Abstract
Recent Australian government targets for higher education participation have produced a flurry of activity focused on raising the aspirations of students from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds. In this paper we test two key assumptions underpinning much of this activity: that students from low-SES backgrounds hold lower career aspirations; and that outreach activities appropriately target secondary school students, given that younger students’ aspirations are relatively under-developed. Drawing on a sample of 3,504 students, we map the intersection of the career aspirations of students in Years 4, 6, 8, and 10 with SES and other demographic variables in order to contribute to the evidence base for academic, educational, and political work on access to higher education and the policies, practices, and outcomes that might ensue. Aspirations are assessed in terms of occupational certainty, occupational choice, occupational prestige, and occupational justification. We found fewer differences by year level and by SES than expected. Our analyses demonstrate both the complexity of students’ career aspirations and some of the challenges associated with undertaking this kind of research, thus signalling the need for caution in the development of policy and interventions in this field.
Highlights
The educational and career aspirations of Australian school students have been of increasing interest to policy makers and university leaders especially during the past six years since the Review of Australian Higher Education, known as the ‘‘Bradley Review’’ (Bradley et al 2008)
Drawing on a sample of 3,504 students, we map the intersection of the career aspirations of students in Years 4, 6, 8, and 10 with socioeconomic status (SES) and other demographic variables in order to contribute to the evidence base for academic, educational, and political work on access to higher education and the policies, practices, and outcomes that might ensue
Our analyses demonstrate both the complexity of students’ career aspirations and some of the challenges associated with undertaking this kind of research, signalling the need for caution in the development of policy and interventions in this field
Summary
The educational and career aspirations of Australian school students have been of increasing interest to policy makers and university leaders especially during the past six years since the Review of Australian Higher Education, known as the ‘‘Bradley Review’’ (Bradley et al 2008). During this period there has been a significant increase in the number of domestic students enrolling in higher education overall and, most importantly from an equity perspective, an increase for students from low-SES backgrounds and Indigenous students greater than the overall expansion in the sector (Naylor et al 2013), still at levels far from equivalent to the representation of these groups in the population. These figures signal that there is much still to do if the key principle driving equity reform in higher education is to be met, namely that the participation in higher education of equity groups should match the distribution of such groups in the total population
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