Governing citizenship for students with learning disabilities in everyday vocational education and training

Abstract

In recent decades, disability policy programmes and conventions have been underlining how improving educational opportunities, especially for post-compulsory education, improve the employability and independence of disabled people, and thus their position in society and as citizens. However, little attention has been paid to actual educational practices and how they relate to these policy objectives. This article focuses on post-compulsory education for students with learning disabilities in Finland, more precisely on a vocational training programme called Preparatory Education for Work and Independent Living (PEWIL). In our ethnographic study of the programme, we scrutinise how daily educational practices govern citizenship for its students. We argue that even though these students are perceived as ‘trainable’ mainly in sheltered work and as only able to live in an institutionalised setting—thus reproducing their marginalisation—they have internalised the idea of a neoliberal labour market citizen with an emphasis on independence and employability.

Points of interest

• The subject of this article is a vocational education and training programme for young people with learning disabilities. The aim of the programme is to give students skills for working and independent living in mainstream society.

• We are interested in how citizenship is understood on the programme.

• The first author participated in the everyday life of the programme and interviewed students.

• We found that the programme prepares students to work in sheltered workshops and to live in group homes.

• In interviews, the students said they want to have regular paid jobs and live independently in their own flats.

Keywords:

• Vocational education and training
• learning disabilities
• citizenship
• ethnography
• governmentality

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr Kate Sotejeff-Wilson for proofreading and for her insightful comment concerning abuse cases in institutional settings.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Due the multiple reforms of VET in Finland between 2015 and 2018, the term ‘curriculum’ was replaced with ‘qualification requirements’ or ‘education requirements’ in the context of VET and PEWIL in 2015 (see Vocational Education and Training Act 531/2017 2017; Vocational Education and Training Act 630/1998 1998). However, as neither of these terms are commonly used anywhere else except Finland, we use the term ‘curriculum’ in this text.

2 The 2015 curriculum was valid when the fieldwork was being conducted. The aims of the current curriculum are nearly the same (see FNAE 2018).