At the time, my colleague Jenni Kallio and I wrote a strongly worded commentary in defence of young people. We emphasised that every adult, whether an employer, teacher, researcher, or other professional, has a responsibility to reflect on the kinds of images and assumptions we produce about young people and the effects these may have on them. Our opinion piece was published in Helsingin Sanomat. Unfortunately, it is behind a paywall, but the full text can also be read on the website of the Under Pressure research project.
I believe that we do not know enough about what young people themselves think about vocational education. Nor do we know enough about what they think about the present moment, a time that is often thought to place particular pressures on young people.
Why I want to study “time” in vocational education
For the past three years, I have worked with my colleagues Päivi Honkatukia, Jenni Kallio and Nadezhda Vasileva on the Under Pressure research project, where we have explored, together with young people, the societal causes behind the so-called “mental health crisis” among youth. This “mental health crisis” is widely discussed both in Finland and internationally. During the project, we heard the views of hundreds of young people on societal pressures and their underlying causes. Many pointed to the pressures of a performance-oriented society, the dismantling of the welfare state, and the multiple crises surrounding us, from war to the climate crisis. At the same time, we found that vocational students themselves often described vocational education as a place of respite from all of this, because there is less pressure to constantly perform.
I find this deeply fascinating. I have a professional background in vocational education, both as a special needs instructor and through my work in the non-profit association. I also completed my doctoral dissertation on vocational students and their relationship with worker-citizenship. Over time, I have formed a picture of a highly ambivalent era in which many young people are trying to balance growing up, becoming independent, making a living, maintaining wellbeing, coping with everyday demands, and planning for the future.
That is why I want to know more about the thoughts and experiences of young people in vocational education. At the same time, I feel that brief research visits cannot provide a sufficiently rich understanding of young people’s experiences, nor allow me to fully grasp their “knowledge” of time. I also found myself wanting to spend more time with young people again: to hang out, chat, and observe their everyday lives. The youth worker within me began to reappear, reminding me that I had drifted rather far into the academic world. Perhaps it was time to return to the role of youth worker and, as a researcher, once again view young people’s lives from a more everyday perspective.
Towards the starting fieldwork at Spring
I must say, that I am eagerly looking forward to the fieldwork. It is hard to believe that I will actually be able to spend six months in a vocational education institution! I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Kone Foundation for its courage in placing its trust in this research idea.
My research is intentionally unstructured: I want to keep it open. I hope to adopt a phenomenological approach and to celebrate youth-centred research. The subject of my study, time, will take shape through what young people choose to tell me, what I observe as a newly arrived ethnographer in the institution, and what we, together with young people, wish to communicate through the research.
You can follow this research journey through this website or via my Instagram account. Last week, my project received a favourable opinion from the Tampere Region Ethics Committee for Human Sciences, and negotiations regarding the research permit are currently underway. In January, I intend to devote myself fully to fieldwork, and I hope to begin sharing preliminary findings and observations next autumn. Meanwhile, I will reflect my thoughts here on the blog, and perhaps some of the young people I meet will do so too.
Welcome aboard with me for the journey into vocational education!
This blog text is a translation from Finnish