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Various Paths to PhD and Academic Career in Education – A Qualitative Study Juha Suoranta and Marjo Vuorikoski Department of Education University of Tampere Finland Paper presented at the Nordic Perspectives of Lifelong Learning in the New Europe conference, Turku 15-17.03. 2007 Introduction In this paper we focus on doctoral studies as a particular form of socialization, and will explore various paths to PhD and academic career in the Finnish educational sciences. We utilize a life history method in analyzing our data that includes biographies and autobiographies of Finnish doctors in Education. Our respondents represent researchers from different generations. Although our approach is qualitative and rather open-ended we are interested in knowing, how such factors as age, gender, social class, family’s economic and social status influence the selection of postgraduate studies and later academic careers. Our approach stems from the theory of cultural capital: We are interested in how our respondents make sense and construct their lived experiences in terms of gender, social class, and cultural capital. Sex/gender has long been among the most common factors in singling out women from the postgraduate studies and hence from the academic career. Besides that we like to find out, if it is the same with social class in the Finnish – seemingly ”classless”– society. Is the class background another ”hidden truth” in the academia? In the paper we present the points of departure of our research project. First, we outline the expansion of Finnish postgraduate education and professoriate in Education. This ”big picture” of Finnish higher education as well as education and science policies forms the context knowledge of our study. Secondly we focus on gender perspective, and thirdly take a look on class issue– autobiographical texts by some first-generation academics offer examples of lived experiences. The Expansion of Finnish Postgraduate Education and Professoriate in Education Education is one of the oldest disciplines in Finnish universities. The first professorship was established in 1852 at the University of Helsinki. The University of Helsinki maintained a central position in Education in the nineteenth century as well as in the first decades of the twentieth century. Two new professorships were established in the 1930’s in Turku and Jyväskylä. The increase of professors took place gradually and slowly before the 1970’s when the expansion of the discipline began: the academization of teacher education led to the establishment of faculties of education in several universities in 1973. (Rinne 1998.)

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A new era in the field of Education in Finland started. The number of professors grew significantly in the 1970’s. In the 1960’s there were 10 professorships, by 1972 their number had doubled, and in 1975 it was 63. The increase of professors continued which was related to the expansion of Finnish higher education. Currently, there are Chairs of Education in eight Finnish universities, and the number of professors is 131. (Pennanen 1997; KOTA database 2005.) The expansion of graduate and postgraduate training in Education have followed the general societal development related to growth of economy, labor market changes, the expansion of education and demographic development. Building of the Finnish welfare state since the 1960’s brought state steering also to higher education policy and science policy. Before the World War II the professors in the universities were responsible for decision-making on postgraduate education, and they possessed the professional monopoly of expertise in the field of postgraduate education. (Kivinen et al. 1993; Laiho 1998.) The graduates working in the universities were scarce until the late 1950’s, and those interested in an academic career could count on getting a position. Female postgraduate students were extremely few. Students, as well as the professors, had an upper class background. Entrance to postgraduate studies was not limited. Social background filtered the newcomers effectively, and social closure was therefore not very strict. (Laiho 1998.) In the field of Education, the first woman Kaino Oksanen earned her PhD in 1919. It took for forty years after that before the first female professor, Inkeri Vikainen, was nominated to her position in the university of Turku. (http://www.helsinki.fi/akka-info/tiedenaiset/etusivu.html) In the 1960’s, the state started to steer higher education, and the state intervention decreased the autonomy of the academia: in the postgraduate education the interests of the professors collided with the state, the policies of which were increasingly tied to the economy and needs of labor market policy. (Laiho 1998.) Developing of the welfare state affected the expansion of graduate education: both the number of students and teachers increased considerably in the universities during the 1960’s and 1970’s. The large post-war age cohorts massified the universities, and the student body became more middle class. Teacher and research staff grew faster than the number of professors, and the differentiation of the whole university staff deepened. However, both researchers and professors were still mainly recruited from the upper social strata. (Laiho 1998.) The number of female professors in the Finnish universities was only a few percent at the end of the 1970’s. The proportion of the female researchers was about one fourth. In the field of Education, the number of women among the PhDs increased. In 191969, only seven women had earned doctorate, and their proportion was about 10 percent of all PhDs in Education. In the 1970’s, it was about one fourth. (http://www.helsinki.fi/akka-info/tiedenaiset/etusivu.html) During the 1980’s and 1990’s, both the ideology and the policy of the Finnish welfare state changed. The information society set new efficiency demands for science and universities. Models of higher education adopted from OECD and EU countries emphasized market economy principles, efficiency, accountability and assessment.

