Journal of Education Policy

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Spheres of influence: what shapes young people’s

aspirations at age 12/13 and what are the
implications for education policy?

Louise Archer, Jennifer DeWitt & Billy Wong

To cite this article: Louise Archer, Jennifer DeWitt & Billy Wong (2014) Spheres of influence:
what shapes young people’s aspirations at age 12/13 and what are the implications for education
policy?, Journal of Education Policy, 29:1, 58-85, DOI: 10.1080/02680939.2013.790079

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2013.790079

Published online: 09 May 2013.

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Journal of Education Policy, 2014
Vol. 29, No. 1, 58–85, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2013.790079

Spheres of influence: what shapes young people’s aspirations at

age 12/13 and what are the implications for education policy?
Louise Archer*, Jennifer DeWitt and Billy Wong

Department of Education and Professional Studies, King’s College London, London, UK

(Received 12 October 2012; final version received 22 March 2013)

Young people’s aspirations remain an enduring focus of education policy interest

and concern. Drawing on data from an ongoing five-year study of young
people’s science and career aspirations (age 10–14), this paper asks what do
young people aspire to at age 12/13, and what influences these aspirations? It
outlines the main aspirations and sources of these aspirations as expressed by
young people in England in the last year of primary school (survey of 9000+
Y6 pupils, aged 10/11, interviews with 92 children and 76 parents) and the
second year of secondary school (survey of 5600+ Y8 pupils, aged 12/13, inter-
views with 85 pupils). We demonstrate how aspirations are shaped by structural
forces (e.g. social class, gender and ethnicity) and how different spheres of
influence (home/family, school, hobbies/leisure activities and TV) appear to
shape different types of aspirations. The paper concludes by considering the
implications for educational policy and careers education.
Keywords: class; equity/social justice

Aspirations and education policy

Why are aspirations an interesting and important focus for study? We offer three
key reasons: First, aspirations can, in some cases, provide a probabilistic indication
of a young person’s future occupation (Trice 1991a, 1991b; Trice and McClellan
1993). For instance Croll’s (2008) UK research showed that approximately half of
young people expressing aspirations at age 15 will end up in a similar type of occu-
pation 10–15 years later. Tai et al.’s (2006) US research also found that young peo-
ple aged 14 who aspire to careers in science are 3.4 times more likely to end up
taking a degree in the physical sciences or engineering. Moreover, some researchers
have suggested that ‘high’ aspirations might contribute to building resilience among
young people from disadvantaged backgrounds (e.g. moderating the effects of
poverty on young people’s behaviour, Flouri and Panourgia 2012). However, cave-
ats have been noted, with Croll (2008) and Yates et al. (2011) drawing attention to
the potentially negative outcomes associated with young people from disadvantaged
backgrounds who aspire highly, but who lack the academic attainment and
resources to achieve their ambitions.

*Corresponding author. Email: louise.archer@kcl.ac.uk

This article was originally published with errors. This version has been corrected. Please see
Corrigendum (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2013.808799).

Ó 2013 Taylor & Francis

 Journal of Education Policy 59

Second, aspirations constitute a clear focus of concern within education policy.

In particular, the idea that differential rates of educational participation and
achievement might be due (in part) to a ‘poverty of aspiration’ among some (work-
ing-class and particular minority ethnic1) groups, has received considerable attention
within UK policy over the past decade. Indeed, the ‘problem’ of ‘low aspirations’
has featured in the White papers and educational policy-making of both the previous
New Labour (e.g. DfES 2003, 2004, 2005) and the current Coalition administrations
(e.g. DfE 2010). The line of rhetoric appears little changed from (for instance), the
2004 White Paper (described as ‘more than anything, it is a White Paper about aspi-
ration’, DfES 2005, 7) with its accompanying ministerial references to ‘a national
scandal of low aspiration and poor performance’ (DfES 2004), to the current Secre-
tary of State for Education, Michael Gove’s, calls in the 2010 Schools White Paper
for the creation of an ‘aspiration nation’ (DfE 2010), echoed in 2012 by Prime Min-
ister David Cameron (Murphy 2012, 6). Numerous charities and non-governmental
initiatives in the UK also focus their activities around the notion that disadvantaged
young people can be best helped to improve their educational attainment and pro-
gression into employment through programmes of ‘raising aspirations’. For instance,
the educational charity ‘Young Enterprise’ (www.young-enterprise.org.uk) states on
the opening page of its website, ‘We believe that developing strong aspirations is
key to boosting employability and entrepreneurship’. Indeed, mainstream policy
attachment to the discourse of ‘raising aspirations’ has remained untroubled, despite
repeated critiques from educational research, notably showing that young people
from working-class and/or minority ethnic backgrounds often hold high aspirations
(e.g. Thomas 2001; Archer, Hutchings, and Ross 2003; Archer and Francis 2007;
Croll 2008; Strand and Winston 2008; Kintrea, St Clair, and Houston 2011).
Third, and finally, in this paper, we view aspirations as being of sociological
interest – as socially indicative, socially constructed phenomena that provide a
means for examining the interplay between agency and social structures within
young people’s lives. From an equity perspective, there is an interest in exploring
and explaining gendered (OECD 2012b), classed and/or racialised (e.g. Archer and
Francis 2007) patterns in young people’s aspirations. In this paper we draw on a
Bourdieusian analytic lens: we understand an individual’s sense of their own future
as being not merely a personal cognition, but as formed through their relationship
with the wider social context, including fields of home and schooling. Bourdieu’s
work seeks to theorise the reproduction of inequalities and relations of privilege
and dominance within society (e.g. Bourdieu 1986, 1990, 1992), which he sees as
achieved through interactions of habitus and capital within fields. Bourdieu argues
that habitus provides a practical ‘feel’ for the world and is shaped by a person’s
upbringing and social location. As Reay (2004) explains, habitus can be understood
as an internal matrix of dispositions, shaping how an individual understands and
engages with the social world:
a complex internalized core from which everyday experiences emanate … a deep inte-
rior, epicentre containing many matrices. These matrices demarcate the extent of
choices available to any one individual. Choices are bounded by the framework of
opportunities and constraints the person finds him/herself in Reay. (2004, 435)

For instance, Reay, David, and Ball (2005) show how differently classed and racia-
lised habitus can shape students’ perceptions of going to university as either an
‘automatic’, taken-for-granted assumption or as ‘not for the likes of us’. Habitus
60 L. Archer et al.

does not operate alone, it interacts with capital (resources – which can be economic,
cultural, social or symbolic). Cultural capital can encompass qualifications, knowl-
edge (dominant forms of knowledge and understanding useful for e.g. navigating
the education system) and socially valued forms of ‘taste’ (e.g. ‘high’ culture).
Social capital, from a Bourdieusian perspective, refers to the ability to gain value
from social relations and networks of contacts. The symbolic value of capital is
determined by the extent to which particular forms of capital are valued within soci-
ety and can be used to re/produce privilege. As Bourdieu argues, interactions of
habitus and capital within fields, such as the education system, have profound
effects on people’s life chances and their perceptions of the future:

A large part of social suffering stems from the poverty of people’s relationship to the
educational system, which not only shapes social destinies but also the image they
have of their destiny’. (Bourdieu 2010, 119, emphasis added)

In terms of research on young people’s aspirations, there have been a number of

highly informative quantitative analyses of large national longitudinal data-sets,
such as the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) (e.g. Croll 2008; Croll,
Attwood, and Fuller 2011), the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England
(LSYPE) (e.g. Attwood and Croll 2011; Gutman and Schoon 2012), the National
Child Development Study (e.g. Schoon 2001) and the Youth Cohort Study (e.g.
Yates et al. 2011). There have also been insightful smaller, in-depth qualitative stud-
ies looking at young people’s aspirations, for instance among urban youth (e.g.
Archer, Hollingworth, and Mendick 2010; Ball, Maguire, and Macrae 2000; Francis
2000), minority ethnic pupils (e.g. Archer and Francis 2007; Wong 2012) and
young women (e.g. Fuller 2009). In this paper we aim to add to this body of
knowledge through the contribution of sociologically informed insights from a med-
ium-sized, mixed methods study from an ongoing study of young people’s science
and career aspirations from the age of 10 to 14 years. Croll (2008) notes that young
people surveyed by the BHPS in the 1990s (at age 15) were occupationally ambi-
tious (that is, most aspired to professional and technical/managerial careers). Our
samples of contemporary youth are not only younger but also constitute a different
generation to those examined by Croll (2008), raising the question, are contempo-
rary young people in England also part of the ‘Ambitious Generation’ (Schneider
and Stevenson 1999), or are they more circumspect given their social location in
the current ‘age of austerity’ and global recession?
In sum, this paper asks what do young people aspire to at age 12/13, and what
influences these aspirations? It outlines the main aspirations and sources of these
aspirations as expressed by young people when in the last year of primary school
(Y6, age 10/11) and the second year of secondary school (Y8, age 12/13).

