This paper draws on the story of "Mikael", a schoolboy from northern Finland, to examine how his affective ties of compassion and his pursuit of dominant forms of masculinity evolve in his journey from middle childhood to young adulthood. In his earlier years, Mikael's speech regarding his relationships with peers and family members…

Research material from ethnographic studies of vocational upper secondary educational programmes in Finland and Sweden presented here indicates that the discourse of schoolwork as being either theoretical or practical is firmly fixed. However, the students on the researched programmes were aware of recent changes in the labour market that raise a…