This study focuses on the stories of four newly arrived women and their choices of vocational education and profession. The study highlights the women's life courses and addresses how their vocational skills from their home countries can influence their choices of vocational education and profession, and how these skills are utilised in Sweden.…

The aim of this study is to examine what it means to be a student in a vocational education and training programme in the municipal adult education system in Sweden and how the interplay between school and working life affects students' identity formation. To achieve this, 12 students from two different programmes have been interviewed at the end…

This paper aims to investigate the reasons some female mathematicians give to justify their choice to not work in academia after finishing their doctoral studies. Nine female mathematicians who finished a PhD in Sweden answered a written questionnaire. Through collective narrative analysis, two main tracks were identified. One narrative described…

Uncovering the motivations towards a profession may contribute to a better understanding of how the profession is chosen and will be pursued. However, the research on the attractiveness of the music teaching profession is rather limited and predominantly focused on identity development, thereby overlooking other aspects that may play a role. In…

In Sweden, upper secondary vocational education and training (VET) teachers must have high relevant vocational experience from a previous career, but 44% do not have a teaching certificate and thus are not formally qualified. However, there are significant differences between the 12 national VET programs in this respect. For example, 68 percent of…

Background: Given the disparities in gender representation, efforts are needed to make engineering education more inclusive and attractive to young people. It is important that those entering engineering education are making this decision with sufficient understanding of what it means to be an engineer. This study explored how lower secondary…

This study explores how lived experiences contribute to pre-service and novice teachers' redefinition of prior professional and academic identities in developing a mathematics teacher identity. It focuses on participants preparing to teach or teaching students aged 13-18. A hermeneutic-existential phenomenology perspective compares participants'…

This research investigates professional development with Syrian refugee women teachers settled in Lebanon and Sweden. Both countries offer professional training programmes for migrant teachers, enabling them to proceed with their careers. The purpose is to investigate how moving to a new country calls for an opportunity to engage in practice…

The COVID-19 pandemic challenged the daily continuity of young people by causing financial insecurity, remote work/studies, loss of work, loneliness, stress, and unpredictability of the future. This study explores the experiences of pandemic-time graduates from Finland and Sweden in the transition from higher education to work. Finland and Sweden…

The workforce in early childhood education and care (ECEC) is highly gender-segregated with a majority of women. Gender-sensitive professionalization is regarded a way to recruit more men, but there is a call for more empirical research into perspectives that combines bodily aspects of gender, professionalization and men`s career choices. Applying…

In this article we analyse what happens to career counselling when it is intertwined with the asylum process. A Swedish example is an amendment to the education legislation, regarding residence permits for upper secondary level students. Following the resulting changes in juridical, educational and interpersonal conditions, career counsellors must…

The present study compares student teachers' career choice motives and their relationship with stress-inducing thoughts across five European countries. A previously established factorial structure for career choice motives embedded within self-determination theory was supported. The factors consist of intrinsic motives, such as interest in…

This article poses these questions: How do participants on two different courses in folk high schools in Sweden, a basic course and a theatre course, motivate their educational and occupational choices, and what similarities and differences can be identified? We analyse interviews with students drawing on a narrative approach. Five trajectories…

Due to the changing landscapes of higher education, a large body of research has studied how scholars make sense of academic identities and careers. Yet, little is known about how academics actually 'work' on their identities to navigate normative demands and complex career structures. This paper explores how scholars negotiate career scripts…

Substantial research has shown that changes in contemporary western societies have prolonged transitions from youth to adulthood and altered the conditions and timing of transitions in education, work and family formation. Thus, contemporary society is creating new temporal conditions with important implications for social institutions,…