Study details
The ASPIRES project is funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research
Council (RES179250008) as part of its Targeted Initiative on Science and Mathe-
matics Education.2 It is an ongoing five-year study exploring science aspirations
and engagement among 10–14 year olds. It comprises a quantitative online survey
that was initially administered to a cohort sample of over 9000, 10/11 year-old
students in England, who were surveyed again at age 12/13 (with a final wave
 Journal of Education Policy 61

planned in 2013, when the cohort reach age 13/14), and in-depth, repeat interviews
with 92 pupils (at ages 10/11; 12/13 and 13/14) and 78 parents (who are inter-
viewed twice, once when their children are age 10/11 and again at age 13/14). This
paper is primarily based on analysis of the Phase 1 and 2 quantitative and qualita-
tive data-sets (with Year 8 pupils, aged 12/13). Full details of the survey and its
methods, analyses and findings are discussed in separate publications. The final
phase of the research will be completed by the end of 2013.
The first phase of the survey was completed by 9319 students aged 10/11 years
(Year 6) in England, who were recruited from 279 primary schools (248 state
schools and 31 independent). This sample represented all regions of the country
and was roughly proportional to the overall national distribution of schools in
England by attainment and proportion of students eligible for free school meals
(FSM). Of the students who completed the survey there were: 50.6% boys, 49.3%
girls and 846 (9.1%) in private schools, 8473 (90.9%) in state schools. Students
self-reported ethnic backgrounds were grouped into the following over-arching cate-
gories: 74.9% White; 8.9% Asian; 7.5% Black; 1.4% Chinese/Far Eastern; 7.8%
mixed/other (see3 for further detail on sub-categories). All students surveyed pro-
vided a response to this question.
We also gathered data on parental occupation, which was used in analyses as a
proxy for socio-economic classification (whilst recognising that SES and the related
notion of social class are complex and contestable concepts). Pupils were asked about
their mother’s and father’s occupations and categorisations were assigned based on
the highest recorded parental occupation. Due to the complexities of asking young
children about their parents’ occupations, a simplified categorisation task was devel-
oped and used in this phase (as opposed to using the full ONS SEC categorisation
system, which piloting showed to be too cumbersome and time-consuming for the
age group in question). Of the phase 1 sample, classifications based on parental
occupation were: professional 22.8%; managerial 12.4%; skilled manual 21.1%;
semi-skilled manual 16.2%; unskilled 5.1%; other job (parent works but level
unclear) 8.8%; student 1.3%; does not work 6.2%; do not Know 6.1%; missing data
0.2% (total 100%).
Due to the age of the children and the provisional nature of the parental
occupation measure, we have concerns about the reliability of this measure and urge
extreme caution in considering and interpreting the findings.4
Given the difficulties associated with obtaining and making sense of child-
reported parental occupation data, we also calculated a measure of ‘cultural capital’
(CC) (based on parental university attendance, leaving school before 16, number of
books in the home and visits to museums), and created five CC ‘groups’ (from
‘very low’ to ‘very high’ CC) for use in analysis. Point values were assigned to the
various items comprising CC (e.g. for each parent who attended university, we
assigned one point). These assignations were developed based on our understand-
ings of Bourdieu’s conceptualisation of CC and previous scales which have
attempted to measure CC. SPSS was used to calculate an overall CC ‘score’ for
each student. For ease of conceptualisation and analysis, we then created five CC
‘groups’, based on the overall number of points. Y6 survey pupils were categorised
as follows: very low CC 2.0%; low CC 23.3%; medium CC 34.1%; high CC
20.3%; very high CC 20.3%.
Measures of CC broadly aligned with parental occupational categorisations of
social class, with basic descriptive and multivariate analyses of both pointing to the
62 L. Archer et al.

same trends. For instance, as CC increased, so did aspirations in science. Similarly,

as parental occupational background increased, so did aspirations in science.
The second phase of the survey was conducted two years later (2011/12) when
participants were in Year 8 (age 12/13 years). About 56345 Year 8 students from 69
secondary schools (58 maintained and 11 independent schools) completed the phase
2 questionnaire between September and December 2011. Again, these schools
represented all nine Government Office Regions in England and comprised a range
of attainments at Key Stage 3 science (from 2008) and a range of FSM eligibility.
In addition, the sample was roughly proportional to the overall distribution of
schools in England in terms of attainment (though with fewer in the middle band
and more in the second lowest band) and proportion of students eligible for FSM.
Of the 5634 students who participated in Survey 2, 2251 (40.0%) were boys
and 3358 (59.6%) were girls (25 students did not provide their gender).
Overall, students fell into the following (self-reported) higher order ethnic cate-
gories: White 75.3%; Asian 10.5%; Black 6.2%; Chinese 0.7%; Other 7.3% (see6
for further detail). Four students declined to answer the question.
As before, data were collected on parental occupations. As before, despite being
extensively piloted, we still have concerns about the reliability of this measure and
we would urge extreme caution in interpreting the findings. Y8 children reported
the following parental occupations: professional/managerial 43.0%; skilled 24.9%;
semi-skilled 5.8%; unskilled 6.3%; other job 10.5%; homemaker 2.1%; unemployed
1.9%; do not know 3.7%; missing data 1.8%.
In terms of CC , the Y8 sample categorised respondents as: very low CC 2.6%;
low CC 25.6%; medium CC 31.8%; high CC 20.4%; very high CC 19.5%. In other
words, the CC profile of the Y6 and Y8 samples was broadly similar.
Both phases of the survey covered topics such as: aspirations in science; atti-
tudes towards school science; self-concept in science; images of scientists; participa-
tion in science-related activities outside of school; parental expectations; parental
school involvement; parental attitudes towards science; and peer attitudes towards
school and towards school science. Exact questions are noted in the endnotes.7
Only 757 pupils who took part in the Year 6 survey were also re-surveyed in
Year 8. Hence, we propose that the findings discussed in this paper should be read
as pertaining to cohort, rather than longitudinal data. However, analyses were con-
ducted on the 757 pupils for whom we hold matched data in order to assess the
extent to which they differed (or not) from the wider samples. The matched group
consisted of 446 girls (58.9%) and 311 boys (41.1%). They were similar in ethnic
background to the wider Year 6 and Year 8 samples (77.7% White, 10.7% Asian,
3% Black and 7.8% Other) and in parental occupation classifications (professional/
managerial 45.6%; skilled 24.4%; semi-skilled 6.5%; unskilled 6.7%; other job
9.2%; homemaker 2.2%; unemployed 1.1%; do not know 2.9%; missing data
1.3%). Cultural capital categories were also similar (very low CC 2.6%; low CC
25.0%; medium CC 33.4%; high CC 19.4%; very high CC 19.6%).
In other words, the matched group appears to be broadly similar to the group
completing the Year 8 survey in terms of gender, ethnicity, social class and CC,
although there were slightly more White students in the matched sample and nota-
bly fewer Black students (3%, rather than 6.3%). In addition there is noticeably a
higher proportion of Bangladeshi students in the matched sample, which is likely
attributable to one or two secondary schools in London agreeing to take part in both
surveys. To look more closely into how the matched group compared with the Year
 Journal of Education Policy 63

6 and Year 8 cohorts, we also compared their scores on some of the latent variables
of interest to those of the rest of the cohorts. The outcomes of these comparisons8
indicate that the matched and wider samples are broadly comparable, although the
matched group scores slightly higher in terms of their aspirations in science and
associated variables.9
In the first phase of the qualitative research, 170 interviews were conducted with
78 parents and 92 children age 10/11 (Year 6) drawn from 11 schools in England
(9 state and 2 independent schools). Potential schools were sampled from the list of
279 schools who responded to the Phase 1 survey as part of the wider study (see
also DeWitt, Osborne, and Archer Forthcoming). A sampling frame was constructed
to represent six target categories of school (e.g. ‘multiethnic urban/inner city
schools’; ‘working-class suburban’; ‘predominantly white, middle-class suburban
schools’; ‘independent single sex’) to ensure a range of school contexts and popula-
tions and prospective schools were purposively sampled from within these target
categories. Schools that agreed to participate were then sent parental consent letters
for distribution to all children in Year 6 (age 10).
Schools that agreed to participate were sent parental consent letters for distribu-
tion to all children in the last year of primary school (Year 6, ages 10–11). All par-
ent–child pairs who volunteered to participate were included in the study, although
we were ultimately unable to interview parents of 11 children. Participating students
(and their parents) came from a broad range of socio-economic classes and ethnic
backgrounds. Approximately two thirds of participants were White (mostly White
British) and approximately one third were from ethnic minority backgrounds (pri-
marily South Asian (including Sri Lankan, Indian and Pakistani) or Black (African
and Caribbean) heritage). Students’ socio-economic backgrounds also reflected a
wide spread, but with the majority of parental occupations being in professional,
managerial or technical careers. The sample included more females than males, with
55 girls: 37 boys and 58 mothers: 20 fathers participating. There were three sets of
twins in the sample.
For phase 2, we managed to follow-up 85 of the original 92 pupils when they
were in Year 8 (37 boys and 48 girls). These students now attended 41 secondary
schools in nine areas of England and Wales. The seven pupils whom we did not
manage to re-interview in Y8 were all girls (three White, three Black African and
one Black African Muslim: one middle class; two lower middle class, four working
class). The reasons for not participating were: chronic illness (one girl – who had
left school for treatment), absence from school on fieldwork days which could not
be re-scheduled at later dates (n = 3); lost contact with parents (n = 2); declined (no
reason given) n = 1.
Interviews were conducted by the paper’s authors and the project’s research
administrator ([name]), with the majority of the interviews being conducted by the
second author. Of the interviewers, three were White middle-class women (with
English, American and French national backgrounds) and one was a British-Chinese
male PhD student. Interviewees were invited to choose their own pseudonyms,
hence the majority of pseudonyms cited in this paper reflect the personal choices of
interviewees.
All interviews were digitally audio-recorded and transcribed. Initial coding and
sorting of the data (on key topic areas, themes and by responses to particular ques-
tions) was undertaken by authors 1 and 2 using the NVivo software package. The
lead author then searched the coded extracts to identify patterns of aspirations,
64 L. Archer et al.

