Understanding Employer Engagement in Education

Theories and evidence

Anthony Mann, Julian Stanley, Louise Archer, Anthony Mann, Julian Stanley, Louise Archer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317701040
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación general

This collection focuses on employer engagement in education, how it is delivered and the differentiated impact it has on young people in their progression through schooling and higher education into the labour market. The focus is not narrowly on vocational or technical education or work-related learning, but on how employer engagement (eg, work experience, internships, careers education, workplace visits, mentoring, enterprise education etc) influences the experiences and outcomes of the broad range of young people across mainstream academic learning programmes. The essays explore the different ways in which education can support or constrain social mobility and, in particular, how employer engagement in education can have significant impact upon social mobility – both positive and negative.

Leading international contributors examine issues surrounding employer engagement and social mobility: conceptualisations of employer engagement; trends in social mobility; employer engagement and social class; access and management of work experience; social capital and aspiration; access to employment.

The book makes employer engagement an innovative focus in relation to the well established fields of social mobility and school to work transition. By examining what difference employer engagement makes, the essays raise questions about conventional models and show how research drawing on different fields and disciplines can be brought together to provide a more coherent and convincing account. Building on new theorisations and combining existing and new data, the collection offers a systematic exploration of the influence of socio-economic status on school-to-work transitions, and addresses how educational policy can shape more efficient labour market outcomes. In doing so, it draws on, and speaks to, existing literature which has considered such questions from the perspectives of gender, ethnicity and social disadvantage.

Part 1

Conceptualising employer engagement in education

Chapter 1

Conceptualising aspiration

Louise Archer

Why focus on ‘aspiration’?

This chapter introduces one of the core concepts that runs through this edited collection, namely ‘aspiration’. The notion of aspiration is often invoked within discussions about young people’s educational engagement, choices and future pathways. It also features prominently within education policy and is used within a range of educational interventions, such as a number of those associated with employer engagement.

An aspiration can be defined as ‘a hope or ambition’.¹ Aspirations can take many forms – from uncertain, vague hopes for the future, through to ‘more concrete and achievable’ plans (Brannen and Nilsen 2007: 155). In previous research, my colleagues and I have highlighted the considerable variability found within young people’s aspirations:

From intensely held goals and desires to looser, more nebulous interests; from ‘high’ or lofty ambitions to more prosaic, mundane or realistic expectations; from ‘already known’ and concrete expectations to fragile dreams that are constantly mediated and shaped by external constraints.

(Archer et al. 2010: 78)

There is, of course, a question as to how far young people’s aspirations actually relate to their outcomes in later life. Although there is no simple, direct link, a number of studies do provide evidence that young people’s aspirations can give a probabilistic indication of the general type of career that they are likely to pursue in the future (Trice 1991a, 1991b; Trice and McClellan 1993). For instance, Croll’s (2008) analysis of UK longitudinal data showed that approximately half of young people expressing particular aspirations at age 15 will end up in a similar type of occupation ten to fifteen years later. Moreover, Tai et al.’s (2006) US research also found that a young person who aspires to a career in science at age 14 is almost three-and-a-half times more likely to end up taking a degree in the physical sciences or engineering than a peer without such aspirations.

As a sociologist of education, I am also interested in how aspirations can be used as a ‘tool’ or device for understanding young people’s identities and lives more generally. My theoretical perspective conceptualises aspirations as socially constructed phenomena. That is, aspirations are not merely individual cognitions ‘inside’ our heads; rather, I see aspirations as cultural and social products that can tell us not only about the young person in question, but also about their social context. Aspirations are formed through a myriad of influences – past and present, individual and collective. The influence of social identities and inequalities on aspirations is revealed by patterns in aspirations that are found within and between particular social groups. Studies of such patterns may focus on gender (e.g. OECD 2012a), ethnicity (e.g. Archer and Francis 2007) or social class (e.g. Archer et al. 2010).

