Their futures? A widening participation symposium on young
people’s aspirations into higher education and beyond.
Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol
Helen Wodehouse Lecture Theatre, 35 Berkeley Square, Bristol BS8 1JA
Tuesday 20 May, 1pm – 5pm
This symposium brings together academics working with ideas around
aspirations of young people, particularly with reference to higher
education and later careers. The afternoon will be a chance to hear
about and discuss some of the latest thinking and research in the field,
and to consider how this might impact on policy, practice and future
thinking. The afternoon should be of interest to academics, policy
makers, and practitioners with an interest in aspirations and widening
participation.
Professor Ros Sutherland is a Professor of Education, who has published widely in the fields
of mathematics education and digital technologies. She has recently been working with
schools in South Bristol to consider ideas around social justice and education.
Dr Jo Rose is a Research Fellow with a keen interest in aspirations of young people. Her
recent paper “Aspirations in an austerity state” discussed the extent to which young people
were able to fulfil their aspirations, and her current High-Potential Learners project is
exploring young people’s decision making around university.
Jessie Abrahams has worked as a Research Assistant on the Paired Peers project, to
understand the relationship between attendance at university and social mobility for young
people from working-class backgrounds. Her PhD is exploring the ways in which aspirations
are constructed and how young people make decisions about university, particularly in the
current context of increasing fees.
Richard Budd is a Research Assistant whose PhD explored the experiences at university of
young adults in England and Germany, in particular with relation to socioeconomic
background.
Professor Harriet Bradley has a broad interest in structures of inequality, and has researched
and written on a wide range of topics, including young people’s life histories and
employment, and intersections of class, ethnicity and gender. Her recent Leverhulme Trust
“Paired Peers” project looks at how attendance at university for young people from workingclass families can either contribute to increased social mobility or reinforce existing patterns
of class reproduction.
Timetable
1.00pm
1.10pm
Welcome & introduction
Aspirations, opportunities, and social justice
1.50pm
4.20pm
Out of place: understanding the decision
making of high-achieving young people in
low-performing schools around university
applications.
Exploring the relationship between the
increased tuition fees in England and young
peoples 'horizons for action'.
BREAK
Choosing to go to University: Fulfilling an
Aspiration?
Discussion
5.00pm
CLOSE
2.30pm
3.10pm
3.40pm
Ros Sutherland, Graduate School
of Education, University of Bristol
Jo Rose, Graduate School of
Education, University of Bristol
Jessie Abrahams, School of
Social Sciences, University of
Cardiff
Richard Budd, Graduate School
of Education, University of Bristol
Harriet Bradley, Centre for
Employment Research Studies,
University of West of England
Abstracts
Aspirations, Opportunities and Social Justice.
Ros Sutherland, Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol
Using the following quote from my book Education and Social Justice in a Digital Age as a
starting point I will use Sen’s idea of capabilities to open up a discussion of aspirations.
“Recently in my role as governor of a secondary school I was asked to sit on a panel with
teachers, to interview the students who had applied to continue studying in the 6 th form. As a
member of the panel I asked each student what they would like to be doing in 5 years time.
One girl said she wanted to become a paleontologist, a boy said that he wanted to become a
professional darts player. Others said that they wanted to become a journalist, a lawyer, a car
mechanic, a physical education teacher and a professional footballer. I wondered if all of
these opportunities were open to them and what subjects it was best for them to study in the
16-18 phase of education in order for them to be able to achieve their goals. Would the girl
who wanted to become a paleontologist be disadvantaged because she cannot currently
study advanced level physics at this particular school? What about the student who wants to
become a PE teacher? Would he be in a good position to gain a place at university on an
appropriate course if he studies a vocational (BTEC) national diploma in sport or would it be
better for him to study an A level PE course? [ ] All of the students that I talked to had ideas
about what they wanted to become and I get angry when people say that young people such
as these, from working class backgrounds, are not aspirational. But what is different about
these young people in comparison with those from more middle class backgrounds, is that
they may not have studied the appropriate pre-16 courses and may not be able to study the
appropriate post-16 courses that are needed in order to realise their aspirations. And
importantly these young people and their parents may not be aware of the situation that they
are in” .