which were then tested and refined through successive phases of coding and analy-
sis, iteratively testing out emergent themes across the data-set to establish ‘strength’
and prevalence (Miles and Huberman 1994). These coded themes were then sub-
jected to a more theoretically informed analysis (in line with the stated Bourdieu-
sian conceptual framework) to identify interplays of habitus, capital within the
development of children’s aspirations. Where possible, we also sought to identify
practices of power and gendered, classed and racialised patterns within respondents’
talk, relating these to reported sources of aspirations (to identify how different
patterns of aspiration, as identified within respondents’ talk, might be related to
differential social locations, practices and resources).

What do young people aspire to?

The study gathered data on young people’s stated aspirations in several ways –
through open-ended (free response) and closed (Likert-type) questions on the survey
and via in-depth, probed questions within the interviews. As might be expected (due
to differences in sampling and the way questions are asked), these produced slightly
different forms of response, but comparing across these different forms of data, a
common pattern emerges in terms of the most popular aspirations, with careers in
sports, teaching, medicine and the arts being among the most popular aspirations in
Y6 and Y8, with business also emerging as highly popular in Y8.10 Figures 1–3
summarise the young people’s responses to questions about preferred aspirations:
Looking at the coded free responses on the two surveys, the top five most popu-
lar aspirations in Y6 were sports (16.5%), performing arts (13.3%), teacher (9.8%),
doctor (8.3%) and vet (5.8%). In year 8, the top five were performing arts (20.1%),
doctor (10.3%), business (9.3%), sports (9.2%) and teacher (6.0%).
When presented with a more limited choice of options (Figure 2), most (over
60%) strongly/agreed that they would like a career in business, but arts, sports and
doctor were all highly popular aspirations too.11

Figure 1. Percentage of students aspiring to job (most popular coded free responses⁄, by
age). ⁄Based on a sample coding of 3,247 Y6 children and 2,124 Y8 children. Respondents
could identify more than one aspiration.
 Journal of Education Policy 65

Figure 2. Percentage of Y8 children agreeing they would like to do this job (restricted
choice).

Figure 3. Top 5 aspirations expressed in Y6 and Y8 interviews by number of students.

In the interviews (Figure 3), the ‘top 3’ stated aspirations also appear fairly con-
sistent (namely, sports, teaching and arts), and, as indicated by the free-response
survey question and the restricted choice question (Figure 2), business appears to
gain popularity as an aspiration among Y8 pupils.
In other words, looking across the data, the most popular aspirations are for
careers in sports, teaching, arts and medicine.12
It was also notable that in both the quantitative and qualitative phases of the
study, most children expressed an occupational aspiration. For instance, among our
Y8 interviewees, only four girls (Bethany1, Georgie, Leah and Rose) appeared to
have no specific aspirations (Bethany ‘I don’t really know, its really hard to
choose’). As Flouri and Panourgia (2012) discuss in their research with primary
school children: ‘we note that even at this young age the great majority of the
children stated a career rather than a life aspiration, which suggests that career
aspirations (or what they may be proxy measures for) may be important’.

Young people generally express ‘high’ aspirations

In line with findings from Croll (2008), young people in our study generally
expressed ‘high’ aspirations, for professional, managerial and technical careers.
66 L. Archer et al.

There was little evidence of a ‘poverty of aspiration’, with young people from all
social-class backgrounds expressing broadly comparable aspirations (although it
should be noted that the sample did contain proportionally more students catego-
rised as having high or very high CC compared to those with low/very low CC).
As found by Croll (2008), professional, managerial and technical careers were the
most popular as aspired to by the majority of young people in our study. Very few
aspired to skilled manual and even fewer to unskilled manual. It was also notable
that most students aspired to make a lot of money in the future (90.9% agreed it
was fairly or very important to them personally) and 64.8% of Y6 pupils and
51.1% of Y8 pupils agreed that it was fairly or very important to them to ‘become
famous’ in the future (although this desire to be famous decreased considerably in
Y8 compared to Y6). In other words, we would suggest that in general, the young
people in our study can also be regarded as part of the ‘Ambitious Generation’ and
are not suffering unduly from ‘low aspirations’.
However, whereas Croll (2008) found a widespread notion of meritocracy and a
general confidence that ‘most young people believed that they could get what they
want through effort’, the young people in our study appeared somewhat more cir-
cumspect and unsure. While 34 students (out of 71 Y8 interviewees who expressed
a codeable view on the likelihood of being able to achieve their aspirations) felt
reasonably confident, almost the same number (37 young people) expressed a
degree of uncertainty – 19 felt unsure and believed that successfully achieving their
aspirations would depend on their own achievement and/or effort (of which they
felt uncertain). A further 18 students expressed a more general (unspecified) uncer-
tainty (often articulating their chances of achieving their aspiration as ‘50:50’ and
suggesting that they did not know if they might change their mind in future). The
uncertain/ precarious labour market and the recession were explicitly mentioned by
five students along with HE fees/ lack of places (n = 2). This suggests that young
people today, while similarly ambitious, may be somewhat less confident that they
will achieve their goals than their counterparts in 1995. Moreover, that only five
young people explicitly acknowledged external/structural potential constraints to
their aspirations (with the majority grounding reasons in their own effort or achieve-
ment), resonates with wider research which indicates that in contemporary Britain
people are less likely to spontaneously identify social-class inequalities (unless
explicitly prompted), even though class inequalities may shape their lives and life
chances in various ways (e.g. Savage 2000; Atkinson 2010).
In one sense, the young people in our study might be said to be more realistic
than their predecessors. As Croll (2008, 254) discusses, ‘The availability of jobs in
higher socio-economic-status occupations is not going to keep up with the ambi-
tions of the young people’. Referring to Brown and Hesketh’s (2004) notion of
market ‘congestion’, Croll’s analysis shows how ambitious young people from less
advantaged backgrounds are ‘less likely to be educationally equipped to realise their
ambitions’ (255) and that young people’s professional ambitions are not borne out
in reality.13 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 5.0% 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,
22.0% of the adult sample were in these professions 10/15 years later’. Croll (2008)
suggest that ‘generally ambitions, attainment and intentions are well aligned but
there are also many instances of misalignment’ (243).
 Journal of Education Policy 67

However, pupils in our survey also showed a clear interest among in attaining a
good ‘quality’ of working life and many expressed altruistic aspirations, such as ‘to
make a difference in the world’ (77.9% of Y8 students agreed this would be fairly
or very important to them). Their aspirations were not solely focused on achieving
personal fame, status or wealth. About 95.6% of pupils agreed that it would be
important for them to have time for family in the future and 90.3% aspired to ‘help
others’; 91.2% felt it was important to ‘please my family’ and most (90.6%) wanted
a job that would enable them to have time for hobbies and other interests.