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More weight was given to the postgraduate education. A graduate school system, which was founded at a national level in 1995, resulted to a dramatic increase of doctoral dissertations. A total of 1,156 PhDs was obtained in 2000, more than twice the amount obtained in 1990. In the same period, the proportion of women among PhDs increased from 23 to 45 percent, in absolute numbers from 155 to 523. (Husu 2001, 70-72; KOTA database). Currently, universities are blamed of becoming PhD factories. In a Nordic comparison, Finnish women entered higher education earlier and in larger numbers than women in other Nordic countries. It concerns both university students and academic staff. For instance, in the mid-1990’s, Finland had higher levels of female participation in all major disciplinary fields in professorships as well as in other academic posts. (Ståhle 1996, 98–106; see also Husu 2001, 15, 74-75.) The socially biased recruitment base to Finnish higher education shows a gender pattern. Academic women in Finland have traditionally come more often from a more privileged class background and from more highly educated families than male academics. In the mid-1980’s Finnish women with postgraduate degrees came predominantly from white-collar families if measured by occupation of both father and mother (Silvennoinen & Laiho 1992, 296). Two thirds of male PhDs came from white-collar families, whereas nine out of ten woman PhDs had a white-collar father, and also the mothers of female PhDs were usually white-collar workers. Two thirds of female doctors had at least one parent with university education, of male doctors over half. This means that working class or agrarian origin academics are rare, and female working class or agrarian academics even more so. (Husu 2001, 75.) The proportion of female PhDs in Education was during the 1970’s about one fourth, but currently it is already 63 percent. However, men are still overrepresented among the doctors because the number of male MA degree holders is only 18 percent (KOTA database 2004.) Simultaneously with the increase of PhDs in Education, the amount of professors and other teaching staff has expanded significantly. In 2005, the number of academic staff in the departments of education was 811; the proportion of women was 58 percent. The number of professorships in Education has more than doubled since the 1970’s. In 1975, the number of professors was 63, and in 2005 it was 131. Also the gender structure has become more equal: in 1983 the proportion of women was only six percent, and in 2005 it was 49 percent. (Pennanen 1997; Rinne 1998, 42-43; KOTA database 2005.) The proportion of female professors is high compared to all the disciplinary fields in which woman professors’ share is about one fifth (KOTA database 2005). Moreover, the recruitment pattern to the Finnish professorships in Education has changed since the 1970’s. Instead of coming from elites, professors’ social background has become more diverse; one third of the professors had working class background in the 1980’s (Rinne 1998, 47). Recruitment routes have also changed considerably from 1960’s, when PhDs could still expect to have a professorship. During 1978-87 less than a half of doctors reached a professorship. Currently, due to the huge expansion of PhDs competition has become still harder. Career paths to