Out of place: understanding the decision making of high-achieving young people in lowperforming schools around university applications.
Jo Rose, Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol
This session presents early findings from the High-Potential Learners project. There are many
able students with high potential who are learning in schools and colleges where attainment
is below average, and not all young people go on to university. There are a number of
dimensions in which the experiences and perceptions of high-potential students in such
schools and colleges are likely to differ from those of their equally able peers in betterperforming institutions, and that hold them back. This research aims to understand the key
influences on decision making around post-A-level pathways of these students.
There are two strands of research in this project: the first strand identified a set of key
influences from quantitative analysis of the Longitudinal Survey of Young People in England –
a large-scale, nationally representative dataset of over 10,000 learners who were born in
1989 and 1990. The analysis in this strand drew on a sub-sample of students with a GCSE
points score in the top 25% of the national distribution, who chose to begin A-level study in
Year 12. This analysis considered factors related to HE attendance, and Russell Group
University attendance in particular. The second strand is ongoing and involves a set of 60 case
studies of high-achieving sixth formers, currently in schools and colleges with below-average
attainment in Bristol and Birmingham. Interviews and focus groups will enable us to
understand the development of their aspirations around HE, decisions about HE application,
and important influences on their educational pathways to date.
Exploring the relationship between the increased tuition fees in England and young peoples
'horizons for action'.
Jessie Abrahams, School of Social Sciences, University of Cardiff
Despite the prevailing evidence of the inequality in access to higher education (HE), in 2012
the government increased the cap on tuition fees such that universities can charge up to
£9,000 per year. The effect of this policy on young people's decision making regarding HE is
still unknown. Whilst sociological literature seems to suggest that the prospect of such debt is
a deterrent- particularly for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, UCAS report no
detrimental effect on their entry rates. My PhD thus emerges from a need to consider what is
actually happening. What impact is this policy having on young people from different social
class backgrounds and their 'aspirations'? Government discourse continually frames students
as rational choosers, focussing as such on the raising of individual aspirations. They see that
through providing young people with greater information -in this case about the tuition fees
and the benefits of attending HE- they can widen access to higher education. In this
presentation I critically engage with the governments' focus on raising aspirations; challenging
their simplistic understanding and locate my research questions and methodology within
a Bourdieusian body of literature which highlights the way in which 'choices' are structured by
material disadvantaged through the habitus. This presentation will also draw upon my own
personal biography and locate my research and its development within this context.
Choosing to go to University: Fulfilling an Aspiration?
Richard Budd, Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol
Going to university may offer opportunities for personal development, better jobs, improved
affluence, and possible social mobility. It may therefore be expected deciding to study for a
degree is an attempt to meet aspirations in terms of who one wants to be or where one
wants to go. Literature in this area, though, seems to show that particularly for some middle
class students, going to university is not a decision at all, but could perhaps be considered an
assumption or expectation (Reay, David, & Ball, 2005). For those from non-university
backgrounds, on the other hand, going to university is much more of a conscious move. This
research focuses primarily on background characteristics (such as socioeconomic status and
school culture) as structuring the decision to go to university. As such, it could be considered
to neglect the role of agency.
This session firstly offers a theoretical model based on a form of ‘neo-institutionalism’ (March
& Olsen, 2006) where actors’ decisions can be seen as a composite of scripts (structure) and
agency (decision-making). The model will be explained before being applied in relation to the
decision (or non-decision) to go to university, based on interviews with undergraduate
students in Germany and England. From the participants’ accounts, the roles that external
pressure, personal aspirations — and in some cases a lack of other attractive options — can
combine in different ways to lead people to attend university.