Educational Decision-Making

Emer Smyth

Chapter Chapter 3 in Students' Experiences and Perspectives on Secondary Education, 2016, pp 63-94 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract As young people move through secondary education, they are required to make a series of decisions—about the subjects they take, about the levels at which they take subjects, about which programmes to study and about what they will do after leaving school. Across all social groups, parents are found to be the main source of support in educational decision-making. Social class differences are found not in the extent of such parental support but rather in whether parents and other family members possess the kinds of ‘insider’ knowledge which will facilitate their children in navigating their way through the educational system. Smyth provides new insights into the way in which school organisation and process can shape the extent to which young people actually have a ‘choice’. Early decisions about dropping particular subjects or not pursuing higher level are found to have long-term consequences by closing off particular pathways for the future. The chapter findings also map the trajectories of young people’s occupational aspirations and how these choices become increasingly framed by social class and gender as they approach the point of leaving school.

Keywords: Guidance Counsellor; Occupational Aspiration; Coeducational School; Lower Secondary Education; Subject Choice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-49385-9_3

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DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-49385-9_3

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