Parental aspirations also appear high

Parental aspirations (as perceived by children) also appeared to be high, countering
popular policy notions (as discussed earlier) about cultures of low aspirations. Over-
all, students generally reported strong parental encouragement and support for their
aspirations and future success. For instance, in the survey, 77.3% of Y8 pupils
strongly/agreed that their parents want them to make a lot of money when they
grow up; 97.5% strongly/agreed that their parents want them to get a good job in
the future and 95.1% strongly/agreed that it is important to their parents that their
child achieves well in school. About 72.1% said that their parents expect them to
go to university, a figure that to some extent reflects the UK’s relatively high rates
of post-16 participation14 (OECD 2012b) but which exceeds actual current rates of
university participation,15 suggesting that aspirations do not wholly match out-
comes. Within these overall patterns, closer inspection reveals some key differences
among subgroups. For instance, children with higher levels of CC are more likely
to report parental expectations of university attendance.16 Indeed, 91.4% of children
with very high levels of CC agreed that their parents expect them to attend univer-
sity, while 57.7% of those with low levels report the same expectations (and 47.2%
of those with very low CC). This tendency is mirrored in the scores on a latent var-
iable about parental aspirations17 more broadly (comprised of items about parental
expectations of university attendance, of making money and having a good job
when in adulthood and of getting good marks in school). As CC increased, so too
did scores on this variable, a statistically significant pattern (F(4,5625) = 105.56,
p < 0.001).
The young people’s general perceptions of high parental aspirations are an
encouraging sign for their futures, especially among those from more disadvantaged
backgrounds. As Schoon, Parsons, and Sacker (2004) suggest, socio-economic
adversity is a significant risk factor for educational failure but high parental aspira-
tions are significantly associated with educational resilience among disadvantaged
families. However, as Schoon et al. also discuss, the effect of parental aspirations
can also be context specific. Hence, we remain cautious as to the extent to which
children’s own high aspirations and perceptions of high parental aspirations and
support will translate into social mobility for all in our study.

Aspirations fall into gendered, classed and racialised patterns

We also found some evidence of gendered, classed and racialised patterns within
particular pupil aspirations. For instance, girls were much more likely to aspire to
arts careers than boys (64% of Y8 girls and 27% of boys aspired to careers in the
arts), and boys were disproportionately likely to agree that they are interested in
careers in engineering (45% Y8 boys, 11% girls; see also OECD 2012b).
68 L. Archer et al.

There were also classed patterns across aspirations, with more privileged chil-
dren (i.e. those with the highest levels of CC) being more likely to aspire to profes-
sional careers, particularly in medicine and science. For instance, pupils with very
high CC were more likely to aspire to become a doctor than those with very low
CC 21.8% of those with very low CC strongly/agreed they would like to become a
doctor cf. 44.5% of those with very high CC strongly/agreed.18 Likewise, of those
with very low CC, only 8.8% strongly/agreed they would like to become a scientist
compared to 23.3% of those with very high CC. Interestingly, those with very low
CC also expressed stronger resistance to the idea of becoming a scientist, with
68.9% of those with very low CC strongly/disagreeing that they would like to
become a scientist (of whom 45.5% strongly disagreed), as compared to 40.4% of
those with high CC (of whom only 15.0% strongly disagreed).
In terms of patterns by ethnicity, minority ethnic groups were more likely to
aspire to work as a doctor/in medicine (the percentage strongly/agreeing that they
would like to work as a doctor or in medicine were: Black, 53.8%; Asian, 60.1%;
Chinese, 43.2% and White, 29.9%).19 Asian students were the most likely to aspire
to work as a scientist (the percentage of ethnic groups strongly/agreeing that would
like to work in science were: Asian, 23.3%; Chinese, 21.6%; Black 17.7%, and
White, 13.0%).
Business was a generally popular career aspiration across most groups of
students (with high proportions of boys and girls aspiring to business and 56.2% of
students with very low CC and 63.7% of students with very high CC strongly/
agreeing that they would like to work in business). But Black students seemed par-
ticularly interested, with 80% Black students strongly/agreeing that they would like
to work in business (compared to 67.9% Asian, 64.8% Chinese and 59.2% White
students).
Dorr and Lesser’s (1980) review found that although children develop a more
extensive and detailed knowledge about occupations as they grow older, earlier gen-
dered and cultural stereotypes tend not to change over time. Subsequent recent
research also indicates that boys may remain more gender stereotyped in their career
choices than girls (Helwig 1998a, 1998b; Francis 2000). Our analyses suggest that by
the age of 12/13, children are already sensitive to, and situating themselves within,
quite complex gendered, classed and racialised identities and inequalities, which ren-
der particular jobs as more possible and desirable than others. Indeed, we would sug-
gest that their aspirations are already strongly socially structured – a point that we
return to later when discussing the dearth of careers education at early secondary
level.
We now move on to consider the sources of children’s aspirations, drawing in
particular on data from the phase one and two interviews.

Sources of aspirations
Students who were interviewed were asked in detail about their aspirations, the
reasons for their interest, how these ideas developed and what had influenced their
ideas. We also asked if they already knew anyone working in this, or similar, lines
of work and probed their knowledge of progression routes into job fields and
whether they engaged in any related activities. We then cross-analysed ‘sources’ of
aspirations by the various ‘types’ and categories of aspiration (e.g. teaching, sports,
 Journal of Education Policy 69

Table 1. Sources of Y8 interviewees’ aspirations.

Source of aspiration Number of studentsa

(most frequently mentioned occupational area/s in brackets)
Family member/s with same job: n = 30
(medicine, teaching)
Family friend or neighbour with same job: n = 10
(business and other professional)
Family push/steer (no direct contacts): n=2
Interest developed through hobby/out of school activity: n = 28
(sports and arts)
TV n = 15
(medical-related)
School: n = 21
(teacher (n = 9), science, medicine and writing (n = 11))
General interest (no specific direct experience): n=6
(business, designer, actor)
Money (job perceived to be well paid): n=6
(business and professions)
a
Numbers add up to more than 85 due to some children expressing more than one aspiration.

business) to explore whether there were any discernible patterns. Findings are
detailed in Table 1.
Both home and school appear to be key influencers/shapers of aspirations. Fami-
lies and home contexts are particularly influential, with 30 students (out of 85)
aspiring to the same job as a family member and 10 aspiring to the same job as a
family friend or neighbour. These are more often children from professional/mana-
gerial backgrounds, aspiring to careers in medicine, teaching and other professions.
Twenty-eight children’s aspirations related to the hobbies, activities and interests
that they pursue outside of school, and these were overwhelmingly related to sports
and the arts. School was also influential, being cited in relation to 21 children’s
aspirations, nine of these children aspired to become a teacher and 11 mentioned
how their aspiration had developed through interests and aptitudes developed at
school (particularly in relation to science, medicine and writing). Fifteen students
said that their aspirations were influenced by television, six cited general interests
but which they did not have direct experience in (or could not trace a direct source)
and a further six were attracted by the perceived financial returns of particular
careers (notable in business and the professions).
Although our data-sets are small and analyses necessarily tentative (and indica-
tive rather than definitive), there are some discernible patterns across spheres of
influence and types of aspiration and for differently socially located children and
young people. We now discuss these, focusing in particular on family; out of school
activities; school and television.

The interplay of family habitus and capital

As detailed in Table 1, ‘family’ was the most cited source of aspirations, with 30
out of the 85 children who were re-interviewed at age 12/13 specially mentioning a
family member who does the job that they aspire to as being an influence on their
aspiration.20 A further 10 pupils cited family friends or neighbours as the inspira-
tion for their aspiration. The prominence of family and family friends as a source
70 L. Archer et al.

of aspirations in our study is further reinforced by findings from the UPMAP study
(Simon et al. 2012), which highlights the importance of key adults (usually family
members or other significant adults) as influencers on the routes that young people
take post-16.
The ambitions of the 40 students who aspired to the same occupations as family
members or family friends covered a range of careers, but the majority were for
professional, managerial and technical jobs, with the most frequently mentioned
specific careers being medicine (doctor or surgeon) and teaching. There were a
number of exceptions, however, for example, Wayne99 wanted to become a
mechanic like his father and Charlie aspired to work in a shop, like her mother.
Laura described how she wanted to join the police, like her cousins (‘Yeah, he
works for the [Irish police department], the other one is just undercover and he just
catches all the baddies’) and LemonOnion wanted to become a physical training
instructor in the RAF (‘cos my brother’s a Royal Marine I thought I might go into
the forces so I thought I’ll be in the RAF, quite fun’). Likewise, Bethany2’s three
sisters and aunt were all nurses (‘they were the ones that made me want to become
a nurse cos I like the idea of helping people [...] I’ve discussed it with my auntie
and she said it would be a good idea because I like caring for people’).
We found that students from socially advantaged backgrounds (e.g. parents in
senior, professional occupations) were more likely than their working-class counter-
parts to locate the source of their aspirations within their (privileged) social capital
(networks of contacts). For example, in the Y8 interview sample there were 17 stu-
dents categorised as ‘working-class’ (from unskilled manual or unemployed, impov-
erished households) and 17 students categorised as from professional/managerial
families.21 Comparing these two groups, the ‘working-class’ students were much
less likely to cite a family member’s career as the inspiration for their aspirations
(n = 3) than those from professional/managerial backgrounds, whose aspirations
were much more likely to be shaped by a family member (n = 11). As Bourdieu
argues, social capital can play a part in the reproduction of priviledge by providing
valuable social links and contacts that can be exploited for advancement. Our evi-
dence suggests that ‘middle-class’ children (those from professional and managerial
backgrounds) are more likely to have access to social capital, (in the form of family
and friends who are doing the sorts of jobs they aspire to) to help them in the pur-
suit and realisation of their ambitions. In contrast, working-class children may also
aspire highly (not least to achieve social mobility and ‘exceed’ the status of their
parents’ careers) but are far less likely to be able to access this form of social capi-
tal to aid the achievement of their ambitions.
In the absence of direct social capital, two students specifically talked about
their families providing the impetus for their aspirations for upward social mobility.
For instance, Victor2 described how ‘Dad knows he doesn’t want me to have a job
like his’ and how his parents encourage and support Victor’s science-related aspira-
tions for an ‘interesting’, professional career. Likewise, Victoria2 explained how:
‘they both [parents] didn’t go to college or university, and ... [I: Right] And that’s
it, cos ... they want me to do better than they did’.
We suggest that the uneven distribution of capital between differently socially
located families plays a key role in structuring young people’s aspirations and post-
16 progression.
We found an increasing use of family narratives among the Y8 sample com-
pared to the Y6 sample, with Y8 students more likely to evoke taken-for-granted
 Journal of Education Policy 71

