Student-as-customer discourse as a challenge to equality in Finnish higher education – the case of non-fee-paying and fee-paying master’s degree students

IF 1.4 Q2 EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

International Studies in Sociology of Education Pub Date : 2022-09-11 DOI:10.1080/09620214.2022.2121307

Raakel Plamper, Päivi Siivonen, Nina Haltia

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

ABSTRACT In market-oriented higher education (HE) systems, fee-paying students are positioned as customers, and studying is juxtaposed with service use. In this study, we investigate how students position themselves in relation to the student-as-customer discourse in Finnish HE, in which only students coming from outside the EU and EEA areas are charged tuition fees. We investigate the construction of the student-as-customer discourse in the narrative environment of Finnish HE through interviews with both international fee-liable and Finnish non-fee-paying master’s degree students (n = 34). In addition, we analyse social differences that are constructed between fee-liable and non-fee-paying students in relation to the student-as-customer discourse. We argue that fee liability creates unequal positions for some international students and thus challenges the equality principles embedded in Finnish HE. Paradoxically, it was also found that the fee-liable student-customers have less freedom and fewer options than the non-fee-paying students.

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学生即消费者的话语是对芬兰高等教育平等的挑战——以非付费和付费硕士学位学生为例

摘要在以市场为导向的高等教育体系中，收费学生被定位为客户，学习与服务并列。在这项研究中，我们调查了在芬兰高等教育中，学生如何将自己定位为学生作为客户话语，其中只有来自欧盟和欧洲经济区以外地区的学生才会被收取学费。我们通过对国际收费和芬兰非收费硕士学位学生（n=34）的访谈，研究了芬兰高等教育叙事环境中学生作为客户话语的构建。此外，我们还分析了付费学生和非付费学生之间构建的与学生作为客户话语相关的社会差异。我们认为，费用责任给一些国际学生造成了不平等的地位，从而挑战了芬兰高等教育中的平等原则。矛盾的是，研究还发现，与不付费的学生相比，付费学生客户的自由度更低，选择更少。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

International Studies in Sociology of Education SOCIOLOGY-

CiteScore

3.40

自引率

7.70%

发文量

期刊介绍： International Studies in Sociology of Education is an international journal and publishes papers in the sociology of education which critically engage with theoretical and empirical issues, drawn from as wide a range of perspectives as possible. It aims to move debates forward. The journal is international in outlook and readership and receives papers from around the world. The journal publishes four issues a year; the first three are devoted to a particular theme while the fourth is an "open" issue.