Education and Family Components of Identity in the Transition from School to Work

(1998) - John Bynner

Journal: International Journal of Behavioral Development
Link:: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/016502598384504
DOI:: 10.1080/016502598384504
Links::
Tags:: #paper #Transition #school-to-work #Family #Attainment
Cite Key:: [@Bynner1998]

Abstract

Of all the developmental transitions, entry to employment is probably the most central to the formation of adult identity (Blustein, 1997; Grotevant, 1987; Savickas, 1985, 1993). Working within the tradition of Erikson’s and Marcia’s identity development theories (Erikson, 1968; Marcia, 1966), as directed towards employment (Super, 1980; Vondracek, Lerner, & Schulenberg, 1986), Blustein, Devenis, and Kidney (1989), showed that the decision-making process the young person moves through en route to employment parallels the stages of diffusion, foreclosure, commitment, and achievement which characterise identity development. The relation is dynamic in the sense that the developing identity drives the choices between the different kinds of occupation to pursue; and at the same time, the opportunities available in the labour market, as controlled by employers, limit recruitment to certain kinds of job, or in times of recession, to any kind of job at all.

Notes

“Of all the developmental transitions, entry to employment is probably the most central to the formation of adult identity (Blustein, 1997; Grotevant, 1987; Savickas, 1985, 1993)” (Bynner, 1998, p. 29)

“Erikson’s and Marcia’s identity development theories (Erikson, 1968; Marcia, 1966), as directed towards employment (Super, 1980; Vondracek, Lerner, & Schulenberg, 1986), Blustein, Devenis, and Kidney (1989), showed that the decision-making process the young person moves through en route to employment parallels the stages of diffusion, foreclosure, commitment, and achievement which characterise identity development.” (Bynner, 1998, p. 29)

“he new types of information technology (IT) based employment have demanded higher levels, and more diverse forms of generic and speciŽc skills, and overall, as the labour market has restructured, the volume of employment has tended to contract and is likely to do so at an accelerating rate for the foreseeable future (Aronowitz & Di Fazio, 1994)” (Bynner, 1998, p. 30)

“uncertainty about prospects not only through the period of the Žrst transition into employment, but throughout the whole of working life. This means that not only do extended education, and the qualiŽcations associated with it, take on increasing importance but that identity capital, as a whole, similarly has to adapt to new demands as the value placed on different components of it change.” (Bynner, 1998, p. 31)

“As we move from an industrial to a postindustrial, or late modern society, and finally to a post-modern society (Baumann, 1991) identity achievement becomes increasingly uncertain. Traditionally, occupational choices were made early and entry into jobs, and the establishment of the careers and occupational identities that followed them, went relatively smoothly” (Bynner, 1998, p. 31) What I would imagine to be super important to my thesis. The notion of risk and stability in a changing temporal context...

“The adult employee could expect to maintain the same occupation often with the same employer throughout his/her working life.” (Bynner, 1998, p. 31) STABILITY

“Under the conditions of what is often described as “late modernity” (Beck, Giddens, & Lash, 1994; Giddens, 1991), much more diffusion and uidity in the developing adult identity are apparent as past certainties give way increasingly to consciousness of risk (Beck, 1986).” (Bynner, 1998, p. 31) God I'm going to have to look at risk society aren't I?

“a process of continuous reexivity or reappraisal the individual has to adapt his/her identity to match changing circumstances in the labour market and elsewhere in what increasingly is a “navigation” through life rather than a transition (Evans & Furlong, 1996; Evans & Heinz, 1994)” (Bynner, 1998, p. 31)

“Consequence of these changes for many individuals is that of vicious and virtuous circles. On the virtuous circle, young people’s reinforcement of identity components, through education and work experience, heighten opportunities and consequently enhance self-esteem. On the vicious circle their opportunities are stunted.” (Bynner, 1998, p. 31)

“Young men are relegated to training schemes, marginal unskilled jobs, or unemployment; young women, typically leave the labour market altogether, often to have children (Banks et al, 1992; Bynner, Ferri, & Shepperd, 1997).” (Bynner, 1998, p. 31)

