Young people, social capital and network‐based educational decision‐making

Abstract

This paper explores whether and in what ways young people's perceptions and experiences of higher education (HE) can facilitate the transmission within their social networks of social capital both upwardly (from child to parent) and horizontally (from sibling to sibling), and thus can potentially provide bridging capital to family members, especially in families with little or no prior experience of HE. It utilises data from a project that explored the embedded nature of decision‐making about HE amongst a group of ‘potentially recruitable’ adults and their wider networks. The study researched 16 networks, and the resultant sample of 107 individuals included six teenagers and 15 young people in their twenties. The paper concludes that, despite the general emphasis within existing theoretical approaches to network capital on the downward transmission of social capital, the educational experiences of younger generations can be critical in shaping the perceptions of other (including older) network members, albeit not always in ways that encourage formal educational participation.

Keywords:

• social capital
• widening participation
• higher education
• social networks

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the ESRC for funding the research reported in this paper (award number RES 139‐25‐0232). The full research team consisted of Alison Fuller, Sue Heath, Brenda Johnston, Nick Foskett, Ros Foskett, Felix Meringe, John Taylor, Martin Dyke, Patricia Rice, Laura Staetsky, Karen Paton and Marie Kenny. A huge thank you is owed to our participants for their willingness to share their lives (and networks!) with us.

Notes

1. Our project was one of seven funded under the ESRC's Teaching and Learning Research Programme initiative on Widening Participation in Higher Education (see David 2010).

2. Level 4 qualifications relate to degree‐level higher educational qualifications and their equivalents.

3. Level 3 qualifications – such as A‐levels and their equivalents – are typically regarded as entry‐level requirements for higher education.

4. Johnston and Heath (2007) provide details of our research design and sampling strategies.

5. All names used are pseudonyms.

6. See http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/EducationAndLearning/UniversityAndHigherEducation/WhyGoToUniversityOrCollege/DG_4016998. John Denham, the then Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, repeated this figure at our end of award conference in May 2008.