Becoming entrepreneurial: Transitions and education of unemployed youth

Abstract

In Finland, young people who are neither employed nor in any education or training programme are expected to participate in short-term education, the aim being to improve their work life and employment skills, and thus make them more accountable for their labour market outcomes. An extensive assortment of so-called transition activities is created to guide young adults ‘into society’. The empirical data is analysed by using a discursive approach. The focus is on the consequences of entrepreneurial discourses, with specific attention given to project-based educational practices that train young adults on the margins of education, working life and society. Based on their results, the authors show how entrepreneurial activities offer skills for representing oneself in accordance with entrepreneurial ideals, but might limit opportunities to speak otherwise.