notions of particular occupations as ‘something that we do in our family’. For

instance, Tom4 is from a professional, British Pakistani family. His father is a
medical consultant and his mother is a businesswoman. His aspirations (to study
science at Oxbridge and then pursue a career in either medicine or business) are
strongly grounded within intergenerational family narratives of success in these
fields (‘I think that would be following my family’s footsteps’). Tom4 talked at
length in both his Y6 and Y8 interviews about his grandfathers’ and great-grandfa-
thers’ highly successful and wealthy careers in business and his father’s successful
career in medicine. Likewise, Amy2 described how:

Yeah, well both my grandmas used to be teachers ... Yeah, they talk about it quite a
lot so we have discussed things about that. [...] Yeah, they all know that I want to be
a teacher. [Int: Yeah. What do they think of that?] They think it’s a good idea. They
think I’d be quite good at it. (Amy2, details)

As Amy2 also indicates, for some students these aspirations are not just ‘ideas’,
they are woven into the fabric of family life and personal identities – they become
regular topics of conversation and form the basis of Amy’s sense of her (personal
and collective/familial) identity and aptitude.
We also noted increasing disparities between families in terms of the reported
deployment of capital in relation to children’s aspirations, with middle-class families
appearing more likely to step up the ‘hot housing’ of children as they get older,
though practices that Lareau (2003) calls ‘concerted cultivation’. For example,
Poppy (white, upper-middle-class girl, private school) first told us in her Y6 inter-
view that she aspired to an ‘adventurous’ job. At her Y8 interview she had settled
on the idea of becoming a safari vet, which derived partly from her father’s new
hobby and partly from the popular TV series (Safari Vet School ITV1, 2012), while
including her desire for an adventurous career.

My Dad has learnt to fly and it’s like a small plane and there was a programme on
TV, like a safari vet, so it [aspiration]’s still adventurous but still … so it’s like a
mixture of both.

As Poppy also explained, her family not only supported this idea, but were actively
nurturing it through a programme of capital-building aimed at building her ‘CV’ for
future application to highly competitive veterinary science courses. For instance,
Poppy described help in arranging work experience with a local veterinary practice
and looking to exploit social capital:

my Mum’s cousin is something high up in the RSPCA... Well, my mum has tried [...]
to talk to him, because he is something to do with the dog sanctuary in Africa and to
see if I could go for two weeks when I’m older, because it will help for the university
[application] when I come round.

Tom4 (mentioned above) also talked about his family as being strategic and future-
orientated, paying close attention to the news and developments in education and
the job market (‘we discuss what happens and we discuss how the kind of educa-
tion system goes’), which informs ideas about Tom4’s future plans. For instance, he
recounted how his mum raised the value of studying mathematics at university after
hearing a report on the news that ‘the government doesn’t exactly have many
72 L. Archer et al.

mathematicians today’. However, there was also a theme of safety/risk within the
accounts of Tom4 and some of the other children from minority-ethnic backgrounds
that were less obvious within the accounts of white middle-class children, hinting at
the intersection of class privilege with racialised inequalities that has been noted
within wider research on the minority ethnic middle-classes (see Archer 2010,
2011, 2012). As Tom4 put it, ‘my dad thinks yes, I should go into medicine,
because he advises it because it’s the safest route ...’
In contrast, we found that young people from working-class families tended to
report their families adopting a more ‘hands off’ approach (being supportive but
without engaging in the active fostering of aspirations via the deployment of capi-
tal), encapsulated in the maxim that parents supported their ambitions ‘as long as
I’m happy’), exemplifying an approach that Lareau (2003) terms the ‘accomplish-
ment of natural growth’. In this way, we suggest that young people’s aspirations to
follow in the ‘family footsteps’ can be read as both a mechanism of social
reproduction but also (particularly in the case of the middle classes) as a strategy to
protect against potential downward mobility (through a pragmatic use of immediate
capital).
Previous research has found that children’s aspirations tend to match parental
expectations (Helwig 1998b). Looking across the Y6 and Y8 interview data, we
were also able to detect some examples of children re-aligning their previous aspira-
tions to fit family-class backgrounds. For instance, as discussed above, Poppy re-
aligned her ‘adventurous’ Y6 aspiration to a more socially conservative ambition of
becoming a vet. By the time of his Y8 interview, Bob (mixed Asian-White, profes-
sional/managerial background) had given up his earlier ambition to become a fire-
fighter and now aspired to a more professional career as an electronic engineer. This
change aligned him more closely in both social class and disciplinary terms with
his parents’ professional STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) careers.
A process of alignment was also evident among some working-class pupils: in her
first interview, Laylany (White British, working class) had aspired to become an
architect but by her second interview she had developed food-related aspirations,
aligning with other family members’ jobs (her mother worked in food retail and, as
Laylany put it, ‘one of my stepbrothers works in a restaurant, he’s a cook there’).
She explained:

My Mum always says to me ‘You’re a really good cook’ and my grandma says to me
‘We’ve got cooking in the family’ cos my grandma cooks, my mum cooks, my nan
cooks, my great grandma used to cook ... so I think it’s just like in me in a way.

We interpret Laylany’s extract as illustrating how working in food was more than
just ‘a job’, it was also a keen interest and a collective identity discourse within the
family. As discussed previously, family habitus is normative but not deterministic,
and the data contain several cases of young people who are ‘bucking the trend’ of
family traditions and ‘going against the grain’. This was exemplified by the two
working-class families in this category whose families provided the impetus for
their aspirations (strongly pushing children towards particular jobs), but in the
absence of social capital relating to these careers. But it was also evident among a
couple of pupils who explicitly resisted following in the ‘family footsteps’. For
instance, as Bill (White British, professional family) explained:
 Journal of Education Policy 73

Well my dad’s sort of keen for me to follow in his footsteps sort of as a scientist. I
mean he’s already like got my brother into like a [international pharmaceutical
company] tour. [..] and he thinks that would be a good job [Int: And what do you
think about that?], Uh, it’s not really something I would want to do.

In Year 6, Bill had aspired to join the army and in Year 8, he was still resisting his
father’s push to pursue a career in science, but he now aspired to be a food writer.
While resisting the strong push to science, it was also notable that Bill had actually
aligned himself with a more ‘middle-class’ aspiration, which we would suggest
indicates the stronger imperative within middle-class family habitus, which is to
resist downward social mobility. Likewise, Raza (British Asian/Indian, professional
family) was still trying to resist his father’s strong desire for him to follow in his
footsteps and go into medicine, in order to pursue his ambition to become an
author.
In previous paper (Archer et al. 2012), we drew on Y6 survey and interview
data to propose a theorisation of family habitus, a framework of dispositions, devel-
oped through a family’s sense of its collective identity, that play an important role
in guiding action, shaping members’ perception of choices and providing family
members with a practical feel for the world (a sense of ‘who we are, what we value
and what we do’). In this earlier work, we showed how the interplay between fam-
ily habitus and capital (resources) works to make science aspirations more ‘think-
able’ for some (especially more privileged) children than others. Here we extend
these notions to argue that the influence of ‘family’ on young people’s aspirations
can be understood as exemplifying the interplay of habitus and capital, shaping
young people’s sense of what feels ‘right’ and ‘appropriate’ for ‘people like me’
(habitus) and providing resources (social and CC) that enable children to gain an
understanding of what the career might be and a direct social contact working in
the field to facilitate progression.
We thus posit that as children get older, they are increasingly likely to ‘learn
their place’ (e.g. Bourdieu and Passeron 1990; Reay 2001; Archer and Yamashita
2003), aligning their aspirations with classed, gendered, racialised paths as a result
of the interplay between family habitus and capital which makes these routes appear
both more conceivable and achievable. As argued elsewhere, while not the only fac-
tor shaping aspirations, interplays of family habitus and capital can be powerful and
tend to produce patterns of alignment between children’s aspirations and parental-
class backgrounds, especially among professional/managerial families.

