a 1960 1980: Structured Pathways and Trajectories

During the period in which structuralist forms of analysis dominated the transitional literature (1960-1980), Brockmann (2012) argued that researchers “suggested that young people experienced continuous and smooth transitions as they had been socialised into accepting particular social positions through socialisation processes in the family home, neighbourhoods and school contexts” (p.26). The resulting academic discourse (re)produced powerful arguments of structural constraints and inequality. As expanded upon in Chapter 1, a discourse of (educational, occupational and social) structure that restricts vocational opportunities remains powerful and substantiated today. Whilst the majority of scholars accepts that transitions between 1960 and 1980 were more ‘smooth’ and less ‘complex’, Goodwin and O'Connor (2005) contested these accepted assumptions. They suggested that the theoretical perspectives and conceptual resources of the period affected this analysis and neglected sustained examinations of “individualized, subjective, [and] complex transitional experiences” (p.217). Furlong (2009b) developed this argument further by suggesting that researchers tended to seek out stratified pathways within their data that highlighted the commonality of class-based struggles.

For the purpose of this Chapter, it is not imperative to discuss whether or not transitions were as simple and straightforward as is often portrayed during this age of transition (Goodwin & O’Connor, 2005; Roberts, 2009). Instead, it is important to acknowledge that researchers were mostly interested with macrostructural issues and inequalities such as class, race, and gender. These foci remain both useful and very much alive today. Immeasurable changes to education and labour markets have occurred since the 1960s (see Furlong, 2009b; Ainley & Allen, 2010 for a detailed commentary). Nevertheless, many structural inequalities remain persistent and in many cases have worsened. For example, despite significant policy shifts towards Widening

Participation (see Burke, 2012; David et al., 2010), students from low socioeconomic groups

remain, in policy terms, disadvantaged at each stage of the ‘student lifecycle’ (HEA, 2016). The table below summarises some evidence that supports this.

Further examples of educational and occupational inequalities in the UK have been provided within CONTEXT that highlighted the intersectionality of social class, gender, race and forms of Vocational Education, with special attention paid to the Performing Arts. Given the weight of the evidence, efforts to expose the mechanisms and structures that help (re)create persistent inequalities cannot be abandoned. In this respect, forms of structuralist analysis continue to have a political function to expose transitional pathways that lead to disadvantage - so that they can be eroded or redirected.

A number of theoretical frameworks developed during this period (1960 - 1980) are still utilised to this end. This is particularly the case in research that explores transitions in relation to wider issues of social mobility (e.g. Bathmaker et al., 2013; Burke, 2012; Reay, Crozier & Clayton,

Table C: Illustrations of how transitions might be negatively impacted for students from low SEGs

Stage of

Lifecycle Students from Low SEG’s are…

Potential Reasons

Access three times less

likely to access higher education (BIS, 2015)

Smith (2011) argued that students from low SEGs have less access to ‘informal’ knowledge of HE and less means to digest ‘formal’ information. This can result in poor decision making when selecting universities and can develop unrealistic expectations of HE.

Retention more likely to

drop out of University (Crawford, 2014)

Due to a mixture of cultural and financial reasons, students from low SEGs are more likely to live in their parental home during their study (BIS, 2014). Clark et al., (2014) detailed how this reduces

opportunities for students from low SEGs to form social networks and access support services. They added that these students tend to be less confident of their skills and competencies to succeed in HE (ibid). Furthermore, Quinn (2010) argued that these students are more inclined to dropout because they are more inclined to try and cope on their own rather than seek support.

Attainment less likely to

progress directly into postgraduate study (Wakeling et al., 2013)

Students from low SEGs tend to work more alongside their studies and this can negatively impact on their degree outcome (Reay et al., 2005; Malcolm, 2015).

Progression less likely to

progress directly into employment (Bridge Group, 2016)

Whilst a combination of the above inevitably frames progression opportunities for low SEG students, the notion of employability skills has also been criticised. Brown (2013) discussed how in recent years labour markets have giving greater value to “the ‘soft currencies’ of personality, character and social confidence” (Brown, 2013, p.688). In congested labour markets Brown argued that this generates more employment opportunities for those with ‘middle-class’ dispositions.

2009a; Reay, Crozier & Clayton, 2009b; Reay, David & Ball, 2005) or in relation to Vocational Education (e.g. Bates et al., 1984; Ainley & Allen, 2010; Colley, 2003, 2006). Two ethnographic texts published during this era have had a lasting legacy shaping subsequent interrelated work into education, mobility, and transitions. Willis’s (1977) Learning to Labour provided a detailed analysis of the transition made by ‘lads’ from school to work. In this thorough ethnographic venture Willis mapped out ‘how working class kids get working class jobs” (1977, p.1). Although Willis suggested that “social agents are not passive bearers of ideology, but active appropriators who reproduce existing structures” (1977, p.175) his analysis tended to illustrate the power of social structures in the reproduction of class transitions.Brockmann (2012) noted that countless studies since this publication have sought to further explain types of ‘occupational socialisation’ by examining the effects of culture and counter culture on transition.