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professors in Education follow a very different kind of pattern compared to the 1960’s. (See Rinne 1998, 43-47.) We have a great deal of statistical information on career paths of Finnish PhDs and professors in Education. These studies offer a ”big picture” of the history and trends in the field of Education, and serve as context knowledge for our study. However, we lack PhD’s own point of views, that is, their experiences related to academic studies and careers especially from the point of view of gender and class. Life History Method Thus in studying these experiences we use life history method that includes theme interviews, biographies and autobiographies of Finnish PhDs. Our approach stems from the theory of cultural capital in understanding various paths to PhD and academic careers in Education. Our respondents include men and women, who have completed their doctoral studies in the different parts of the country, and represent doctors from different generations. Although our approach is qualitative and rather open-ended, we are interested in knowing, how such factors as age, sex, social class, and family’s economic and social status influence the choice of pursuing postgraduate studies. We like to find out how our respondents make sense and construct their lived experiences in terms of gender, social class, and cultural capital. The more specific research questions are: What kinds of processes did lead to studies of Education, and later pursuing postgraduate studies in Education? What have been their goals in pursuing doctoral studies, and in their later careers? Where and how did they receive professional and personal support in their postgraduate studies and academic career? What kinds of obstacles or discrimination did they encounter in different phases of their postgraduate studies and academic careers? What kinds of coping mechanisms and agencies did they employ when facing obstacles or discrimination? The crucial focus for life-history work is to locate informants’ life stories alongside a broader contextual analysis. Distinctive to the life-history method is that life stories are always located in their historical contexts. (See Goodson 2003). In this respect it resembles socioanalysis in which it is possible to learn to know oneself as a particular social being in a given historical moment (Bourdieu 1998, 9). In our study, life stories of PhDs in Education will be contextualized by relating them to their places in the academic organization, and to the university and the scientific community as a studying and working environment. Furthermore, the lager context of informants’ life stories includes Finnish higher education system as well as higher education policy and science policy which all have gone through multiple changes over time. Gender has long been among the most common factors in singling out women from the post-graduate studies and hence from the academic career. Besides that we like to find out, if it is the same with social class in the Finnish – seemingly ”classless”–

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society for, as we believe, gender and class as experiences are often inseparable from each other (see also Cobble 2004, 34). Or as Hart (2005, 63) states, “Class is neither a static notion, nor isolated from gender or other social categories.” In the following chapters we will map the territory of our narrative research. First, we focus on gender issues related to paths to PhDs and academic careers, and secondly on social class. We are well aware that these two are intertwined, but so far there is barely any research focusing both of them in the same study, and none in the Finnish academic context. Although a few feminist researchers in Education (e.g. Raehalme 1996, Saarinen 2003) have studied experiences of female postgraduates and academics, their studies focus on PhDs in all disciplinary fields. Gender Matters in Academia Women’s abilities for intellectual activity have been doubted through ages. The very origin of the university is gendered: it was built on male privilege and female exclusion. From the eleventh century until the nineteenth century, universities excluded women on the basis of their sex. In Finland, women received full rights to study in the university in 1901. (Husu 2001, 19.) Nowadays, the Finnish university system is formally gender-neutral: there are no formal obstacles that would prevent women’s access as women to higher education or advancement to even the highest academic posts. However, gender inequality still exists. The concept of ”glass ceiling” and the less generally used concept of ”chilly climate” both refer to invisible barriers that prevent women’s advancement in academia. The better-known metaphor in the Finnish academic context is a ”black hole” (e.g. Academy of Finland 1997): after obtaining their doctorate, women seem to disappear into a black hole. Factors that make women feel themselves less welcome in academia than their male colleagues have been pointed out by feminist researchers. A summary of North American studies collected by Paula Caplan (1993, 30-31) includes such factors as lack of encouragement, sexist joking, sexist use of language, belittling women and their work, sexual harassment, double standards and stereotypic expectations, and finally the general masculinity, racism and heterosexism of the academic environment. Peggy Tripp-Knowles (1995, 28-34) argues in her review of 60 (mostly North American) interdisciplinary studies on barriers encountered by woman scientists that it is the ”cumulative disadvantage” that women experience in their academic careers. She summarizes the barriers of women scientists’ careers: lack of role models, stereotypical and sexist expectations of society and peers, the chilly climate in academia, inappropriate teaching methods and psychological effects of living in a sexist society. According to Tripple-Knowles, these barriers are found to exist on the systemic level, institutional level, and interpersonal level and on the ”self” level. The position of women in academia has been studied extensively during the last two decades, especially in the Anglophone world. Research literatures have produced a considerable amount of relevant results on gender in academia, science and higher education. Feminist researchers have reported their empirical results on gender differences and the position of women in academia. These studies have also constructed the field in defining what the ”problem” is in the relation of women and

