study counselling within special needs education and study options available for those students may produce similar kinds of educational paths and experiences (see e.g. Helakorpi et al 2014). Particularly disabled students are often positioned as subjects at risk because of their assumed potential for dropping out of education and becoming unemployed later on (Niemi & Kurki 2014; Tomlinson 2012). In addition, it is well researched in many European countries that disabled people’s educational paths and transitions to work still tend to be complicated (e.g. Yates & Roulstone 2013; Niemi, Mietola and Helakorpi 2010; Winn & Hay 2009; Båtevik and Myklebust 2006).

In this paper, we analyse educational and labour market possibilities of young disabled adults. The principal data analysed are life historical interviews carried out with 27 young adults, who had studied in segregated special needs education during their basic education in Finland. Here, we carefully concentrate on life-historical interviews of two disabled young adults. We are particularly interested in how educational paths and choices are formed within discursive practices of special needs education and within educational possibilities that have been available for our interviewees. Secondly we ask; how the interviewees make sense of their possibilities and action within these educational practices?

When studying the educational paths of disabled young adults, we have found the theoretical concept of agency being useful. We consider agency as culturally and discursively bounded but never completely determined (e.g. Evans 2007; Butler 2006). While reading our data with the theoretical concept of agency, we look for a way of analysing and representing our analysis which could, on the one hand, make visible those cultural and structural boundaries which are at present in educational discourses, on the other hand, adduce the possibilities and expressions of agency available in the narrations of our interviewees.

Method

Here, we draw on life-historical research approach. Our take on life-history research has been influenced both by youth studies and disability studies. In the interviews, the themes of education and work were discussed within the context of life-history. We underwent the whole educational path of each interviewee in detail, draw a history-line and discussed about it and talked about their current life situation and future plans. In addition, the interviewees were asked to name the important phases, changes and moments within their own educational path (see also Niemi et al 2010; Henderson et al 2007; Jahnukainen 1999). In this paper, we are focusing closely on two interviews, concentrating especially on the retrospective possibilities of narrative; how the interviewees tell about their own educational path and how they position themselves in their own narration. Our analytical stance is discursive which means that we do not consider interview narrations as something that could reveal “the real experiences” of the subjects interviewed (Davies 2004; St. Pierre 2000). Rather we think that experiences and narration is always constructed, shaped and shared within cultural and discursive practices (see also Gordon & Lahelma 2003).

Expected Outcomes

When examining agency, one important aspect in our analysis is to look at how the interviewees talk about educational transitions, educational choice-making and their position in the negotiations concerning choices. In both interviews, ambivalence and contradictions are at present. It seems that both the interviewees have recognized the barriers and cultural truths within their educational paths. Based on the analysis of the narratives, we can suggest that professionals and professional knowledge occasionally fail to acknowledge young people as experts of their own situation. Our analysis recognizes a double asymmetry in educational negotiations when there is young people vs. adult power relationship and young novice vs. professional adult power relationship. It seems that a sense of belonging and feeling of being competent in educational arenas would be important for the students. In relation to educational inclusion and one of its central characters, participation, belonging could demand access to resources of different types (Anthias 2008; see also Ainscow, Booth & Dyson 2006; Wilson 2003).

References

Båtevik, F. O., and J. O. Myklebust. 2006. “The Road to Work for Former Students with Special Educational Needs: Different Paths for Young Men and Young Women?” Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research 8 (1): 38–52. Davies, B. 2004. “Introduction.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 17 (1): 3–9. Evans, K. 2007. “Concepts of Bounded Agency in Education, Work, and the Personal Lives of Young Adults.” International Journal of Psychology 42 (2): 85–93. Gordon, T. & Lahelma, E. 2003. From ethnography to life history: tracing transitions of school students. International journal of social research methodology, 6 (3), 245–254. Henderson, S., Holland, J., McGrellis, S., Sharpe, S. & Thomson, R. 2007. Inventing adulthoods. A biographical approach to youth transitions. Sage. London. Niemi, A.-M. & Kurki, T. 2014. Getting on the right track? Educational choice-making of students with special educational needs in pre-vocational education and training, Disability & Society, 29:10, 1631-1644 Niemi, A.-M., R. Mietola, and J. Helakorpi. 2010. Erityisluokka elämänkulussa. Selvitys peruskoulussa erityisluokalla opiskelleiden vammaisten, romaniväestöön kuuluvien ja maahanmuuttajataustaisten nuorten aikuisten koulutus- ja työelämäkokemuksista [Special Needs Education Class in the Life Course]. Sisäasiainministeriön julkaisuja 1/2010. Helsinki: The Finnish Ministry of the Interior. St. Pierre, E. A. 2000. “Poststructural Feminism in Education: An Overview.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 13 (5): 477-515. Tomlinson, S. 2012. A Sociology of Special Education. Abingdon: Routledge (Routledge Library Editions: Education vol 217) Yates, S., and A. Roulstone. 2013. “Social Policy and Transitions to Training and Work for Disabled Young People in the United Kingdom: Neo-liberalism for Better and for Worse?” Disability & Society 28 (4): 456–470.

Author Information

Anna-Maija Niemi (presenting / submitting)

University of Helsinki

Institute of Behavioural Sciences

Fiskars

Reetta Mietola

University of Helsinki, Finland

Search the ECER Programme

Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
Search for authors and in the respective field.
For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.