The Graduate,the Globetrotter and the Good Samaritan: adolescent girls’ visions of themselves in early adulthood

Adolescent aspirations have been extensively researched, particularly in the contexts of higher education and the workforce. This paper extends research by exploring how the educational and career aspirations of rural adolescent girls relate to their other future goals. It demonstrates how exploring aspirations, both within and outside of the contexts of higher education and the workforce, enables a deeper understanding of various adolescent aspirations and the interconnections between them. This paper draws on a qualitative study with adolescent girls living in the Cradle Coast region of Tasmania-a rural and remote region where access to a wide range of educational resources and experiences is limited in comparison to those available in metropolitan centres. The paper responds to recent participation policy in Australia that implies young people from rural locations are lacking in aspiration. The article demonstrates that despite rurality, the girls in this study have many aspirations, including those for higher education. It discusses how having many and quite varied aspirations influences the girls’ decision making and planning around their futures. The paper shows that it is the balancing of many future goals that influences educational and career decision-making, rather than low aspirations.     

Aspirations and actions: early childhood from policy to practice in Scotland

This paper explores early childhood experience in Scotland in terms of how readily the aspirations of policy convert to day-to-day practices. Ambitions to improve the lives of children and families have been high on the political agenda. Policy may be understood as a tool that aims to influence childhood experience in positive ways. If this is to be so, then the processes that effect change and their limitations need to be understood better, as do the underpinning values and assumptions. The workforce is at the heart of the endeavour to put policy aspirations into action: they are considered to be agents of change. In exploring such issues this paper draws on a policy-based functional analysis of the children's workforce [Dunlop, A.-W., L. Seagraves, S. Henderson, J. Henry, J. Martlew, and J. Fee. 2011. A Policy-Based Functional Analysis of the Children's Workforce. For Scottish Government: Children and Young People Social Care Directorate, Workforce and Capacity Issues Division] and on policy developments since. The paper therefore discusses Scottish policy aspirations for young children and their families, the contribution of the workforce to achieving those aspirations and asks if staff competence in itself is sufficient to ensure policy delivery for all in a climate where child poverty continues to contribute to unequal lives.     

Underlying Consumer-Valuing Structures of Baby Boomers as Older Adults in Community Colleges: A Grounded Theory

The purpose of this study was to present a grounded theory that fills in gaps in the higher education literature on the concept of educational consumer value and perceptions that support consumer value. Specifically, this study focuses on the learning experiences of Baby Boomers (40–60 year old adults) as older adult students attending community colleges. This study examines value as a factor in the consumer behavior of these students. An understanding of Baby Boomer consumer behavior, the processes which drive this behavior, and the aging Baby Boomers' potential as continuously returning learners, could help develop programs and marketing plans for community colleges interested in attracting and retaining the Baby Boomer market.     

Capturing Generation‐Based Institutional Knowledge Utilizing Design Thinking

Baby Boomers are retiring in large numbers, leaving a shortage of highly knowledgeable employees currently in the U.S. workforce. The time for capturing critical knowledge and ensuring effective knowledge transfer, retention, and implementation to the Millennial generation is now. Through a systematic evidence‐based review, the major finding was that a primary factor of consideration is the selection of a multigenerational knowledge management design team that fosters generational socialization by following a conceptual model for capturing institutional knowledge.     

Education for Work: A Review Essay of Historical,Cross‐Cultural,and Disciplinary Perspectives on Vocational Education

In this review essay, K. Peter Kuchinke uses three recent publications to consider the question of how to educate young people for work and career. Historically, this question has been central to vocational education, and it is receiving renewed attention in the context of concerns over the ability of schools to provide adequate preparation for occupational roles and career success in a rapidly changing economic landscape. Philip Gonon's Quest for Modern Vocational Education provides a historical account of Georg Kerschensteiner's vision of the role of work as a central subject matter for all students. His approach served as the foundation for the dual system in present‐day Germany. Nancy Hoffman's Schooling in the Workplace contrasts the U.S. system of career preparation for non‐college‐bound students with that of five other OECD nations where workforce and academic preparation are more strongly connected to learning in the workplace. Christopher Winch's Dimensions of Expertise, finally, offers a conceptual analysis of central ideas of vocational knowledge and underscores the important role of learning in the context of practice. The three texts offer historical, comparative, and philosophical analyses of the complex task of preparation for work and challenge education scholars to move the subject matter into the center of contemporary educational theory.     

Western Schooling and Traditional Society in Swaziland

This study analyses the actual and perceived significance of schooling on the lives of rural people in Swaziland. It compares and contrasts the Swazi public's attitudes towards and participation in Western education during the colonial period with the present day. Through interviews with Swazi parents, students and teachers, the study finds that, as during the colonial period, parents feel alienated from the school as an institution. As today's Ministry of Education strives to incorporate a stronger technical aspect to the school curriculum, parents view school as a place primarily for academics. These attitudes are directly related to their keen awareness of the strong correlation between education and modern sector employment. This is particularly notable because now, in contrast to the colonial period, all parents strongly desire a formal education for their children and have high professional aspirations for them.     

