Determinants of Post Secondary Aspirations of Secondary School Students

1
Determinants of Post Secondary Aspirations of
Secondary School Students

• Mark Bowden (with James Doughney)
• Economics and Finance

2
The Motivation

• Widening participation in university.
• Low socio-economic - ethnic backgrounds?
• The students decision.
• Rational? or cultural bias.

3
The Objective

• Using binary logit model-
• Identify the key variables
• Estimate the marginal effects.
• Boudon or Bourdieu?

4
Summary

• Economic (Boudon) and Cultural (Bourdieu).
• SES more important for students with ethnic
  background.
• Access to internet appears important.

5
Theory

• Structure Social systems constrain individual
  behaviour.
• Bourdieu (1973) unconscious decisions- cultural
  capital
• Boudon (1973) conscious decisions- dependent on
  socio-economic background.

6
Theory (cont)

• Non-English speaking- stronger support from
  parents
• Greater proportions of females than males

7
Determinants
From Standardised Residuals Mean -0.00053 Std
Deviation 1.003
Goodness of Fit H-L Statistic p 0.3973
Andrews Statistic p 0.5408
8
Marginal Effects

• Parent completed university 2.9
• English not spoken at home 11.8
• Catholic School 9.1
• Independent School 8.9
• Views of Teachers 7
• Views of Parents 10

9
Marginal Effects

• Internet at home 14.9
• Female 9.8
• Lose touch with friends -3.6
• Only for the wealthy -3.7

10
Revised Model
Goodness of Fit H-L Statistic p 0.4173
Andrews Statistic p 0.61.30
From Standardised Residuals Mean -0.0028 Std
Deviation 1.009
11
Marginal Effects

• Not English high SES 13.6
• Not English low SES 7.7
• English at home high SES 1.4

12
Model Specification

• Without the socio-economic status variable
  Goodness of Fit tests rejected at 10.
• Omitted Variable School results other variables?

13
Acknowledgements

• Denise Bett, manager of the former Equity and
  Social Justice Branch, Victoria University and
  leader of the Aspirations Online Project Team
• Kate ORourke, Kathryn ORourke, Katia Honour,
  and Peter OCallaghan, Aspirations Project
  Officers

14
References

• Boudon, R. (1974) Education, opportunities, and
  social inequality changing prospects in Western
  society, New York, Wiley.
• Bourdieu, P. (1973) Cultural Reproduction and
  Social Reproduction. In Brown, R. (Ed.)
  Knowledge, education, and cultural change
  papers in the sociology of education. London,
  Tavistock Publications Limited.
• Foskett, N. Hemsley-Brown, J. (2001) Choosing
  Futures Young people's decision-making in
  education, training and careers markets, London,
  Routledge Falmer.

15
References

• Marks, G. N., Cresswell, J. Ainley, J. (2006)
  Explaining Socioeconomic Inequalities in Student
  Achievement The role of home and school factors.
  Educational Research and Evaluation, 12, 105 -
  128.
• Nash, R. (1990) Bourdieu on Education and Social
  and Cultural Reproduction. British Journal of
  Sociology of Education, 11, 431-447.
• Nash, R. (2005) Cognitive habitus and collective
  intelligence concepts for the explanation of
  inequality of educational opportunity. Journal of
  Education Policy, 20, 3-21.