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academia: there has been a shift from focusing on women as a problem – their identities and characteristics – towards problematizing academia, its gendered cultures, structures and practices. Furthermore, in the field of studies on academia, higher education and science, academics have been studied as elites, intellectuals and intelligentsia, knowledge producers or experts. However, in most disciplines problematizing gender in the fields of inquiry has so far been a fairly recent, fairly limited and scattered development. (See Husu 2001,22, 30-32). ”Gender” has mainly referred to women in most studies. When gender has been problematized, the focus has been on women, or comparing women’s performance, position or career development to that of men. If men have been included, they have served as a comparison group, for instance, in studies of scientific productivity. Problematizing academic masculinities instead of taking men for granted, and studying academic men ”as men”, is fairly rare. Furthermore, diversity among academic women by ethnic and class background, sexual orientation, age or disability is also a neglected perspective and should be addressed more systematically in research. (See Husu 2001, 31-32.) Comprehensive comparative studies on women in academia are very few and comprehensive country-specific studies are scarce. Furthermore, there is a lack of gender statistics on academia. However, existing research and statistics show a clear gendered pattern: in Finland as well as elsewhere women are a small minority in top positions, a larger minority of the highest degrees, and disciplines are persistently gender segregated. (See e.g. Lie & Malik 1996.) Moreover, gender differences have been documented not only in the academic hierarchy and choice of discipline but also in such factors as academic salaries, publishing activity, and research funding (Husu 2001, 21). Gender Discrimination in Academia Literature on women in higher education and in science originates overwhelmingly from Anglophone cultural settings. There are considerable differences between higher education systems as well as gender systems between countries, and that is why the broader cultural setting should not be taken for granted. However, comprehensive and large-scale studies on women in the Finnish academic system have not been conducted. Women in academia have been predominantly studied by social scientists. Only a few works have been conducted in the field of Education (e.g. Raehalme 1996; Saarinen 2003). Both Finnish research studies and large-scale surveys conducted on how men and women perceive gender equality in the Finnish academic system point out that gender inequality still exists. The recent surveys suggest that women and men’s experiences of academia are very different despite women’s increased presence in academia (see Husu 2001, 81-84). One of the latest comprehensive studies on hidden discrimination of academic women conducted by Husu (2001) demonstrates how sexism and hidden discrimination continue in the daily life of academia. However, she also underlines the various ways academic women continue to challenge it.

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In the framework of her qualitative study, Husu approaches academia as gendered organizations, characterized by gendered divisions, symbols and interactions. In her view, men and women are seen as active agents, ”doing” gender in their everyday lives in academia and elsewhere, and gendered distinctions and patterns are seen as socially produced. The concept of gendered processes is a key concept in her framework. This kind of a framework is useful in our narrative study as well. According to Joan Acker (1992, 251-255), gendered processes mean that ”advantage and disadvantage, exploitation and control, action and emotion, meaning and identity, are patterned through and in terms of a distinction between male and female, masculine and feminine”. Gendered processes are not always visible, overt or explicit. Instead, they are often hidden in organizational processes. In addition, they are usually entangled with race and class. For analytical purposes, Acker outlines four different sets of gendering processes: the production of gender divisions, the production of gendered symbols and images, gendered interaction and internal mental work of individuals. All these four types of gendered processes in organizations are intertwined with organizational culture. Organizational culture refers to dominant ways of doing things in an organization. It is understood to shape the experiences of its members: how they feel about the organization and how they feel about themselves. Gender discrimination can produce gender divisions within an organization: instead of formal obstacles, attention should be directed to the hidden, the covert, the informal and the unspoken forms of gender discrimination. Researchers have distinguished different types of discrimination in academia. The concept of gender discrimination refers to non-overt forms of gender discrimination that can operate at different analytical levels ranging from macro to micro, and can refer both to the formal and informal organization. Nijole Benokraitis and Joe Feagin (1995, 39) have developed a useful sociological conceptual division regarding gender discrimination: overt/blatant, subtle and covert. Subtle discrimination processes are not often seen as discriminatory because they have become more or less acceptable through tradition, custom, or folk beliefs. According to Benokraitis (1997, 6-7), subtle gender discrimination can operate at four levels: individual, organizational, institutional, and cultural level. The visibility of discrimination varies: the cultural and institutionalized forms stay more often invisible and are less recognized than subtle sexism encountered at the individual level. Gender discrimination can become entangled with other forms of discrimination such as age, social class, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, marital status, religion and disability forming ”tiers of inequality” (Benokraitis 1998, 7). However, Benokraitis and Feagin (1995) view that subtle discriminatory practices are not necessarily intentionally discriminatory. Many of them may be perceived as negative by the target but friendly and positive by the initiator. Postgraduate students or academics construct their identities in academic cultures, formal as well as informal. However, despite the fact that the existence of more covert, subtle, and hidden forms of gender discrimination in academia are recognized in research, there has been less focus on women’s different responses and agency in relation to discrimination experiences and inequalities, and more generally, on women’s survival strategies and coping mechanisms. Husu (2001) has focused on women’s agency and forms of resistance in relation to discrimination. She emphasizes

