‘Some people may feel socially excluded and distressed’: finnish business students’ participation in extracurricular activities and the accumulation of cultural capital

ABSTRACT

A growing number of scholars have investigated how extracurricular activities (ECA) are intimately tied to graduates’ positional competition and enhancement of employability. Prior studies have shown that the strategic tendency towards ECA especially applies to privileged, high-achieving students from a high-status university. Yet studies considering ECA as a site of gendered practices have been scarce. We explore how graduates have accumulated cultural capital through their lived experiences in ECA and how ECA practices construct classed and gendered dispositions and distinctions among graduates. We draw on Bourdieu’s conception of cultural capital, as well as contemporary feminist debates over gender and capital. Analysing 32 graduate interviews from four business schools in Finland, we found that through participation in student associations’ ECA, our interviewees learned distinctive values, preferences and behaviours. In addition to ‘instrumental’ cultural capital, such as leadership skills that enhance CV, ECA provided opportunities to accumulate embedded cultural capital and confirm membership/learning to become a member in the professional middle class. Moreover, especially the female interviewees learned to adjust to masculine business culture and develop aspirations towards prestigious job positions.

KEYWORDS:

• Extracurricular activities
• cultural capital
• positional competition
• employability
• gender

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The present study is part of the larger project: Higher Education Graduates’ Employability and Social Positioning in the Labour Market, funded by the Academy of Finland (2018–2022). The purpose of the research project was to investigate the positionality of employability and graduates’ early career trajectories. Altogether, we conducted 76 graduate interviews in 2019 and, in addition, 44 follow-up interviews in 2020 with business graduates from Finnish universities and universities of applied sciences. In the current paper, we have excluded UAS graduates and mature students (aged over 30 years old).

2. In Finland, all universities have an independent student union, and membership is mandatory by law. The university’s student unions are represented by the National Union of University Students in Finland (SYL), the largest national student organisation providing benefits and services for all 130,000 Finnish university students (www.syl.fi). Student unions coordinate and finance ECA of smaller subject organisations and clubs.

3. We conducted the interviews at the university or interviewees’ workplace; some were conducted online or by phone because of long distance. The duration of the interviews varied from around one to three hours and produced rich data. We recruited the interviewees using multiple channels: student registers and the email lists of alumni and graduates’ professional associations. The interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim and pseudonymised. The original interviews were in Finnish, and the extracts used were translated into English by a professional. Ethical approval for the study was obtained from the University of Eastern Finland Committee on Research Ethics.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Academy of Finland under Grant 315797.

Notes on contributors

Ulpukka Isopahkala-Bouret

Ulpukka Isopahkala-Bouret works as a professor at University of Turku, Department of Education. Her research interest include equality in/through higher education, educational credentialing, and access to higher education. Moreover, he is currently leading a project on graduates’ employability and early career trajectories. She is also a chief editor of Aikuiskasvatus, a peer-reviewed adult education journal.

Päivi Siivonen

Päivi Siivonen works as an Associate Professor at the University of Turku, Department of Education. Her research interests include higher education, adult education, employability, academic entrepreneurship and social differences in relation to age, gender and class. Currently she is the leader of the consortium project ‘Higher Education Graduates’ Employability and Social Positioning in the Labour Market’, funded by the Academy of Finland.

Nina Haltia

Nina Haltia works as a university researcher at the University of Turku, Department of Education. Her research interests include access to higher education, non-traditional students and entry routes to university, and more widely social justice issues in the context of higher education.