Willis’s (1977) concept of resistance featured heavily in Riseborough’s (1993) research into Vocational Education (Youth Training Schemes) in the context of rising youth unemployment in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s. Criticisms of ‘new vocationalism’ continued with Bates et al., (1984) drawing on Willis’s theoretical contributions in Schooling for the Dole?.More recently, Willis’s work was revitalised in an international collaborative publication of studies in Learning

to Labour in New Times (Dolby, Dimitriadis & Willis, 2004). In addition to these studies,

Willis’s work has been influential in explaining how young people from rural coastal villages in Nova Scotia ‘learn to leave’ (Corbett, 2007). These brief examples show that concepts like resistance and counter school culture have a contemporary relevance in a range of educational and cultural contexts. They also show that Willis’s structuralist contributions continue to influence how academics theorise transition as “differentiated by the social divisions of society: by class, gender and race… differentiated in its starting points, the experience of transition itself, and in its destinations” (Clarke & Willis, 1984, p.7).

In my view, Bourdieu’s (1984) seminal text Distinction has had a greater lasting impact on transitional theory and research, offering a more sophisticated lens from which to theorise transition. In this extensive project, Bourdieu sought to critique processes of social stratification across France. This theoretical work can be interpreted as being less about viewing transition

society. Bourdieu’s prolific body of work (e.g. 1977; 1984; 1990) attempted to explain these processes through a grand sociological framework that describes the relationships between interrelated concepts such as habitus, capital and field.

In Distinction Bourdieu (1984) added to his already influential sociological framework, by developing the concept of taste with sustained empirical rigour. Bourdieu described taste as “an acquired disposition to ‘differentiate’ and ‘appreciate’” (p.468). In its dispositional form, taste constitutes part of the habitus, and therefore - due to the nature of habitus relations with society - taste can be characteristic of a field and relational to forms of capital. Whilst Bourdieu’s theoretical work has contributed to the field of education in a myriad of ways, Reay (2004) argued that habitus has become one of the main concepts employed by educational researchers. With researchers applying habitus like ‘intellectual hairspray’, Reay suggested there has been a tendency to incorrectly reduce habitus to a form of structuralist determinism. It is arguable that Reay’s assertions mostly hold true in the field of Vocational Education research.

The vocational habitus was developed to explain forms of occupational socialisation in Vocational Education. This concept remains very relevant to how vocational transitions are currently understood within the literature. According to Brockmann (2012) the vocational habitus is defined by “the (highly normative) set of dispositions with which students are expected to respond to meet the demands within the vocational culture” (p.41). Each vocational habitus consists of tastes for vocational pedagogies, gendered practices and, most of all, tastes associated with working class relationships with labour markets (see Vincent & Braun, 2011; Colley et al., 2003; Colley, 2006; Colley, 2007; Ecclestone, 2007). Dispositions, tastes, and practices are constructed in this context not only through engagement with educational environments but also through a student’s position within a range of fields. This has unfortunately led to analyses and conclusions that focus almost entirely on social ‘structure’ at the expense of making the role of ‘agency’ all but redundant. For example, Vincent and Braun (2011) concluded that ‘early years’ students are highly constrained by the need to acquire a version of professionalism as part of the vocational habitus. Whilst there are many examples of reproduction and assimilation towards the vocational habitus (e.g. Colley et al., 2003; Vincent

& Braun, 2011), there are fewer counter examples of agency and transformation within their literature.

The extent to which Bourdieu’s powerful theoretical framework limits the potential for agency has been open to debate and (mis)interpretation (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992; Reay, 2004; Crossley, 2001). In my view, Bourdieu’s (1997) description of ‘socially informed bodies’ refuses to accept deterministic structuring processes and accounts for forms of agency (see Barker & Bailey, 2015). Nonetheless, Bourdieusian studies have been criticised often for providing overly deterministic accounts of student transition (Ecclestone et al., 2010) where the “scope for individual agency is limited and only extended to constructing and reproducing existing learning cultures” (Brockmann, 2012, p.41). As discussed, these criticisms may have some merit in the case of some applications of the vocational habitus.

Based on the criticisms outlined above, relying too much on the role of social, educational, and occupational structures have in framing transition can underplay how students navigate their own futures. If it is accepted that transitions are inherently messy in terms of their processes and outcomes (see Chapter 1), then the idea of transition as pathways or trajectories is undermined. Exposing the structures that funnel students into either privilege or hardship alone may therefore be unsatisfactory in explaining the transitional realities of young people today. In response to this, theories of transition have evolved to better highlight the role of agency and identity. According to Goodwin and O’Connor (2005), the focus on occupational socialisation was less dominant from the 1990s onwards. Student navigation and structured individualisation emerged as powerful metaphors that diverted attention from pathways and trajectories (ibid).