Interest developed through hobby

As detailed in Table 1, 28 (out of 85) children indicated that their aspiration was
inspired by a hobby, interest or activity that they undertook outside school. These
were predominantly in the field of sports (n = 8) and the arts (especially author/
writing, n = 6, also art/design, n = 2, and music, n = 2), but also electronics, engineer-
ing/mechanics (n = 4) and computer games (n = 3), animals/pet care (n = 3), beauty
(1) and childcare (1). While sports and music were largely undertaken through
organised clubs/orchestras, the other pursuits were largely undertaken informally, by
individual children on their own or with a parent (e.g. several boys talked about
their hobby of fixing cars with their fathers).
74 L. Archer et al.

The importance of such activities to the sustaining of aspirations is indicated by

Azevedo’s (2011) research, which suggests that initial interests must be sustained
through lines of practice (distinctive, recurrent patterns of long-term engagement in
an activity) if they are to develop and flourish. Likewise, Hidi and Renninger’s
(2006) four-phase model of interest development points to the importance of situa-
tional interest being sustained and supported externally by learning activities that
provide meaningful and personally involving activities, as a precursor to developing
interest where the individual has become predisposed to seek repeated engagement
with the activity. This research also indicates that interests are shaped by conditions
of practice and that these can impact on persistence in a practice. In other words,
we might extrapolate that taking part in hobbies and extra-curricular activities on a
long-term basis may shape aspirations, but that this influence will be mediated by
the conditions and context of the activities.
Drawing on analysis of PISA data, OECD (2012a) shows that students who
experience more extra-curricular science activities attain more highly and have more
positive attitudes to learning. However, none of the Y8 children in our sample men-
tioned ‘academic’ clubs or activities in the context of their aspirations – although it
might be hypothesised that where their activities have a close match to particular
areas of the academic curriculum (e.g. writing/English), that there might be a
relationship with increased attainment and/or attitudes to the subject.
Looking at the social-class profile of children who linked their aspirations to
outside school hobbies/activities, it appeared that working-class students (n = 3/17)
were less likely to develop their aspirations through extra-curricular activities than
other students (n = 25/68). This may relate to the practice of concerted cultivation
(Lareau 2003) discussed earlier, through which middle-class parents are far more
likely to promote their children’s involvement in organised extra-curricular activities
(Vincent and Ball 2007).
As detailed above, interests developed through out of school activities and hob-
bies were particularly cited in relation to sports and the arts (indeed, sports aspira-
tions were only linked to this source – students with sports-related aspirations did
not cite any other influences on their ambitions). Students holding sports and arts-
related aspirations (and games designer) predominantly described these as areas of
personal interest and practice and held little, if any, social capital in these fields
(e.g. only one student, with arts aspirations, also had a family member in this line
of work). We suggest that for these young people, their comparative lack of cultural
and social capital (along with the competitive jobs market in such popular/desirable
fields) may contribute to the difficulty that many young people experience in
attaining their aspirations in these areas.

School influence
About 21/85 students indicated that their aspirations had been influenced through
their experiences of school. Nine of these young people aspired to be teachers,
seven explained that their aspirations related to specific interests and aptitudes that
they had developed through their lessons and learning at school and four related
their aspirations to careers education resources and/or activities provided by their
school.
The nine students who aspired to be teachers all talked about how their aspira-
tion derived from positive experiences of school, especially primary school, and
 Journal of Education Policy 75

their enjoyment of the primary school context. A couple of students (e.g. Amy2,
Mary) also had relatives who worked as teachers, who were cited as additional
sources of inspiration for their aspirations. Of the nine pupils who aspired to be
teachers, there was one boy and eight girls. Five of the nine pupils aspiring to be
teachers were from working-class backgrounds, three were from lower-middle-class
(e.g. technical occupations) families and only one (Amy2, cited earlier) was from a
professional (upper middle-class) background. Teaching has traditionally been
considered a suitable and ‘respectable’ job for women (Maguire 2005) and has
provided a route for social mobility among women from working-class backgrounds
since the 1960s (Hoskins 2012).
No specific patterns in terms of social class were detectable (not least given the
small numbers) – of the seven whose aspirations had been fostered through specific
areas/subjects, three were from working-class backgrounds, three from lower-mid-
dle-class and one was from an upper-middle-class background.
School careers materials were only mentioned by four young people: two
(Kelsey and Neb) indicated that their aspirations had been influenced by school
careers posters and two (Demi and Josh) mentioned how using careers websites had
helped them identify particular careers. Neb and Kelsey attended came from very
different backgrounds and attended very different schools. Neb is a White British/
Jewish boy from a professional family, who attends an independent boys’ school.
His aspiration to study quantum physics was influenced by various sources (includ-
ing books and newspapers), but also ‘posters in our Physics classroom’. Kelsey is a
Black African, working-class girl who attends an inner-London comprehensive, but
she also mentioned how classroom posters had inspired her to want to become a
teacher:

Because like there was this poster in RE yeah, because like they said we’re going to
choose our subjects around next year for GCSEs I was like thinking about what I
want to be when I grow up. Cos like when I said (?) it all starts with GCSEs … so
then I was looking for that. And then I looked on this page, and then I wanted to be a
primary school teacher cos it tells you like … it said like ‘you can instil a love for
education at an early age’. So I would like to be like a primary school teacher.

Carol (white lower middle class) described being inspired to become a doctor by a
school film about what doctors do and although many young people indicated that
use the internet to ‘find out things’ and would use it if they wanted to find out
some (hypothetical) careers related information, only two students talked specifi-
cally about having used online careers education materials when thinking about
their aspirations/potential future careers. For instance, Josh (White British, profes-
sional/managerial family), explained that he got the idea of becoming a marine
biologist from a careers website that they had been introduced to at school:

Well, there was a lesson which we had in future skills where we went on a website
and we were looking at jobs and stuff. [Int: Oh right, okay] yeah, and ‘cos I had done
the diving course and I like fish and stuff, I sort of searched things and then it came
up with that.

We suggest that it is both surprising and concerning that so few of these 12/
13 year-old children should mention careers education sources in relation to their
aspirations. Indeed, it might be taken as an indication that careers education is
76 L. Archer et al.

currently ‘too little, too late’. It is widely agreed that young people can benefit from
receiving high quality, appropriate advice and guidance to inform their aspirations
(e.g. OECD 2012b). Indeed, from a Bourdieusian perspective, we might suggest
that high-quality careers education and related resources (e.g. high-quality work
experience) might be particularly beneficial for those who do not otherwise enjoy
privileged access to dominant forms of cultural and social capital (which enables
middle-class families to ‘play’ and succeed in the educational ‘game’ (Bourdieu and
Wacquant 1992).22

TV and money
Fifteen young people cited TV as an influence on their aspirations and six suggested
that money (specifically the perception of their chosen career as being well paid)
influenced their ambitions. Television was cited particularly by those aspiring to
medical/related careers (n = 6), such as doctor and forensic scientist, inspired by
popular series such as the US show CSI and the UK series Casualty. There were no
discernable patterns by class or gender in terms of likelihood of being influenced by
TV. However, among the few (n = 6) young people citing money/good pay as a
motivation for their aspiration, three were from working-class backgrounds and none
were from upper-middle-class (professional/managerial) backgrounds, suggesting
that social mobility can be an important driver of aspirations.
As Watson and McMahon (2005, 124) write in their review of children’s
learning about careers:

Little research has been conducted on the influence of media such as television on
children’s career development. This is despite wide recognition that mass media is
likely to be a primary source of children’s early occupational learning. (Dorr and
Lesser 1980; Morton et al. 1997; McMahon, Carroll, and Gillies 2001)

It is therefore unclear exactly how television influences some children more or less
than others, For instance, McMahon, Carroll, and Gillies (2001) found that, while
children in their study cited the media as a useful source of information, only a
very few felt that it influenced them toward or away from a particular occupational
aspiration. Our research does not provide much further clarification on the role of
TV within the formation of aspirations but our findings do indicate that TV is less
influential on young people’s aspirations than home, school and out-of-school activ-
ities. Some young people do appear to recognise that TV has provided them with
representations of desirable potential future careers, which either inform, or
reinforce particular ambitions, but the majority of young people do not consciously
recognise TV as an influence on their aspirations.