Education policy’s focus on aspiration

Aspirations are not merely of academic interest – they also occupy a prominent position within UK education policy. Both the previous New Labour administration (e.g. DfES 2003, 2004, 2005) and the current Coalition Government (e.g. DfE 2010) have developed education policies based on the assumption that differential rates of educational participation and achievement might be due (in part) to a ‘poverty of aspiration’ among some (working-class and minority ethnic) communities. As noted elsewhere (Archer et al. 2013), this line of rhetoric can be traced, virtually unchanged, from the 2004 White Paper (described in the introduction as ‘a White Paper about aspiration’, DfES 2005: 7) with its accompanying ministerial references to ‘a national scandal of low aspiration and poor performance’ (DfES 2004) and the ‘problem of low aspirations (DCSF 2007), through to the current Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove’s, calls in the 2010 Schools White Paper for the creation of an ‘aspiration nation’ (DfE 2010). These sentiments have since been echoed in 2012 by the Prime Minister, David Cameron (Murphy 2012: 6).

This persistent policy belief in the ‘problem of aspiration’ has been translated into a sizeable deployment of resources and initiatives aimed at ‘raising aspirations’ among socially disadvantaged young people. In addition to national policies such as Aiming High and Aim Higher,² countless charities and organisations in the United Kingdom organise their activities around the notion that the key to improving educational attainment and post-16 progression lies in raising the aspirations of young people and their families.³ In other words, ‘aspiration’ is often a key concept within employer engagement in education.

What do young people aspire to?

There have been a number of highly informative quantitative analyses of large national longitudinal datasets, such as the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) (e.g. Croll 2008; Croll et al. 2009), the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE) (e.g. Attwood and Croll 2011; Gutman and Schoon 2012), the National Child Development Study (NCDS) (e.g. Schoon 2001), and the Youth Cohort Study (YCS) (e.g. Yates et al. 2011). There have also been many smaller, qualitative studies, focused on understanding aspirations among particular groups of young people (e.g. Archer et al. 2010; Ball et al. 2000).

Contrary to assumptions within education policy, existing research evidence suggests that there is no widespread ‘poverty of aspirations’. For instance, studies have found that young people from working-class and/or minority ethnic backgrounds express ‘high’ aspirations (e.g. Thomas 2001; Archer and Francis 2007; Strand and Winston 2008; Croll 2008; Roberts and Atherton 2011; Kintrea et al. 2011). A longitudinal study of 89 urban young people (aged 14–16), who had been identified by their schools as ‘at risk’ of dropping out of education, found that 30 per cent had at some point during the study expressed ‘high’ aspirations for professional careers, such as a lawyer, doctor or accountant (Archer et al. 2010).

Croll (2008) also notes that young people surveyed by the BHPS in the 1990s (at age 15) were occupationally ambitious; that is, most aspired to professional and technical/managerial careers. More recently, the ASPIRES project (e.g. DeWitt et al. 2011; Archer et al. 2013; DeWitt et al. 2014) conducted a survey of 9,000+ children at age 10/11 and 6,500+ young people from the same cohort at age 12/13, and found that young people in 2011 also seem to be part of the ‘Ambitious Generation’ (Schneider and Stevenson 1999), with aspirations overwhelmingly for professional, technical and managerial careers.

Similarly to Croll (2008), the ASPIRES study has also found little evidence of a ‘poverty of aspiration’ because top-line figures seem to indicate that young people from all social class backgrounds express broadly comparable aspirations. Our ASPIRES surveys reveal that very few aspire to skilled manual and even fewer to unskilled manual. Over 90 per cent of 12/13-year-olds aspire to make a lot of money in the future and just over half want to ‘become famous’ in the future. Students generally report strong parental encouragement and support for their aspirations and future success. For instance, 98 per cent of 12/13-year-olds agree that their parents want them to get a good job in the future, 95 per cent agree that it is important to their parents that their child achieves well in school and 72 per cent say that their parents expect them to go to university. Yet, these widespread ‘high’ aspirations do not necessarily translate into equally high outcomes for all. For instance, 72 per cent of all young people do not currently end up studying at university – with rates of participation strongly structured by social class (e.g. Archer et al. 2003). We also note that while young people in 2011 may be similarly ambitious to those surveyed in 1995, today’s young people are less confident that they will achieve their goals, perhaps reflecting the uncertainties engendered by global recession (Archer et al. 2013).

