Educational Identities of Adult University Graduates

The age structure of university students has changed dramatically in Finland. Now one third of all university students and one quarter of undergraduate students in Finnish universities are aged 30 years or over. The focus of this article is the changing educational identities of students who start and complete their university studies as adults. For the study, 21 adult university graduates were interviewed using the life‐history approach. The concept of educational identity is applied in the analysis, first to capture the changes that have taken place in the way the interviewees think about themselves as learners and as individuals with high educational levels. Secondly, the analysis clarifies how adult university graduates see themselves to be treated by other people after graduation. The results suggest that it is possible for adults to form new educational identities and reform the old ones on both individual and social levels.