This article examines the implications of the school choice policy, which has contributed to the segregation of basic education in urban Finland, by analysing the connection between the socio-economic status (SES) of schools’ student populations and parents’ satisfaction with their children’s schools. The 318 participants were parents of lower secondary school students attending socio-economically affluent, average, and disadvantaged schools in three Finnish cities. Multiple indicators multiple causes modelling, with school SES and parental education as covariates, was used to test the hypothesis that a school’s higher SES is connected to higher levels of parental school satisfaction with different aspects of the school’s functioning. The hypothesis was partially verified as the results showed that a higher SES of a school implied more parental satisfaction with home–school cooperation and school culture. The findings suggest that the social segregation of basic education in urban Finland has implications beyond the differentiation of students’ academic achievements and provide empirical evidence on the workings of one of the segregation mechanisms.

The life course in general, and the educational trajectories of young people in particular, comprise a high degree of complexity as they take place in iterative, recursive and interactive negotiation processes in which numerous actors, institutions and discourses are involved. In this paper, an attempt is made to combine two conceptual discussions—Life Course and Governance—bringing them to bear on the examination of how Lifelong Learning (LLL) policies have been used to govern young people’s life courses. The paper synthesizes different discussions of the complex relations among governance, discourses and structures of opportunity that impact the governing of the life course and particularly educational trajectories. It suggests that the combination of life course research and a governance perspective enables analyzing the governance of educational trajectories along discursive, institutional and relational dimensions of opportunity structures. Considering these various dimensions, the paper argues, allows us to attend to the social interactions, decision-making processes and processing mechanisms that precede and/or underlie educational processes and thus favor or complicate them. The contribution also critically discusses the implications of a governance perspective on life courses and closes with a discussion of the multidimensional and multilevel challenge of governing life course by means of LLL policies.

This chapter examines the significance of socioeconomic background (SES) for the educational dispositions and aspirations of Finnish comprehensive school leavers. After demonstrating the existence of the relationship between the students’ SES background and their dispositions and aspirations, the main question addressed is whether this relationship changes when controlling for the effect of students’ academic ability as measured by their literacy skills. In our examination, we draw on a study of 15-year-old lower secondary school students (n = 1058) in Turku sub-region consisting of the city of Turku and ten smaller, surrounding municipalities. The results of our study are mixed. Students with high-level literacy skills have positive dispositions towards learning and education despite their socioeconomic background. The same is, however, not the case with educational aspirations. Among low-SES students, individual ability does not predict high educational aspirations in a similar manner that it does among high-SES students. This finding poses a challenge for the Finnish education system. If SES is a more significant predictor of educational aspirations of an individual than ability or motivation, there are negative effects for both individuals themselves and society. From the individual point of view, self-exclusion of gifted low-SES students from higher education decreases their future labour market opportunities and outcomes. From the societal point of view, in turn, it means that many occupational fields will lose potentially talented and skilful employees. In these respects, the Finnish education system would not only be unequal but also inefficient.

There is a clear consensus amongst educational researchers that school engagement contributes to students’ academic development. However, not all students share the enjoyment of learning and a sense of belonging at school, nor are all of them willing to exert effort in learning and school activities. Students who disengage from school are at risk of a range of adverse academic and social outcomes, which, at worst, culminate in students’ decisions to leave school early. Since the beginning of the 1970s, various findings about Finnish students’ school engagement have raised concerns along with the question of why Finnish students repeatedly rank lowly in international comparisons of happiness at school. This chapter provides insights into the issue of Finnish student (dis)engagement from school drawing on a range of research and survey data. In our view, student disengagement is a process that develops through an interplay between individual and contextual factors in a vicious circle of negative emotional and cognitive school and learning experiences, and is—if not reversed—rather stable or progressive. For this reason, it is crucial to identify early signs of disengagement and individual, social, and institutional factors associated with it.

In this chapter, we explore the meanings and motivations young adults attach to their participation in lifelong learning (LLL) policies and aim to identify LLL policy “participation styles” among young people in three functional regions across Europe: Kainuu in Finland, Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Region in Scotland, and Girona in Catalonia, Spain. We examine the participation styles in relation to young adults’ displayed agency, social background and resources, and previous life course progression, as well as the different policies and regional opportunity structures. The analysis is based on biographical interviews with young adults and thematic interviews with LLL policy experts. We identified four distinct participation styles based on the examined dimensions at both individual and policy levels. Furthermore, an additional pattern emerged from the data, as some young adults were able to alter the conditions of a given policy to meet their individual needs in a way that was not institutionally foreseen. In general, the ways in which young adults orient to LLL policies and adopt particular participation styles relate to two key dimensions: young adults’ agentic capacities and the levels of (formal or hidden) leeway policies offer to young people for adapting participation to their subjective needs and goals.