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the fact that it is crucial to produce more empowering understandings of persistent gender inequalities in order to challenge them, acting ”change agents” in academia. The complexity of challenging gender discrimination in the Finnish context is not difficult only because of its mostly hidden character, but the tradition of not making gender a basis of conflict in the Finnish culture, as summed up in the statement by Tuula Heiskanen and Liisa Rantalaiho (1997, 196), ”women and men should act together, not oppose each other”. They call this ”gender blindness, gender muteness and gender deafness” of both organizations and people within organizations. These absences and silences can concern not only female academics and their academic work, and male academics as men, but also the very construction of scientific knowledge and how gender is absent, silenced, ignored or marginalized in the corpus of what is predominantly understood as academic knowledge and science. Gender-neutrality of Finnish school and university cultures also affect the research interests of those conducting research on higher education in the field of Education (see e.g. Vuorikoski 2005; Vuorikoski & Ojala 2006). Those few Finnish studies focusing on women’s experiences in academia (e.g. Raehalme 1996; Saarinen 2003) do not especially concentrate on postgraduate students or women academics in Education. Furthermore, other Finnish researchers (e.g. Laiho 1998; Rinne 1998) conducting studies on doctoral students and professors in Education do not pay particular attention to gender. When sex/gender is included in studies, it usually forms one of the background factors. The same seems to be the case with social class. Social Class as Ambivalence of the Intellectual Universe Social class has belonged to the core concepts of social and educational science since the early days of social theory. Theorists have used social class in many different ways and given it multiple definitions. In social sciences it has been used as theoretical device, sometimes also as an ideological tool. In theoretical debate it has had several definitions ranging from structural and functional to processual and experiential characterizations and uses. In political sphere, it has marked people's social position and social condition. As Nesbit (2005, 38) has put it: "It is a structural reality, arising from people's relationship to the means of production and to political power. … More importantly for our purposes, class is a process, a relationship." In sociological and educational research social class has long been used to indicate and predict students' accomplishment and success in education. In the recent history of Finland, education has served as a major venue for upward social mobility for the working and middle classes. Finns have long valued education and put their efforts and maybe too high hopes in it because in the past it has been a scarce source. From the early 1970s' on, higher education has socialized the successors of the working and middle classes as members of a new academic class and dedicated them into an academic value set. In the time period 1970-1990, students have changed their academic degrees into quality jobs in the labor markets rather easy. Despite its obvious relevance, it seems that social class has been underrepresented in social and educational theory in last decade or two (Nesbit 2005, 1). Why do educational researchers tend to ignore class-based explanations if compared to such