Students' choices in Portuguese higher education: influences and motivations

Students face significant pressures in their decision about their career plan. These pressures are simultaneously internal and external, personal and social, individual and from the reference group. The present paper aims at understanding the reasons driving students' choices, perceived needs, and aspirations. Moreover, it discusses the major influences/pressures of the student's choice and tries to understand how choice is affected by the students' socioeconomic and cultural background and other factors such as institutional reputation or “professional heritage.” The construction of the career plan is analyzed by applying a qualitative analysis methodology through content analysis of the freshmen discourses. The results point out the relevance of social status, intelligence, gender, competences, values, and interests of each person for the construction of his/her career plan. All these levels are highly influenced by self-esteem, which is closely related to the social value of career options and paths. The more central the variable self-esteem is, the less susceptible it will become to change other variables such as educational level, profession accessibility, or gender adequacy.     

Schooling experiences and career aspirations of indigenous vocational high school students: a case study in Taiwan

In Taiwan, substantial resources have been invested in upper-secondary vocational education for Aborigines as a solution to their lack of career development opportunities. This study examined the schooling experiences and career aspirations of Taiwanese indigenous vocational high school students. A case study was designed to collect data through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 24 aboriginal students in twelfth grade at a Major Indigenous Vocational High School (MIVHS). The findings indicated that aboriginal students experienced mainstream-centric schooling that focused on preparing students for college education with additional support. The schooling contributed to their solid educational aspirations to attend non-prestigious technological colleges and vague occupational aspirations with low occupational self-efficacy. It also enforced their strong cultural aspirations of living in their homelands and benefiting their people. The findings suggest that the MIVHS could provide the culturally responsive schooling for aboriginal students' diversity to facilitate their career development.     

Science career aspiration and science capital in China and UK: a comparative study using PISA data

ABSTRACT

The concept of science capital has a growing influence in science education research for understanding young people’s science trajectories. Popularised in the UK, this paper aims to extend and evaluate the applicability of science capital in the context of China by drawing on PISA2015. More specifically, we make use of existing items in the PISA2015 survey as a proxy for operationalising the construct of science capital to explore the science career aspirations and attainments of 15-year-old Chinese and UK students (n?=?23,998). Our findings indicate that science capital has more explanatory power for understanding UK students’ science career aspirations than for Chinese students, where science attainment seems most important. We raise the potential challenge for Chinese students to convert their science capital into scientific self-efficacy and science career aspirations as we highlight the importance of recognising cultural and national differences in operationalising science capital.     

Are current engineering graduates being treated as commodities by employers?

The employment scene for professionals of all sorts becomes more volatile with each decade. In engineering, graduates of past generations could reasonably look forward to a linear career trajectory characterized by upward mobility and advancement. A typical career back then might allow the graduate to move from strict technical work to creative design work, then on to technical management, and perhaps to general management—often within one firm. In contrast, today's engineering graduate is being told that a typical work pattern will probably involve six or eight or more major job changes during the working lifetime. What is not being said is that such job changes will often be lateral moves, not career progressions. The hiring of engineering graduates by non-traditional employers, seeking their problem-solving and analytical skills for resale to consulting clients, exacerbates the problem. This paper examines the causes of such changes in the engineering employment pattern, and offers suggestions for dealing with the troubling aspects of the current employment market-place.     

Male African Americans,Singe Parent Homes,and Educational Plans: Implications for Educators and Policymakers

One of the most troubling issues facing policymakers and educators at all levels is the educational attainment of students in at-risk circumstances—in broken homes, in poverty, in criminal environments, and so on. Educators in elementary and secondary schools have attempted to decrease the drop-out rates and increase the academic success of these students, and higher education personnel have struggled to recruit and retain them through graduation. In both settings, a consistent finding is that a student's educational plans or aspirations play a pivotal role in actual attainment. As noted by Schmit and Hossler (1995), in a 9-year longitudinal study, "plans made during ninth-grade [high school graduation, enrollment in a college or university, or entrance into the workforce are stable across a student's high school career" (p. 25).     

Connecting cultural models of home-based care and childminders' career paths: an eco-cultural analysis

Family day care or childminding involves a particularly transient workforce. This paper introduces Eco(logical)-Cultural Theory (ECT) to examine the cultural organisation of childminding and presents an ECT analysis of pilot survey results: asking minders about their daily routines and their career paths. Reasons for becoming a minder and aspirations for the future varied and were associated with the organisation of daily routines. Among minders who wished to continue childminding, daily routines were related to cultural models. Those aspiring to work in centres rather than homes tended to organise daily activities high in structure (i.e. similarity from day to day). Most reported dissatisfaction with home-based facilities, suggesting dissonance between models of care and local ecology. The childminding workforce is diverse and an ECT approach focused on asking childminders about their daily lives may yield valuable empirical data to inform professional development efforts.     

