- Title
- Unpacking the career aspirations of Australian school students: towards an evidence base for university equity initiatives in schools
- Creator
- Gore, Jennifer; Holmes, Kathryn; Smith, Max; Fray, Leanne; McElduff, Patrick; Weaver, Natasha; Wallington, Claire
- Relation
- ARC.LP120100013 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/LP120100013
- Relation
- Higher Education Research and Development Vol. 36, Issue 7, p. 1383-1400
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2017.1325847
- Publisher
- Routledge
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2017
- Description
- Demand for higher education in Australia has doubled since 1989, increasing the number of students from diverse social, economic and academic backgrounds. Equity targets have seen a proliferation of programs and interventions aimed at encouraging school students, particularly those from low socio-economic status backgrounds, to participate in higher education. However, little is known about the specific occupational interests of school students upon which targeted strategies might effectively be designed and implemented. This paper examines school students' aspirations for specific careers that require a university education, in relation to student background and school-related variables. The analysis draws from a study of 6492 students from Years 3 to 12 in 64 New South Wales public schools. We found a complex array of factors relating to interest in different careers. Year level at school, gender and prior achievement were stronger predictors across many careers than factors such as SES, Indigenous status and school location. We argue that rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach to encouraging participation in higher education, outreach activities should be targeted to take account of student diversity and inequalities that foster differing aspirations.
- Subject
- higher education; aspirations; occupation; school students; equity; SDG 5; Sustainable Development Goals
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1396649
- Identifier
- uon:34089
- Identifier
- ISSN:0729-4360
- Rights
- © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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Goal 5: Gender Equality
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