Anna Bennich-Björkman: Högre utbildning som norm: Nya sätt att bli vuxen och självständig i en tidigare bruksort

Abstract

This study investigates the perception and navigation of higher education among young adults in a former industrial community in Sweden. Similar to other countries, the Swedish system of higher education has expanded considerably since the 1960s, to include more students and institutions. Alongside this expansion, a process of de-industrialisation has taken place since the 1970s. The thesis focuses on a locality severely affected by the diminishing of manufacturing industries, where higher education was unusual due to the prevalence of working-class occupations. The study asks how higher education is managed in a context where educational levels are comparatively low and where labour market participation did not previously require tertiary qualifications.

The thesis is designed as a single-case study of Söderhamn, Sweden. The main method used is in-depth interviews with young adults and parents. Through the study of how young adults reason about education in general, and a potential entry into tertiary education in particular, the thesis analyses how higher education is viewed within this social context. Using social class, gender, and dispositions to interpret the interviewees’ reasoning, the thesis arrives at the conclusion that there exists a higher education norm among young adults in Söderhamn today. Far from everyone will or want to attend university, yet, the study points to the fact that young adults are required to negotiate the norm of higher education, even if they prefer a different path.

A significant conclusion is that this newly established norm of higher education is intertwined with older norms tied to the locality’s industrial past. Young adults and parents share the view that higher education is necessary for a stable position in the labour market today. Thus, tertiary education is perceived as an instrument for becoming employable, thereby upholding values of independence and adulthood that have existed for longer. The thesis concludes that the processes of de-industrialisation and the expansion of higher education both sustain and create new social norms that affect young adults’ perceptions and navigations of a potential entry into higher education.