Personal worldview in constructing theological expertise? Avoidance goals and their narrative explanations in the context of career choice

This paper investigates theology students’ goals with respect to their career motivation and career decisions during theological studies. The aim is to investigate the career motivation of Finnish theology students, focusing especially on students aiming at general theological education. Faculties of Theology in Finnish universities provide general theological and teacher education and qualifications for students who want to become pastors for the Evangelical-Lutheran church. In study 1, the reasons given for the curriculum choices were investigated and classified. According to the results, students on different curriculum paths gave different kinds of reasons for their choices. It was especially interesting that students following the general theological curriculum path most often explained their curriculum choice by avoiding the other curricula. The aim of study 2 was to investigate further the perspectives of avoidance, so we focused on the students aiming at a general theological degree. In study 2, the narratives of career choice were analysed. The narratives were classified into four groups: students struggling with adversity (n = 26), searchers (n = 32), rejecting and rejected (n = 29), and general theological degree as a possibility (n = 44). When the studies were taken together, a picture of heterogeneity of student profiles in the general theological curriculum emerged along with the wide range of challenges these students face. These results are discussed in the light of theoretical viewpoints of personal worldview, career choice, and avoidance goals, and some implications for developing theological education are presented.