This research project addresses the conference theme of citizenship and inclusion. Variables of class, gender and ethnicity are here vital in evaluating the meaning of inclusion – both in a wider societal context, and how it affects individuals’ perspective on opportunities. This project description is part of a doctoral thesis, and addresses the issues: (1) which student groups are entering an average-sized Swedish University College, and (2) how students allocate their education as a resource in relation to their social grouping. The selected University College for a case study is characterised by advocating closeness between study programmes and working-life, and the social background of the students is fairly heterogeneous. Many of the students are women, and the issue of gender in relation to qualitative and quantitative goals of higher education is essential. The working hypothesis states that patterns of social stratification persist in Swedish higher education, and this leads to the question of how an increased number of students in higher education relates to goals of equality and diversity. Methods used are both qualitative and quantitative.

The increasing function of universities as institutions for mass education might affect democracy and the universities' contribution to society. Students as choice-agents need to be involved in these processes. This paper scrutinises how students’ practical considerations for choices in education and future occupations correspond to policy objectives of socially productive educational choices. These objectives currently follow neoliberal rationalities regarding how to divide the responsibilities between the state and its citizens. In this context, choice-agents have to learn to identify themselves as economic subjects able to cope with economic transformation. The aim of our research is to examine the correspondence between educational policy objectives and students’ educational choices in practice. The research questions posed are to what extent students’ choices and motives reflect a (neoliberal) instrumentality? Is there a resistance against such rationalities in students’ actual choice-strategies? This issue is empirically investigated via a semi-structured questionnaire (n=322) with students from 7 vocational Swedish Human Resource programs in higher education. The case of higher education programme was seen as relevant, since weak professional university programs tend to stimulate rationalities amongst students that ritualise the role of education in terms of its formal credentials. Vocational programs are also a significant growth sector in higher education, with large proportions of non-traditional students. What is unclear, however, is whether these forms of education reinforce a desired policy ambition with regard to instrumental choices in education. These are policy rationalities that are questioned in the paper from a choice agency approach. The results of the study point to patterns where students tend to resist instrumentality and integrate their decisions in education as reflexive and relative autonomous personal projects in relation to the recognized social powers of the labor market.

Swedish higher education policy is currently moving toward consumption ideals that focus on promoting the efficiency and economic viability of student choices. This paper scrutinizes students’ practical considerations when making decisions regarding their education and future occupations and the choice rationalities and motives that these reflect. This issue is empirically investigated via a semi-structured questionnaire (n = 322) distributed to students from seven vocational Swedish human resource management (HRM) university programs. Vocational university programs like HRM are a significant growth sector in higher education. What is unclear, however, is whether these forms of education reinforce a desired policy ambition toward consumerist subjectivity among choice agents. The results of the study do not exclusively or even primarily express consumerist subjectivity. By vitalizing Pierre Bourdieu’s term “reasonable”, an organic form of reasoning becomes apparent that does not separate intrinsic dimensions of learning, knowledge, or personal and social concerns from merit and economic compensation. Moreover, the results indicate that security and interpersonal distinctions relating to professional alignment are situated in the forefront of the expressed motives for these educational choices.

The purpose of this article is to analyze why work life representatives are engaging themselves in joint knowledge production with academia. We intend to deepen our understanding of how the practitioners’ trust in academia is constituted, that is what trust-building practices conditions their trust. The article is based on interviews with practitioners who are cooperating with a Swedish research center. The result indicates that practitioners’ trust in cooperation is based on a combination of different trust-building practices, among which the academy as a dependable supplier of objective and authoritative knowledge production is still important. At the same time, practitioners’ trust is also dependent on the existence of shared and integrated knowledge production relevant to their professions. The main conclusion of the study is that academia has to manage a set of different conditions demanding that different trust-building practices be combined and managed for trust to be maintained.