Work corresponding or not corresponding to the field of study during studies: the views of class teacher students
Keywords:
students, work, empathy method, teacher training, substitute teacherAbstract
It is common for university students to be employed during their studies since more than half of them work alongside their studies. Finnish students differ from students in other countries in that during their studies they more often do work corresponding to their own study field. In this study, we investigated what it means for classroom teacher students to work during their studies in work that corresponded or did not correspond to their field of study. Working as a substitute teacher is presented as correcorresponding and working as a cashier as not corresponding to their field of study. The data, which we collected using the empathy method, consisted of the writings of a total of 52 class teacher students. Our results were divided into three categories: 1) shared meanings, 2) meanings related to teacher placements, and 3) meanings related to work at a checkout. Most of the meanings we found were shared between corresponding and non-corresponding work, and they generally described aspects of reconciling studies and working life, such as raising one’s standard of living, finding a balance between working and studying, and the exhaustion resulting from combining work and study. The meanings associated with working as a substitute teacher, such as trying out what has been learned in theory, were more abundant and multidimensional than the meanings associated with working as a cashier. The results also shed more light on work-related meanings in the culture of class teacher students.