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related social vector as gender? Or is this view only an illusion? Contrary to gender social class has not been a widely debated topic or raised much research interest in the last 10-15 years. Usually it has been a sort of a hidden or a silent truth in the process of academic socialization in Finland. But why is it so? Explanations are certainly many. One reason is obvious: higher education has worked as a vehicle for upward social mobility and there has not been any particular reason to take up the class issue. Another reason has to do with the fact that in their degree hunting students cannot gain any relevant capital – intellectual, social, cultural – by declaring to be a working class; it does not have any exchange value or any use value for that matter. Perhaps only a fool would confess to be a working class kid, or, for that matter, own any other social background, in the climate of mainstream social sciences dominated by the objective view of science where personal does not count (according to an official true story). Besides degree studies in higher education, the same impersonality goes in research communities. Academic cultures in general and educational research culture in particular have not been extremely sensitive to such personal issues as class status. As Merton (1968) once convincingly argued, academic research is believed to be based on the norm of communism and disinterestness. This norm has been true in Finland where educational scientists have been busy in creating their own professional caste in their seemingly classless and genderless castles. This can be one of the reasons for the lack of empirical research on academics' social class in Finland. We do know something, thanks to Rinne's empirical work on Finnish Professors of Education. In the 1990's 25 percent of them came from the working class, others have either a middle class or upper middle class background. In general Finnish Professors usually come from elite families, and less than 10 percent of them had a working class background in the late 1990's. (Rinne 1998, 47.) This general view holds also with Finnish Professors of Adult Education who usually come from upper classes, and rarely from working class (see Table 1). Internationally the case is not so much different in terms of statistical and other empirical studies. There are only few studies in the area, or they are at least hard to find. Of course, we have Pierre Bourdieu's groundbreaking work on academic reproduction, educational distinctions, and battles over power and intellectual capital. Curiously Bourdieu himself fulfilled quite an extraordinary double standard of being a distinguished and celebrated Professor in Collège de France, and at the same time being painfully conscious of his petit bourgeois if not a working class status among his peers. He once explained this position as follows: "Most of the questions I address to intellectuals who have so many answers and, at bottom, so few questions are no doubt rooted in the feeling of being a stranger in the intellectual universe. I question this world because it questions me, and in a very profound manner, which goes well beyond the mere sentiment of social exclusion: I never feel fully justified to be an intellectual, I don't feel 'at home'. I feel like I have to be answerable – to whom I don't know – for what appears to me to be an unjustifiable privilege." (Bourdieu 1980, 76, cit. Wacquant 1990, 679.) In another occasion in conversation with Terry Eagleton Bourdieu said: "I try to put together two parts of my life, as many first-generation intellectuals do. Some use different means–for instance, they find a solution in political action, a some kind of social rationalization. My main problem is to try and

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understand what happened to me. My trajectory may be described as miraculous, I suppose – an ascension to a place where I don't belong." (Bourdieu & Eagleton 1992.) Professor’s Name, Sex and a Year of Birth

Father’s Occupation

Mother’s Occupation

Parent’s Social Status

Mr. Yrjö Engeström (1948) Ms. Anneli Eteläpelto (1950) Mr. Reijo Miettinen (1948) Mr. Kari E. Nurmi (1943) Mr. Risto Rinne (1952) Mr. Juha Suoranta (1966) Mr. Jukka Tuomisto (1944)

Artist (painter)

N/A

Cultural elite

Storekeeper

Storekeeper

Upper middle class

Governmental Accounting Official Director

N/A

Administrative elite

Bookkeeper

Economic elite

Counselor of Education

Lecturer

Cultural elite

Electrician

Saleswoman

Working class

N/A

N/A

Petit bourgeois*

Table 1. Tenured Professors of Adult Education (tenured) in Finland (situation in 3/2007), Their Parents’ Occupation and Social Status. Sources: Who’s Who in Finland 2005; Finnish Professors 2000 (ed. Veli-Matti Autio). *According to Jukka Tuomisto’s own statement (http://sivistys.net/?action=juttu&ID=257). Bourdieu's experience of ambivalence is not unique, but shared by many so-called first generation intellectuals and academics. Jake Ryan and Charles Sackrey have gathered empirical data on these experiences in their book entitled Strangers in Paradise (Ryan & Sackrey 1984). The stories in the book range from the 1960s to 1980s. Another book, Barney's and Dews's This Fine Place So Far from Home: Voices of Academics from the Working Class (Dews & Law 1995) describes experiences from there on, that is, from the 1980's to 1990's. In these books academics tell their stories in a narrative format. In addition to the experiences included in these two books, there are several other life historical and autobiographical accounts described by working class academics (see hooks 2000; Brookfield 2005; Zinn 2005; Yates 2006). These questions have been tackled quite extensively under a rubric 'working class studies' (Linkon 1999; Russo & Linkon 2005), a multidisciplinary branch of social sciences. In the preliminary reading these stories fulfill the definition of a working class author given by prominent Finnish literature critic Raoul Palmgren in his dissertation on working-class (or proletarian) literature in Finland. According to Palmgren's definition "the origin and experiences of a proletarian are essential" for the workingclass author, in fact they are an "absolute criteria of the working-class writer." Besides that working-class authors are often self-taught, and have the proletarian outlook on life, and world of ideas (Palmgren 1965, 280.) As Palmgren summarizes his definition a working-class writer is one "who has been brought up in working-class (proletarian) circumstances, who has done manual or some comparable labour for wages, and who is at least comparatively speaking self-taught" (ibid. 284). To some extent these