Discussion
This paper has examined the aspirations of young people aged 12/13 and the
sources of influence on these ambitions. We have illustrated how the young people
(and their families) in our sample generally appear to aspire highly and, as such,
might be regarded as part of an ‘ambitious generation’. However, they also appear
somewhat less confident in the likelihood of ‘success’ than previous cohorts,
perhaps reflecting contemporary labour market uncertainties and global recession.
 Journal of Education Policy 77

Our analysis identified the most consistently popular aspirations from Y6 to Y8

as being for careers in the arts, teaching, sports and medicine – although business
also features strongly among Y8 pupils. The main spheres of influence on aspira-
tions were families (especially family social capital – family members or family
friends who do this job), hobbies/activities engaged in out of school, school factors
and television. This largely compares with Hutchinson, Stagg, and Bentley’s (2009)
findings regarding the importance of family and schools, namely that among Key
Stage three students, the main sources of careers advice were: family (78% of
pupils), careers teachers (50%), subject teachers (48%), form teachers (23%) and
careers advisers (20%).
Our analysis indicated patterns of association between particular sources of
influence and types of career aspiration. For example, aspirations for sports and the
arts were overwhelmingly related to children’s out-of-school activities. Middle-class
children were more likely to cite family capital in relation to professional careers in
the fields of medicine and teaching. Working-class students were much less likely
to aspire to follow in a family member’s footsteps or to develop their aspirations
through an out of school hobby/activity. They were more likely to be influenced by
schools (especially to aspire to be a teacher), TV, other significant adults and
money. We also found that careers education and resources feature very little within
our sample of 10–13 year olds’ accounts of the development of their aspirations.
We have argued that uneven interplays of family habitus and capital produce
differential patterns of aspiration and differential chances that children will achieve
their goals. As such, we would argue that aspirations form part of the ongoing
social reproduction of privilege/disadvantage – despite being held up by education
policy as a tool for social mobility and change. But we also suggest that schools
(and careers services) are particularly important for disadvantaged children in that
they can potentially provide a fairer distribution of cultural and social capital and
opportunities for supporting, developing and informing children’s interests. For
Bourdieu, the education system plays a key role in social reproduction (e.g. Bour-
dieu and Passeron 1990), helping to shape both the image people have of their own
destinies (e.g. their perceived choices) and the resources (capital) available to them
to achieve their goals. Our analyses indicate that there is still much work that needs
to be done if schools are to play a greater role in challenging, rather than reproduc-
ing, inequalities in aspirations.
Our analyses suggest that, contrary to mainstream education policy rhetoric,
there is no widespread poverty of aspiration and we call for a re-think of the current
policy emphasis on ‘raising’ aspirations. Indeed, we suggest that the maintenance of
the discourse of ‘raising aspirations’ is an unfair social enterprise – impelling all
children to aspire to prizes that (due to the way the game is set up), only the
privileged few are likely to attain. We call instead for education policy to focus on
‘levelling the playing field’, providing greater support to disadvantaged young peo-
ple to develop and support their aspirations. In particular, we call for a move away
from the focus on ‘high’ aspirations towards an emphasis on ‘diversifying’ and
‘informing’ aspirations, with appropriate support, to ensure that all young people
can find routes to achieve interesting and fulfilling, well-paid jobs.
At the time of writing, careers education in England is in a state of flux. A new
all-age National Career Service (www.nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/) has been
established and considerable changes have been made to the mechanisms for deliv-
ering careers education within schools. The Education Act (2011) gave schools
78 L. Archer et al.

direct responsibility (from September 2012) for providing impartial careers advice
for students in Years 9–11 (age 13–16) on education and training options –
although notably without any additional budget to achieve this (see Millburn 2012).
The government has also decided, despite considerable opposition, to proceed with
removing the duty on schools to provide every young person with work related
learning at key stage 4 (with effect from 1 September 2012). While the schools reg-
ulatory body, Ofsted, is due to inspect career guidance provided by schools, various
concerns have been raised that ‘there is no framework for this [careers advice] pro-
vision and it won’t be comprehensively audited. As a result, schools which provide
a below-par careers service cannot be quickly or easily identified, to the detriment
of their students’ (CaSE 2012). Morton (2012) also reports on findings from 156
teachers, indicating that many are worried about the negative implications of the
government cuts on careers advice at their school.
As indicated by the changes introduced by the Education Act (2011), careers
advice provision tends to focus on Years 9 upwards. Based on our findings, how-
ever, we would argue that there is a strong case to be made for the value and
importance of providing broad-based careers education and support to younger chil-
dren. Our evidence suggests that even primary school-aged pupils are already form-
ing ideas about their future careers, and are coming to see some subjects and career
paths as ‘not for me’. There would seem to be a value in preventing the ‘closing
down’ of aspirations within this age period and informing and diversifying aspira-
tions through high-quality careers education.
Indeed, the OECD (2012b) reports how high-performing countries usually have
very good Information Advice and Guidance provision which is embedded in the
school system. The report argues that ‘quality career guidance is a critical feature of
effective skills policies’ (OECD 2012b, 3). While personalised support and guid-
ance may be one feature of effective careers provision, another may involve inform-
ing and alerting young people (and their families) to the changing job market and
likely future opportunities and areas of demand. STEM organisations and employers
have issued various warnings about a growing skills gap. For instance, UKCES
(2012) predicts a positive expansion in the UK (13% increase by 2020) in the
demand for Science, research, Engineering and Technology professionals, while
many other areas are expected to shrink, due to recession. CBI (2012) also indicates
that just under half of employers currently have and/or expect difficultly in recruit
employees with STEM skills and knowledge and HM Treasury (2011) has placed
an emphasis on hi-tech industry for economic expansion and future growth in the
UK. OECD (2012b) also forecasts that the largest increase in demand in the UK
labour market will be for non-routine analytic skills (OECD 2012b). Yet, as our
wider project findings clearly show (Archer et al. 2012), young people and their
families have very little awareness of these changes, and the majority do not
recognise the transferable nature of science qualifications.
Obviously the economy and wider structural factors (including social inequali-
ties and the nature of post-16 educational provision) and young people’s levels of
attainment in national qualifications (e.g. GCSE, A Level) are all critical factors in
determining young people’s life outcomes – we do not pretend that a focus on aspi-
rations alone can effect social change (e.g. see arguments made elsewhere with
regard to widening post-16 provision [Archer and Tomei 2013]). However, here we
argue that current and predicted future changes to the economy do point to the
importance of trying to work towards a fairer distribution of capital in society to
 Journal of Education Policy 79

enable a more diverse population of young people to benefit from (and/or not be
disadvantaged by) these changes. In light of this, we suggest that school careers
education in England is a poorly valued and underutilised resource at present,
particularly for pupils in early secondary education (age 11–14). Yet it constitutes a
potential pragmatic resource within wider drives for equality and change. Our find-
ings call for a more ambitious programme of change in how careers education is
delivered. First, in terms of policy implications, we would support a greater policy
focus on diversifying and informing aspirations (as opposed to ‘raising’ them). This
could be not only of practical use to young people (providing potentially useful
capital) but would also be important for a politics of recognition (Fraser and Hon-
neth 2003) that challenges current deficit representations of disadvantaged students
and their families (as ‘aspiration poor’).
Second, there is a need to strengthen students’ knowledge and understanding of
career routes and increase their social and CC to enable them to successfully pursue
particular routes. One method for contributing to the achievement of these aims
could be to embed high-quality careers awareness (e.g. flagging economic predic-
tions for local and national areas of shortage and over-supply) and to expand work-
related learning23 (e.g. high-quality, sustained work experience placements, which
have been linked to improved job outcomes for young people, Mann 2012), espe-
cially in Year 6–9. This could help contribute to a politics of distribution (Fraser
and Honneth ibid.), by trying to ensure a fairer re-distribution of social and CC
among disadvantaged young people. Third, we recommend exploring the potential
for more embedded models of careers education, in which closer links are made
between academic curricular and careers awareness, but ensuring that teachers are
fully supported to be able to achieve and integrate this into their teaching (e.g. see
Rose et al. 2012). This embedding could contribute to a better linking of the curric-
ulum to young people’s ‘real worlds’ and imagined futures, increasing the personal
and social relevance of curricula to young people’s lives.24 Our vision in this
respect sees a value in approaching curricula as not just educational, but also social,
projects. Finally, given the disparities in capital and sources of aspirations discussed
in this paper, we would strongly recommend funding additional targeted careers
support for disadvantaged schools. In this way, we hope that aspirations might
really begin to constitute a tool for equity and social change.