Such findings lead us to argue that the key issue for equality and social mobility is not a ‘poverty of aspirations’, but rather the unequal means available to young people to realise these aspirations. As Croll (2008: 254) argues, ‘The availability of jobs in higher socio-economic-status occupations is not going to keep up with the ambitions of the young people.’ Referring to Brown and Hesketh’s (2004) notion of market ‘congestion’, Croll shows how ambitious young people from less advantaged backgrounds are ‘less likely to be educationally equipped to realise their ambitions’ (2008: 255), and that young people’s professional ambitions are often not borne out in reality.⁴ Comparing ambitions at age 15 with later outcomes among the BHPS sample at age 20–15, Croll found that

While 14.1% aspired to professional jobs at 15, only 5% of the BHPS sample had such jobs in the late 1990s. In contrast, while only 3.5% of young people aspired to partly or unskilled jobs at age 15, 22% of the adult sample were in these professions ten/15 years later.

(Croll 2008: 255)

Indeed, both Croll (2008) and Yates et al. (2011) (in their analysis of Youth Cohort Study data) draw attention to the potentially negative outcomes for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds who aspire highly (e.g. to professional careers), but who lack the academic attainment and resources to achieve their ambitions.

In terms of the question, ‘what do contemporary young people aspire to?’, the ASPIRES project surveys indicate that the most popular occupational aspirations between ages 10–13 remain fairly constant, with the favourites being careers in the arts, sports, teaching and medicine (Archer 2012a). Business emerges as a very popular aspiration among students aged 12/13. Indeed, in a closed question asking which jobs (from a list) young people would like to do, business stands out as by far the most popular aspiration, with over 60 per cent of 12/13-year-old students agreeing that they would like to work in business in the future.⁵ Yet, as discussed next, beneath these broad-brush trends, aspirations are also profoundly shaped by social class, ethnicity, gender and other social indices.

How are young people’s aspirations formed? What influences aspirations?

As discussed in Archer et al. (2010), research indicates that aspirations are complex, multiple and often contradictory – young people may hold several aspirations at any one time, not all of which are complementary. Evidence points to a similarly complex range of influences on aspirations, including the family, schools, personal hobbies and interests, careers education and/or resources, television and the media, to name but a few. Given that ages 10–14 has been identified as a crucial time for the development of aspirations (e.g. Lindahl 2007; Tai et al. 2006), particular attention is given to research conducted with young people during this period.

For instance, Hutchinson et al. (2009) found that among students in early secondary school (key stage 3, KS3), the main sources of careers advice were: family (78 per cent of pupils), careers teachers (50 per cent), subject teachers (48 per cent), form teachers (23 per cent) and careers advisers (20 per cent).

Holman and Finegold (2010) also found that families and friends were the most trusted sources of careers advice among young people. Archer et al. (2013) note similar findings among 12/13-year-olds, with family providing the greatest influence on aspirations, followed by school, hobbies/interests and TV. While the exact nature and extent of the influences on aspirations may vary between individual studies, a common picture does emerge in which home and school appear to be major influences. These are discussed next.

How do families influence aspirations?

Archer et al. (2012) propose the notion of family habitus to explain how families (often unconsciously) shape children’s aspirations. Drawing on the work of the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1986, 1990, 1992), Archer et al. apply his concept of (individual) habitus (e.g. Bourdieu and Passeron 1990) to the collective context of the family. Family habitus is defined as a framework of dispositions, developed through a family’s sense of its collective identity, that guides action, shapes perceptions of choice and provides family members with a practical feel for the world (a sense of ‘who we are, what we value and what we do’). In particular, we describe family habitus as interacting with capital (economic, social and cultural resources possessed by families), arguing that it is this interaction of family habitus and capital that shapes the sorts of aspiration that children come to see as desirable and possible (conceivable and achievable). In this way, young people develop a feel for particular aspirations as being more, or less, appropriate for ‘people like me’. This is underpinned by the extent to which families are able to draw on and deploy capital to help children to gain an understanding of what their career might be and/or to help them to achieve their goals.

Family habitus and the nature and extent of capital that a family is able to draw on are profoundly socially structured (i.e. shaped by social inequalities). As the work of Lareau (2003) explains, family values and parenting practices can vary considerably between differently classed families, and working-class and middle-class families have access to notably different forms of capital. Middle-class families are much more likely to engage in the ‘hothousing’ of children through practices of ‘concerted cultivation’ (Lareau 2003), for ex...