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characteristics can also be applied in characterizing the social position and experiences of many first generation academics in Finland. There are several common characteristics in the stories we have so far read and analyzed. At least the following four themes evolve in summing up social class as an experiential category: strangeness, sense of being an outsider, feeling of betrayal or impostorship, and work ethic (as workaholism). In addition there is a general subtheme in the stories, that of social and ideological norm conflict. Furthermore, from the point of view of narrative positioning, these stories are not only written by men, but are in some sense stories of success and survival. To be "a stranger in the intellectual universe" was already portrayed by Bourdieu in the above quotes. Another French academic, a philosopher Louis Althusser, captures the experience of betrayal or impostorship in the following comment. In his memoirs he writes that "I feared being revealed to the world at large for what I really was, a worthless person who only existed through artifice and deceit. I was afraid I would be roundly condemned and that to my shame this would become public knowledge." (Althusser 1993, 144.) After the publication of Pour Marx and Lire ’Le Capital’ he was feared that he would be "revealed to the world at large for what I really was, a worthless person who only existed through artifice and deceit. I was afraid I would be roundly condemned and that to my shame this would become public knowledge.” (Ibid., 144.) Many working class academics share a work ethics and habits that at least partly meet the criteria of workaholism. There are lots of examples of this phenomenon in which academics 'reason for being' is measured by the length of their record of publications. Is this common to working-class, first generation academics only, probably not, but they seem to emphasize the fact that they work very hard in building their tenure. But there is more at stake than academic merits and climbing the academic career ladders. To put it in the words of Henry Giroux, a critical scholar who has published some 40 books and over 400 articles (and counting) in his 30 year long career: "I have always wanted to write, not because I wanted to view myself as a writer but because writing offered me an opportunity both to engage in public issues and to participate in broader public dialogues." (Giroux 2003, 99.) Giroux grew up in working class and did not have much experience on writing; primary medium was oral communication in his growth milieu, writing was not appreciated. Thus it took a long time for him to get over the feeling of certain inferiority regarding his ability to write, and he started writing seriously only at the age of thirty. "Unfortunately, once I started I couldn't stop, and I guess one could argue that I got a bit carried away with writing after that" (ibid., 99). Talking about academic writing Giroux points to a larger public meaning of writing in the following quote: ”But writing did more than take me out of my working-class neighborhood and allow me to speak to many audiences and extend the meaning of what it means to make one’s pedagogy more public. It also allowed me to define myself as something other than a traditional academic, which always conjure up for me a kind of professional posturing defined through the degrade ritual of being disinterested, specialized, apolitical, and removed from public life. Writing allowed me to break out of the academic microcosm, take sides, fight for a position, push against the grain, and say unsettling things – all those attributes