Notes
1. Although, on the whole, minority ethnic groups tend to achieve quite highly within the
UK education system, education policy has emphasised a ‘problem’ of low aspirations
which has been attributed to the lower performance of particular minority ethnic groups,
such as Black Caribbean pupils – e.g. DfES (2005), para 4.4 ‘Our Aiming High pro-
gramme is focused on stretching the aspirations and achievement of Black and minority
ethnic groups’, as discussed in Archer and Francis (2007).
2. www.kcl.ac.uk/aspires.
3. These higher order categorisations contained the following sub-categories: White
(English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Other White [free response]); Black (Black African,
Black Caribbean, ‘Other’ Black [free response]); Asian (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi,
‘Other’ Asian [free response]). Other/Mixed (Black and White; Asian and White; Black
and Asian; ‘Other’ [free response]).
4. In addition and in light of these concerns, PLASC data related to socio-economic classi-
fication (such as FSM eligibility and IDACI scores) were also used in analysing the
data.
80 L. Archer et al.

5. Of the 5634 students who participated in Survey 2, 2251 (40.0%) were boys and 3358
(59.6%) were girls (25 students did not provide their gender). 5226 (93%) attended state
schools and 408 (7%) attended independent schools. 711 of the 5634 students who
completed Survey 2 also completed Survey 1. This was a disappointingly low figure but
we plan to increase this percentage in survey three by using the National Pupil Database
to more accurately identify target schools containing Phase 1 participants. The outcome
of this strategy will be known mid-2013. However, we do believe that the phase 2 data-
set still provides interesting data pertaining to the wider cohort.
6. The same sub-categories were used as in the Y6 survey – see endnote 3.
7. Both surveys contained the following questions: ‘Here are some different jobs. Would
you like to do any of them or not? When I grow up I would like to: [respondents rate
each on Likert scale]: be a doctor or work in medicine; work in science; work in engi-
neering; be an inventor. The following questions were also used on both surveys with a
Likert response scale: ‘I would like to study more science in the future’. ‘I would like to
have a job that uses science’. ‘I would like to become a scientist’. ‘I think I could be a
good scientist one day’. Survey 2 only contained the following additional questions: (All
under the section ‘when I grow up I would like to ...’): run or work in a business; work
in sports or be a professional athlete; work in the arts or be an artist, musician, actor or
dancer. Both surveys included a free response question: ‘What would you like to be
when you grow up?
8. Note that the latent variables used contain the items for those variables in the Year 6 sur-
vey, to allow for comparison. In addition, the ‘cohort mean’ is the mean for the rest of
the cohort – the Year 6 or Year 8 group, minus the 757. Finally, in the Year 6 compari-
son, we used the Year 6 data for the 757 and likewise for Year 8. Comparison of
matched group (757) with Year 6 cohort on LVs.

9. In both the Year 6 and Year 8 data, the matched group is slightly higher than the rest of
the cohort in terms of their aspirations in science and associated variables. However,
although the difference between the groups in the Year 6 data approaches significance
 Journal of Education Policy 81

for Aspirations in science and Parental attitudes to science variable (p values less than
0.10), the groups only differ significantly on the Self-concept in science latent variable.
In the Year 8 data, the groups only differ significantly on the Parental attitudes to sci-
ence latent variable. Moreover, on either of these variables (Parental attitudes to science
in the Year 8 data and Self-concept in science in the Year 6 data), one could argue as to
how important these differences actually are. That is, the differences are statistically
significant, but they are unlikely to be significant if the sample sizes were not so large.
On the other hand, that the matched group had higher means than the rest of each cohort
(Year 6 and Year 8) on all five of the above latent variables above does suggest that this
group probably was slightly more engaged with science than the rest of the cohort. We
will attempt to increase the size of the matched sample in the forthcoming final, third
phase of the research in order to investigate these differences further.
10. Non-responses to the 11 separate aspiration related Likert scale questions in the surveys
ranged from 0.6 to 3.1% in the Y6 survey and from 0.6 to 0.9% in the Y8 survey. In
addition 3.8% of children on the Year 6 survey and 8.0% on the Year 8 survey replied
‘don’t know’ to the free response question.
11. To keep the Y8 survey to a manageable length, the number of occupations listed on this
item was restricted to those indicated in Figure 2. However, for the Y9 survey, this list
is expanded to include other popular aspirations, as derived from the wider analysis,
such as teacher.
12. A number of respondents strongly/disagreed with all the science career options presented
in the closed questions on the survey. For the Y6 survey, these were 1799 students
(27.2% boys and 62.7% girls; 6.1% Black; 81.0% White; 4.7% Asian; 7.3% Other;
0.2% North African or Middle Eastern; 0.6% Far Eastern. Cultural capital: 2.9% very
low; 31.9% low; 33.7% medium; 17.7% high; 13.8% very high). In the second (Y8) sur-
vey, these were 107 students (36.2% male; 63.8% female: 4.7% Black; 75.7% White;
5.6% Asian; 0.9% Chinese, 13.1% Other; 10.3% very low cc; 43.9% low cc; 19.6%
medium cc; 10.3% high cc; 15.9% very high cc).
13. See also Yates et al. (2011) finding that overambitious adolescents who lack the means
to realise their ambitions are more likely to become NEET.
14. Although the UK also records among the largest regional disparities (e.g. the UK records
the biggest gap in ratio of tertiary education graduates to the population aged 15 or over,
having both the highest and lowest rates (inner London, 41.8%; Tees Vale/Durham,
18.4%, Ballas et al. 2012).
15. See http://www.education.gov.uk/inthenews/inthenews/a00211875/government-publishes-
destination-data-for-the-first-time-Accessed 15/1/13.
16. The percentages of pupils in each cultural capital (cc) category agreeing that their
parents expect them to go to university were: very low cc, 47.2%; low cc, 57.7%;
medium cc, 67.4%; high cc, 82.1%; very high cc, 91.4%.
17. As with the other latent variables used in the analysis, the latent variable for parental
aspirations emerged from the principal components analysis of the survey data. This
analysis indicated that the four items listed below formed a component. That is, these
four items (which followed the prompt ‘How much do you agree with these statements
about your family?’) loaded most strongly on a single component (factor loadings
ranged from 0.534 to 0.817), which had a Cronbach’s alpha of .698. It comprised the
following items: They want me to make a lot of money when I grow up; They want me
to get a good job when I grow up; It is important to them that I get good marks in
school; They expect me to go to university.
18. See also: 56.4% of those with very low cultural capital strongly/disagree cf. 30.4% with
very high cultural capital strongly/disagree.
19. These top-level ethnic descriptors are used here in the text for ease in conveying broad
brush patterns. But these top level descriptors were generated from pupils’ self-identifica-
tions with far more specific subcategories. E.g. Black included Black British, Black
African, Black Caribbean and Black Other. ‘Asian’ included British Asian, and a range
of Indian subcontinent ethnic options, such as Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi. A
range of ‘mixed’ ethnic identifiers were also used but are not reported here.
20. Pupils were asked in detail about how and why they developed particular aspirations.
Many young people spontaneously mentioned how their ideas were inspired by people
82 L. Archer et al.

they knew who were already doing these jobs (e.g. because they liked the person and
wanted to emulate them or had learnt from them about an interesting potential job). If
not already mentioned, follow-up probing questions were asked as to whether pupils
knew anyone already doing the job that they aspired to and a judgement was made dur-
ing the analysis (based on interview responses) as to whether the person mentioned
appeared to have influenced the young person’s aspiration, or not. If not, they were not
coded as a source of aspiration (although the argument could be made that they
constitute a form of social capital irrespective of the child’s own perception).
21. The measure of cultural capital (described above) was used to categorise survey partici-
pants. But parents and children who took part in the interviews were classified using
more conventional class descriptors (e.g. upper-middle-class, lower-middle-class, work-
ing-class) based on information gained from interviews such as parental occupations
(using the NS-SEC categorisations), housing tenure and parental educational back-
grounds. For reasons of time and anonymity we did not match cultural capital scores
from the surveys with individual interviewees.
22. Indeed, Milburn (2012) noted that many internships in highly sought professions such as
law, medicine and journalism are arranged informally.
23. For instance, in a recent survey 57% young people aged 12–16 found school-mediated
workplace contacts very useful influence on their careers choices (more useful than
public info 34% or family/friends 51%) – see Mann (2012).
24. E.g. see Johnson (2000), who found that senior elementary school children had only a
limited understanding of how their school academic activities related to the future world
of work.

Notes on contributors
Louise Archer is a professor of Sociology of Education in the Department of Education and
Professional Studies at King’s College London. Her research focuses on educational
identities and inequalities. She has published extensively on issues of gender, ‘race’/ethnicity
and social class, including four lead/co-authored books.

Jennifer DeWitt is a research fellow in the Department of Education and Professional

Studies at King’s College London. Her research interests include the interrelationships
between identity and interest development, as well as learning in informal environments and
the role such experiences play in supporting identity and interest.

Billy Wong is currently a research associate at King’s College London. His research interests
include social inequality and identity, the concepts of habitus and capital, with a particular
focus on minority ethnic groups.

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