I am teaching in courses concerning adult learning and workplace learning and organization pedagogics. I am also teaching in methodological design and analysis and are supervising essays on bachelor, master and doctorial level.

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Being in constant transition or recurrent formation

  2019. Camilla Thunborg, Agnieszka Bron. Studies in the Education of Adults 59 (1), 36-54

  Article

  The aim of this article is to examine non-traditional graduates’ life transitions before, during, and after higher education (HE) in Sweden. The article builds on a theory called biographical work, which is used for understanding non-traditional graduates’ identity formation and transformation. The article is based on the narratives of two non-traditional graduates who were selected from biographical interviews with nine non-traditional graduates, 2–5 years after graduation from HE. By exploring significant events, learning paths and the formation and transformation of identities in the two graduates’ lives, we identified two expressions of their ongoing life transitions: being in recurrent formation and being in constant transition. Being in recurrent formation means returning to well-known paths in life and learning reactively by reflecting on experiences, whereas being in constant transition means a constant focus on what is next in life and a constant commuting between reactive and proactive learning, i.e. by both reflecting on experiences and preparing oneself for the next move. In the article, we discuss what it means to be in transition as a non-traditional graduate. We conclude that the theory of biographical work helps to understand identity formation and transformation processes in periods of transition, and also how periods of transition occur as parts of biographical learning.

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• The Challenge of Recruiting Underrepresented Groups – Exploring Organizational Recruitment Practices in Sweden

  2019. Ali Osman, Camilla Thunborg. Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies 9 (1), 3-18

  Article

  The aim of this article is to explore organisational recruitment practices from human resources (HR) experts’ narratives and discuss the challenges of recruiting underrepresented groups in relation to these practices. From the HR experts’ narratives, we identify four organisational recruitment practices: the informal, the pragmatic, the standardised and the strategic. These practices consist of, for example, ‘subjective’ judgements versus ‘objective’ criteria and are construed in relation to different rationalities, which also give rise to various dilemmas in relation to underrepresented groups. From our analysis, there seems to be a paradox between enhancing diversity and counteracting discrimination. Organisational recruitment practices that are counteracting discrimination do not necessarily enhance diversity and recruitment practices that radically work with enhancing diversity can be seen as discriminatory. We thereby draw the conclusion that there is no effective practice for the recruitment of underrepresented groups in the labour market. This is a dilemma for HR experts and a challenge for the Swedish labour market in general.

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• Policies for Equality and Employability

  2018. Camilla Thunborg, Agnieszka Bron. Continuity and Discontinuity in Learning Careers, 125-131

  Chapter

  The chapter is concerned with European policies for employability of graduate students from higher education to the labour market and a Swedish higher education system which has traditionally invluded widening access students. The chapter highlight issues of inequality relating to employability particularly in relation to working class an minority ethynic students. The study indicates that in relation to employability non-traditional students experience greater challenges than traditional students in the labour market resulting in a segregated labour market.

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• Being in limbo or learning to belong? – Telling the stories of asylum seekers in a mill town

  2021. Camilla Thunborg, Ali Osman, Agnieszka Bron. Studies in the Education of Adults

  Article

  This paper explores how young asylum seekers learn to belong to a local community. It takes its point of departure from a biographical and socially situated learning perspective and uses four analytical aspects of belonging: biographical experiences, engagement, imagination, and alignment. The data on which this paper is based are biographical interviews with five asylum seekers and field notes from a small mill town in Sweden. The findings show three types of learning: learning to be marginalised, learning to be disconnected, and learning to become a co-participant in the local community. Furthermore, the paper discusses how these learning processes are shaped by biographical experiences as well as access to the various communities of practice in and outside the local community, and how the asylum process negatively impacts their learning to belong to the local community and wider Swedish society.

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• Struggles in Becoming Employable

  2020. Agnieszka Bron, Camilla Thunborg. Studia Paedagogica 25 (4), 161-182

  Article

  The notion of employability has been dominating the higher education policies and strategies of the European Union and other western countries for two decades. From an employability perspective, individuals are responsible for acquiring the skills to find and move between jobs, market themselves, and effectively express their social, personal, and cultural capital. This article focuses on non-traditional students' perspectives of their transition from higher education to working life, especially on the pathways they have taken and the struggles they have experienced in becoming employable. A biographical learning perspective is used to analyse biographical interviews with five female students who were 25 years of age or older, with a non-Swedish background, studying full time. In the students' stories, four transition pathways from higher education to working life were identified: a linear, a parallel, a further education, and a changing career pathway. The five non-traditional students struggled with becoming employable and seemed to be anxious about not being good enough at Swedish; being an outsider as a student; being overqualified; and facing discrimination in the labour market. These employability struggles mainly arise due to the assumption that all graduates are young, Swedish, without children or disabilities, and competing only with their employability within an equal labour market. Thus, the notion of employability still gives little attention to non-traditional students and has negative consequences for them.

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Show all publications by Camilla Thunborg at Stockholm University