A growing political interest in access and the study success of diverse student populations in higher education has been witnessed in many countries in Western Europe lately. Higher education has also been reformulated as a main vehicle for sustainable growth in society, which has led to new political priorities which connect educational policy and the notion of workforce competitiveness and employability in an increasingly globalized world (Europe 2020). Member states in the European Commission have been encouraged to invest in their higher education systems ensuring increased access to higher education and student success guided by buzzwords like widening or broadening participation, student retention and employability.

At the same time, students are expected to be mobile, at least in neoliberal and modernist discourses, which transcend national educational policies. Nonetheless, being mobile can mean different things, for example, in terms of using higher education for climbing upwards socially or geographically within the Bologna framework. But it  could also include moving in and out of financial systems (labour market, student finance) as well as managing time, deadlines, keeping up, and the timing of important events during one’s educational career.

In relation to the ideal visions of successful student trajectories which can be derived from educational policy and debates, it can be questioned whether the opportunities to access higher education, to be mobile, efficient and successful are the same for all students. This connects to research problems that have been attended to in many countries, i.e. in the Nordic region such as in Finland, in Denmark, in Norway and in several other European countries such as i.e. in the UK, Belgium, Portugal, France and the Netherlands. Student enrolment, efficiency and completion are however not solely  European issues. Dropout and non-completion of higher education have been prioritised issues in the US for a considerable time.  Consequently, there has been an increased political focus on student enrolment, efficiency and completion in higher education at the national level in Sweden as well. 

The aim of the study was to analyse enrolment, and study efficiency and completion among students in the teacher programme.

The theoretical underpinning in the design is constructed through concepts developed and used by Pierre Bourdieu such as social space and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986, 1989). Social space is understood as a social structure. The closer the individuals are in the social space under study, the more common properties they share and the reverse, the more distant they are, the fewer properties they have in common (Bourdieu, 1989). The properties, i.e. the students’ social and cultural resources are operationalised according to the notion of cultural capital, which are embodied and accumulated through the individuals’ socialisation within the family, the social class and society (Bourdieu, 1986). The students’ relative positions and positioning in the social structure, here in terms of a specific social space of higher education, are analysed by the type and amount of cultural capital that the students possess. The embodiment of cultural capital lies more or less implicitly in the educational strategies that students show when they make choices to enrol in an educational path at a specific university at a given period of time in their lives.

Archer, E., Chetty, Y. B., & Prinsloo, P. (2014). Benchmarking the Habits and Behaviours of Successful Students: A Case Study of Academic-Business Collaboration. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 15(1). Archer, L., Hutchings, M., & Ross, A. (2002). Higher education and social class: issues of inclusion and exclusion. London: London Routledge Bathmaker, A-M., Ingram, N. & Waller, R. (2013). Higher education, social class and the mobilization of capitals: recognizing and playing the game. British Journal of Sociology of Education. Vol.34, Nos. 5-6, pp 723-743. Bourdieu, P. (1986) The Forms of Capital. In John G. Richardson (Ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. New York: Greenwood. Byrom, T., & Lightfoot, N. (2013). Interrupted trajectories: the impact of academic failure on the social mobility of working class students. British Journal of Sociology of Education, Vol. 34, No 5-6, pp 812-828. Christie, H. (2007). Higher education and spatial (im)mobility: non-traditional students and living at home. Environment and Planning 2007, volume 39, pages 2445-2463. Jungert, T., Alm, F., & Thornberg, R. (2014). Motives for becoming a teacher and their relations to academic engagement and dropout among student teachers, Journal of Education for Teaching: International research and pedagogy, 40:2, 173-185. Meeuwisse, M., Severiens, S. E., & Born, M. P. (2010). Reasons for withdrawal from higher vocational education. Studies in Higher Education, 35(1), 93-111 Reay, D., David, M.E. & Ball, S.J. (2005). Degrees of choice: social class, race and gender in higher education. Stoke: Trentham. Redmond, P. (2010). Outcasts on the inside: Graduates, employability and widening participation. Tertiary Education and Management. 12: 119–135. Reisel, L., & Brekke, I. (2010). Minority dropouts in Higher education: A comparison of the United States and Norway using Competing risk event history analysis. European Sociological Review, Vol. 26, no.6, pp. 691-712. Shankland, R., Genolini, C., Riou França, L., Guelfi, J.-D., & Ionescu, S. (2009). Student adjustment to higher education: the role of alternative educational pathways in coping with the demands of student life. Higher Education, 59(3), 353-366. Trow, M. (2005). Reflections on the transition from elite to mass universal access: form. In P. Altbach (ed). International handbook of higher education. Kluwer. Wells, R. (2008). The Effects of Social and Cultural Capital on Student Persistence: Are Community Colleges More Meritocratic? Community College Review, 36(1), 25-46. Yorke, M., & Longden, B. (2004). Retention and Student Success in Higher Education. Maidenhead, Open University.