Aspirations, education and inequality in England: Insights from the Effective Provision of Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education Project

(2014) - Will Baker, Pam Sammons, Iram Siraj-Blatchford, Kathy Sylva, Edward C. Melhuish, Brenda Taggart

Link:: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03054985.2014.953921
DOI:: 10.1080/03054985.2014.953921
Links:: Blanden,Wilson, Haveman, & Smeeding 2011 Ermisch, Jantti, & Smeeding, 2012 St Clair & Benjamin, 2011 St. Clair, Kintrea, & Houston, 2013 Reay, 2012 Goodman & Gregg, 2010 Schoon & Polek, 2011 Gorard, Huat, & Davies, 2012 Swidler, 1986 Croll & Atwood, 2011 Bourdieu, 1973 Strand & Winston, 2008 Frye, 2012 Chapman, Armstrong, Harris, Muijs, Reynolds, & Sammons, 2010 MacLeod, 2009
Tags:: #paper #Aspirations #SES #SocialClass #Inequality #Education
Cite Key:: [@bakerAspirationsEducationInequality2014]

Abstract

Educational and occupational aspirations have become an important reference point in policy debates about educational inequality. Low aspirations are presented as a major barrier to closing educational attainment gaps and increasing levels of social mobility. Our paper contributes to this on-going debate by presenting data on the educational aspirations of students from the Effective Provision of Pre-School, Primary and Secondary Education Project in England. We analyse factors that help predict students holding high aspirations. Our findings reveal generally high aspirations across all students but also differences by income group and other background factors. We evaluate the significance of these findings for the existing literature and public policy discussions about the importance of raising educational aspirations. In particular, we question the way in which low aspirations are framed by policy-makers as a major problem in debates around educational inequality

Notes

“Educational and occupational aspirations have become an important reference point in policy debates about educational inequality.” (Baker et al., 2014, p. 525)

“Our findings reveal generally high aspirations across all students but also differences by income group and other background factors” (Baker et al., 2014, p. 525)

“Research consistently demonstrates that social class and socioeconomic status (SES) are strongly associated with levels of educational attainment which in turn influences adult social status (Blanden,Wilson, Haveman, & Smeeding 2011; Ermisch, Jantti, & Smeeding, 2012)” (Baker et al., 2014, p. 525)

“Despite the recognition of certain structural barriers to educational achievement, such as family poverty or school quality, low aspirations are regularly invoked to explain why patterns of educational inequality are so entrenched and policy interventions are not more effective.” (Baker et al., 2014, p. 526)

“he 2010 White Paper The Importance of Teaching states that, ‘In far too many communities there is a deeply embedded culture of low aspiration that is strongly tied to long-term unemployment’ (Department of Education, 2010b, p. 4). The concern here is that such claims lean towards a ‘culture of poverty’ explanation of educational inequality that adopts a ‘deficit view’ of young people and their aspiration (St Clair & Benjamin, 2011; St. Clair, Kintrea, & Houston, 2013; Reay, 2012)” (Baker et al., 2014, p. 526)

“Quantitative research drawing on longitudinal data suggests that career aspirations are related to adult social status and do play a role in predicting children’s educational attainment (Goodman & Gregg, 2010; Schoon & Polek, 2011).” (Baker et al., 2014, p. 527)

“A particular concern raised by Gorard et al. is the challenge in establishing the causal ordering between aspirations and educational outcomes. ‘Aspirations can be both a predictor of educational achievement and an outcome of it’ (Gorard, Huat, & Davies, 2012, p. 41). They also suggest that there is little evidence to support the claim that interventions designed to raise aspirations are efficacious.” (Baker et al., 2014, p. 527)

“For instance, Swidler argues that ‘the very poor share the values and aspirations of the middle class’, observing that, ‘In repeated surveys, lower class youth say that they value college ...’ (Swidler, 1986, p. 275). The conclusion of Swidler’s line of reasoning is that aspirations are irrelevant because there are no patterned differences in educational aspirations by social class. However, more recent research makes this position problematic: there appears to be at least some variation in” (Baker et al., 2014, p. 527)

“aspirations between social classes and income groups (Croll & Atwood, 2011, 2013)” (Baker et al., 2014, p. 528)

“In his early work he claimed that, ‘the laws of the academic market-place determine aspirations by determining the extent to which they can be satisfied’ (Bourdieu, 1973, p. 83). His argument suggests that we should observe a strong connection between educational aspirations and social background, since social class influences the educational opportunities available to students.” (Baker et al., 2014, p. 528)

“Rational, choice-inspired theories lean towards portraying ‘educational aspirations as a purely rational assessment of students’ economic and social circumstances’ (Strand & Winston, 2008, p. 250). A challenge that Frye raises for this perspective is the ‘ample evidence [to suggest] that aspirations are often uncorrelated with available opportunities’ (Frye, 2012, p. 2572). As she correctly observes, a wealth of data suggest that aspirations regularly run far ahead of the chances of them being realised. This, she argues, ‘warrants a more radical departure from the rational choice approach’ (p. 2572). These data raise explanatory challenges for any position, including Bourdieu’s, that advocate a tight link between educational aspirations, available opportunities and the likelihood of them being realised.” (Baker et al., 2014, p. 528)

“High aspirations are held, at least in part, because the women who took part in her study ‘associate unwavering ambition with a virtuous identity’ (p. 1608). We suggest that understanding this normative dimension of educational aspirations, where they are assertions of a ‘good’ identity that students hope to realise, potentially offers a way of understanding why most students report highly ambitious educational aspirations” (Baker et al., 2014, p. 528)

“We do so through a series of binary logistic regression models. This approach is particularly helpful for examining ‘the odds of success or another substantive outcome, or the odds of success faced by one group relative to another’ (Powers &” (Baker et al., 2014, p. 531)

“Xie, 2008, p. 38). We begin this section by describing the variables used in the analysis before we move on to reporting the results.” (Baker et al., 2014, p. 532)

“research in the social sciences suggests some variation between schools and teachers in their effectiveness in terms of student attainment and other important factors relevant to pupil success (Chapman, Armstrong, Harris, Muijs, Reynolds, & Sammons, 2010). It is therefore important to investigate, and take into account, any school effects on aspirations” (Baker et al., 2014, p. 534)

“The Interclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) showed no significant effects. This figure and the Wald statistic reveal no significant variation in aspirations that could be attributed at the school level. However, the relatively low numbers of students across each secondary school means that we are not able to evaluate robustly any school-level influences on student aspirations” (Baker et al., 2014, p. 534)

“MacLeod, in his famous ethnography of aspirations Ain’t No Makin’ It, argued that Bourdieu and Passeron offered a ‘too mechanistic and simplistic relationship between aspiration and opportunity’ (MacLeod, 2009, p. 140).” (Baker et al., 2014, p. 539)