“usually at age 14 in the British secondary school. Whatever decisions are taken then are likely to be critically important in what happens at 16 years of age. This is when the school leaving examinations take place, and when in the order of 30% of young people leave school to seek work, usually via some kind of training scheme.” (Bynner, 1998, p. 32)

“n previous studies, using data collected from a longitudinal birth study of people born in 1970, the importance of the components of identity identiŽed with the basic skills of literacy and numeracy have been demonstrated as critically important in employability (Bynner, 1997)” (Bynner, 1998, p. 32)

“More recently, data have become available in a comparablestudy of a cohortborn in 1958, where there have been indications of reduced signiŽcance of the basic skills at initial entry into employment, but increased importance later on (Bynner & Parsons, 1997).” (Bynner, 1998, p. 32)

“Numeracy has turned out to be particularly signiŽcant in reducing the probability of unemployment (Parsons & Bynner, 1997).” (Bynner, 1998, p. 32)

“when the 1958 cohort were in a position to leave school, there was sufŽcient unskilled and semi-skilled work available for the great majority with poor basic skills to get some kind of job. In contrast, the 1970 cohort faced a labour market at 16 in which youth jobs of the traditional kind had largely disappeared. In place of them was the government two-year youth training scheme (YTS), or the option of staying on in educationto try to get qualiŽcations” (Bynner, 1998, p. 32) There were various forms of the YTS both before and after the scheme - I believe the article on risk speaks to this point

“In tracing the origin of these skills problems back to birth, the critical role of the family is evident (Bynner & Steedman, 1995). Typically, those whose basic skills are poor have grown up in families which become increasingly” (Bynner, 1998, p. 32)

“ut of step with the formal education process.” (Bynner, 1998, p. 33)

“The employment histories over the period from 16 to 21 of young people in the 1970 and 1958 cohorts are compared for different groups deŽned by qualiŽcation level. This enables us to ascertain whether qualiŽcations are becoming increasingly important for employability in younger cohorts.” (Bynner, 1998, p. 33)

“A structural equation model, using LISREL (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1979), is used to evaluate the differential effects in the two cohorts on access to employment of identity components associated with qualiŽcations, the basic skills, labour market experience, family background and support, and psychological state. The labour market outcome of interest is the counterpart of employability—experience of unemployment since leaving school. The purpose of the analysis is to compare for the two cohorts some of the earlier life course processes through which these identity components develop, leading to the identity outcome of employability” (Bynner, 1998, p. 33)

“method of pairwise deletion of missing values was employed” (Bynner, 1998, p. 34)

“esides the basic skills assessments, the surveys covered education and training and early employment history, and in the case of the 1958 cohort, partnership and family formation, and social and political participation.” (Bynner, 1998, p. 34)

“The basic skills tests in bothsurveys attempted to assess functional literacy and numeracy (i.e. an individual’s ability to deal with everyday situations requiring use of literacy and numeracy skills).” (Bynner, 1998, p. 34)

“The ages when measures were taken in the two surveys are comparable, except for adult literacy and numeracy, which were measured at age 21 (1970 cohort) and at age 37 (1958 cohort). The analysis rests on the assumption that these scores are reasonably stable through adulthood (i.e. between ages 21 and 37).” (Bynner, 1998, p. 34)

“The advantage of using LISREL is that we are able to estimate the path coefŽcients, measuring the strengths of relationships between variables across time, while controlling for the effects of variables representing inuences that occurred earlier in the young person’s life.” (Bynner, 1998, p. 35)

“roadly, the aim of a LISREL analysis is to specify a model that Žts the data well, that is, has small value of chi-square relative to the degrees of freedom, a high goodness-of-Žt index (approaching 1), and a low root mean square residual (approaching 0). This is achieved by releasing constraints on the parameters initially Žxed at zero.” (Bynner, 1998, p. 35)

“The very different economic climates facing the two cohorts is shown by the fact that over the period of ages 16–21 in the 1970 cohort, 40% of men and 33% of women had experienced some unemployment” (Bynner, 1998, p. 9)

