Understanding aspirations: why do secondary TVET students aim so high in Chile?

Alice Aldinucci,Oscar Valiente,Scott Hurrell,Adrián Zancajo

doi:10.1080/13636820.2021.1973543

Alice Aldinucci, Oscar Valiente + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1080/13636820.2021.1973543

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Abstract

ABSTRACT The interest in educational and professional aspirations of students transiting to post-secondary education has gained prominence in academic debates and policy agendas internationally. Political interventions for raising aspirations quite often draw on narrow instrumental and rationalistic assumptions of individual decision-making that, as we will argue, do not capture adequately the meanings students attribute to these aspirations. By means of in-depth interviews and combining a critical realist approach to social action with capabilities approach, the paper explores the educational and professional aspirations of students at the end of secondary TVET in Chile. We consider that high educational aspirations of secondary TVET students in Chile need to be understood as a reflexive response to significantly high social inequalities in the country, the precarity of working conditions in a highly liberalised labour market, and the enduring neoliberal tenet of meritocracy. We also argue that understanding aspirations is key to reimagine TVET’s roles and purposes at individual, institutional and national levels, towards fairer opportunities for human development.

Highlights

The interest in educational and professional aspirations of students in transi tion to post-secondary education has gained prominence in academic debates and policy agendas targeted at widening participation (UNESCO 2018; OECD 2017a)
We argue that the high educational aspirations of secondary Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) students in Chile need to be understood as a reflexive response to the large social inequalities in the country, the precarity of working conditions in a highly liberalised labour market, and the enduring neo-liberal tenet of meritocracy
We argue that the rationale for high aspirations, and for discontinuity of fields between secondary and tertiary education, were a desire for social mobility and a reflexive response to social inequalities and meritocratic discourses

Summary

Introduction

The interest in educational and professional aspirations of students in transi tion to post-secondary education has gained prominence in academic debates and policy agendas targeted at widening participation (UNESCO 2018; OECD 2017a). We argue that the high educational aspirations of secondary TVET students in Chile need to be understood as a reflexive response to the large social inequalities in the country, the precarity of working conditions in a highly liberalised labour market, and the enduring neo-liberal tenet of meritocracy.

Results

Conclusion