Spheres of influence: what shapes young people’s aspirations at age 12/13 and what are the implications for education policy?

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, interviews 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.     

A review of the empirical generations at work research: implications for school leaders and future research

Most schools currently employ three generations of teachers and leaders: Baby Boomers (1946–65), Generation X (1966–80) and Generation Y (1981–2003). However, the implications for school leaders of multi-generational schools remain relatively unexplored. This paper examines the empirical multi-disciplinary generations at work evidence to identify differences and similarities in how generational cohorts approach work/life balance, authority, collaboration and careers. The paper defines generational characteristics and introduces the review methods employed. The findings are organised within three important leadership actions: stimulating professional growth and capacity, building collaborative cultures, and establishing work conditions. The conclusion presents future research directions.     

School Racial Composition and Student Educational Aspirations: A Question of Equity in a Multiracial Society

This article uses survey data on 15,800 high school students from 3 urban school districts to investigate the impact of school-level support for higher educational attainment and school racial composition on students' actual educational aspirations. We examine students' perceptions of school support for postsecondary participation and test alternative measures of school racial composition in order to account for the increasingly multiracial makeup of today's urban high schools. We include both school-level and student-level characteristics in a multilevel logistic regression model to see if perceived school support for higher educational attainment differs by school racial composition. The results provide support for the hypothesis that school racial composition and school support have an effect on students' reported educational aspirations, and that alternative specifications of school racial composition provide different interpretations of these important relationships.     

Inspire to aspire: raising aspirational outcomes through a student well-being curricular focus

Australian Government policy initiatives to increase young peoples' participation in higher education are pursued in this paper. It argues that pedagogy and curriculum have a direct influence on student engagement. The interrelationships between pedagogical practices, curriculum based on a well-being framework, and the shaping of subjectivities and aspirations of young people in a region characterised by socio-economic challenge are explored. This 2-year case study used action research by university academics, school-based teachers and school students in an R-12 school in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, South Australia. Findings drawn from narratives, field notes, student work samples and professional conversations, situate well-being as central to young people's self-awareness of their aspirations. The themes of: Pedagogies and learning activities; Relationships, caring and connections, and; Places, spaces and belonging help to arrange the argument that concludes that young people living in low socio-economic areas do have aspirations for the future. Furthermore, the educational implications highlight the significance of the role of the teacher within the social and emotional domains which connect student life-worlds within their particular contexts, building cultural capital and broadening capabilities, self-awareness, aspirations and achievement.     

The perceived value of work placements and part-time work and its diminution with time

This paper explores the perceptions of degree students at two UK universities regarding their work placement and part-time working activities, to assess if the two activities converge. The research comprises three stages: interviews for preliminary exploration of students’ perceptions towards work placement and part-time work; interviews to examine how placement opportunities link with career aspirations; a survey of students who had completed a placement, and those currently on placement. Students acknowledged part-time working helped their placement activity, providing transferable skills beneficial to both study and career aspirations. A significant finding was with respect to time: the closer to the placement activity the data was collected, the stronger the impact of appreciating the value of placement. The paper therefore highlights the value of timing in the assessment of work placement. It also offers value for universities’ by providing insight into students’ perceptions regarding embedded external work activities that can enhance graduate employability and career prospects.     

Comments on Neil Dorans's NCME Career Award Address:The Contestant Perspective on Taking Tests: Emanations From the Statue Within

Neil Dorans has made a career of advocating for the examinee. He continues to do so in his NCME career award address, providing a thought‐provoking commentary on some current trends in educational measurement that could potentially affect the integrity of test scores. Concerns expressed in the address call attention to a conundrum that faces today's measurement practitioners, namely, that technology‐driven assessment, while very appealing, is prone to less controlled conditions of measurement. The commentary given here focuses on the message and implications of Neil Dorans's career award address. It discusses some specific points of note, elaborates on the conundrum, gives a view of the future, and makes a call for a dialogue among test developers and measurement practitioners on how to compensate for the loss in controlled conditions of measurement associated with the use of technology.     

Reasons and motivations for the option of an engineering career in Portugal

Towards the end of their secondary education, students face significant pressures in their decision about their career plan. These pressures are internal and external, personal and social, individual and from the reference group. This paper aims at understanding the reasons driving engineering students’ choices, their perceived needs and aspirations. Moreover, it discusses how, in that process, students are constrained by family and friends and are conditioned by factors such as their socioeconomic and cultural background, employability prospects and gender. The construction of a career map/plan and the reasons and motivations for the option of an engineering career are reviewed, based on the qualitative analysis of students’ discourses. The data indicate the relevance of several criteria such as social status, intelligence, gender, competences, values and interests in the construction of career aspirations. All these levels are highly influenced by self-esteem, which is closely related to the social value of training options and career paths.