“For the 1958 cohort, over the longer period of ages 16–23, only 10% of men and 11% of women had experienced unemployment, and over the period of ages 16–33, only 26% of men and 19% of women” (Bynner, 1998, p. 9)

“To equate the potential amount of employment the different groups could have had, the comparison was restricted to the samples who left school at 16.” (Bynner, 1998, p. 9)

“Educational attainment scores were obtained by aggregating results obtained in the age 16 school-leaving examination, General CertiŽcate of Education (GCE) ‘O’ level and CertiŽcate of Secondary Education (CSE) grade 1.” (Bynner, 1998, p. 9)

“is notable that among both men and women, by the age of 18, the employment rates of the high attaining groups in the 1958 and 1970 cohorts were quite similar at over90%, with only slightly lower rates among the 1970 cohort from age 20 onwards. This contrasts with the low attaining group, where from age 17, the 1958 cohort maintained employment rates at over 90%, but the 1970 cohort had rates which were more than 10% lower” (Bynner, 1998, p. 9)

“when the 1970 cohort were no longer eligible for youth training (YTS), employment rates dropped below 80%; the other 20–30% were mainly unemployed or out of the labour market “at home”.” (Bynner, 1998, p. 9) YTS appears to be an important influence on employment status

“FIG. 1a. Cross-cohort comparison of early school leavers: % men who obtained very good” (Bynner, 1998, p. 10)

“There are effects emanating from social class on reading and maths, parental interest and type of housing at age10, in the1958 cohort; far less so in the 1970 cohort, pointing to a possible weakening of social class as a key component of social capital across the generations” (Bynner, 1998, p. 44)

“his reects the greater uidity and individualisation of choices in modern youth transitions compared with the more (socially) structured transitions of the past” (Bynner, 1998, p. 44) Structure or Risk?

“The birth cohort study data give striking evidence of the role of identity capital on employability in the modern labour market—highlighting its increasing importance across successive cohorts, as well as the components of it that seem to matter most.” (Bynner, 1998, p. 45)

“ime the 1958 cohort left school, regardless of their educational attainment or basic skills, most could expect to obtain employment, and most did. Unemployment rates remained generally below 10%, and barely uctuated over the whole period of ages 16–21. In the 1970 cohort, the situation could hardly have been more different: Those with poor educational attainment had substantially more difŽculty in gaining entry to employment.” (Bynner, 1998, p. 45)

“n summary, children growing up in middle class homes acquire both the cognitive and the noncognitive elements of identity capital which provide a degree of protection from adverse labour market conditions—vocational insurance—as argued elsewhere (Bynner, 1996). Those without these advantages face increasing difŽculty in entering and maintaining employment.” (Bynner, 1998, p. 46)

“these conclusions we need to be aware of difŽculties in conducting the analyses and of improvements that might be made. Longitudinal data suffer inevitably from attrition, so the sample for which the longitudinal analysis applied lost people, many of whom might have been expected to show the most chequered labour market careers” (Bynner, 1998, p. 46)

“Finally, Côté’s (1996) idea of identity capital has been used as a heuristic device with which to guide the formulation of the models and to interpret the Žndings. It has merit in extending the concepts of human capital, and social/cultural capital and social exclusion, while reconciling them within a single unifying framework. It also takes on board the postulated greater uidity of job-related identity requirements demanded in “late modern” societies. However, the very inclusiveness of the concept, as Côté himself acknowledges, lays it open to charges of too much generality and vagueness leading to problems in operationalisation” (Bynner, 1998, p. 47) Possible variable to use??

“This underlines the point made by such writers as Baumeister and Muraven (1996), that identity has to adapt to the changing context of new employment demands, while also helping to shape it. It looks as if the failure to get sustained work, by the members of the 1970 cohort with the weakest human capital components in their identity make-up, and lacking also the social capital that underpins the middle class upbringing, was providing a basis for permanent disadvantage and exclusion in the labour market.” (Bynner, 1998, p. 48)