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that make one ‘un-cool’, as one of my colleagues recently suggested of those of us who avoid the cleverness of academic posturing and happen to believe that intellectuals actually have some public responsibilities in fashioning a politics of resistance and hope.” (Giroux 2003, 100.) One particularly interesting theme concerns the socialization process of working class academics in terms of learning. Our hypothesis is that this process follows a sort of three-step model: learning, unlearning and relearning the norms and habits of academic culture. Learning often refers to the world of almost totally new possibilities, to new fascinating intellectual things to do, new colleagues, new social situations and habits. And sometimes all this seems and sounds rather odd as compared to earlier experiences. British pioneer in cultural studies Raymond Williams' experiences are exemplary. Williams was chosen as a grammar school scholarship student to Oxford from the Welsh working class. "What oppressed Williams at university was what he called the culture of the Tea shop, the selfconscious cultivation of those who insist that 'culture is their trivial differences of behavior, their trivial variations of speech habit'" (Foley 2005, 38). Unlearning means that a working class academic needs to forget the old class habits of thought and behavior as well as attitudes and norms not to mention old faded socialist ideologies, and replace them with the ones provided by a given academic culture. A newly wedded member of an academic caste even needs to unlearn her or his vernacular or language proper as happened to economist Michael Yates: "When I became a professor, I encountered new ambivalences. Professors have not historically thought of themselves as workers; if anything they have thought themselves superior to workers and much more closely aligned with society’s elites. Though professors might disdain the bourgeoisie, they would no doubt prefer to dine with a successful businessman than a ditch digger. So here I was in an elite job, fulfilling my parents’ hope that I wouldn’t be a factory worker. But I was among “colleagues”—an odd word for me—who had little knowledge of or sympathy for working people. If I was to succeed on this new job, I would have to take on most of the habits of mind and behavior of the other professors, thinking and acting in ways alien to the lives of my parents and nearly all of the residents of my hometown. I would have to dress differently. I would have to curb my instinct to use words like “fuck” and “asshole.” I would have to adopt a more impersonal style of speech. In a word, I would have to behave myself." (Yates 2006.) At some point of her or his life it may become always an "existential necessity" for a working class academic to relearn her or his past and familiar life world by comparing her or his hereditary world view to the imposed one. In other words, in order to live and survive, and also for the sake of mere self-respect, a working class academic has to "critically reflect" and to question the lessons learned inside schooling system and the often conservative and patriarchal academic universe. We assume – and these assumptions form our working hypothesis – that workingclass, first-generation academics have quite obviously grown in a working-class milieu (criteria of the origin) with a working-class attitudes and experiences. Due to this they have experienced a clash of cultures (criteria of a cultural contradiction)

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during their academic studies, and they have had to compare and reflect their former experiences to the experiences gained in the academic universe (criteria of critical self-reflection). In consequence, some have maintained their proletarian outlook on life, and world of ideas, and some have changed their opinions (criteria of a word view). Some have worked as blue collars (criteria of a manual labor). In terms of their academic life and related to their research work and research community and life in the departments of Education or elsewhere, they have had experiences of strangeness (criteria of strangeness), of being outsiders (criteria of being an outsider), and feelings of betrayal or impostorship (criteria of impostorship). Relatively many working-class, first-generation academics share hard work ethics (criteria of work ethics). These characteristics form a basis or themes for further empirical study. But the most interesting question concerns the social and ideological norm conflict as lived and experienced category among PhDs' in education. Conclusions – or Openings Our general aim is to contribute on the study of academic socialization by combining life historical and autobiographical approaches. In collecting our data we will focus on (a) generational differences in people's stories regarding their academic career paths, (b) gender differences in how academics tell and construct their stories regarding their choice of postgraduate studies, academic achievements and careers, and how they see their position in their academic field, (c) the multiple layers of academic socialization in terms of different forms and processes of learning, unlearning and relearning experiences, and (d) forms of academic discrimination, and especially the ways in which gender and class play a part in it. In conclusion, we would like to stress that, as Elizabeth Faue (2005, 31) has put it, “gender and class (and, we also know, race) be seen as interlocking and interconnected categories.” And furthermore, we believe that in the level of language gendered language often includes class dimensions as well as class-based language contains gender aspects. In other words both gender and class are not static notions, but mobile and fluid both as concepts and experiences (Hart 2005, 63). We would also like to emphasize that dealing with lived experiences, as we are, is a statement against structural determinism according to which people are mere cultural dopes whose acts can be explained and understood without their own interpretations and processes of meaning-making. In this study it is people’s role as agency that we are interested in.

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