Calculating student aspiration: Bourdieu, spatiality and the politics of recognition

Abstract

This paper reports on a recent study of aspirations for higher education by secondary school students from disadvantaged backgrounds in regional Australia. At the same time, it goes in search of explanations that transcend a Bourdieuian account of aspirations as produced by and reproductive of cultural histories and dominance, given the apparent inadequacy of these accounts in redressing disadvantage. To this end the authors distinguish between historicising and spatialising aspirations, taking up Appadurai’s notion of navigational capacity as a way of advancing greater agency for disadvantaged groups. Data from the research inform the analysis, including the mediation of students’ desired futures by their perception of what is possible given their differentiated locations and access to resources. It is concluded that while this spatial turn in theorising aspiration has potential for changing the terms of recognition internal to disadvantaged communities, there remain structural limits on change ‘from below’.

Keywords:

• Bourdieu
• student aspiration
• disadvantage
• Appadurai
• terms of recognition

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank: Tim Sealey for his statistical analysis of the survey data and for producing the graphs that appear in this article; the research team on this project, Piper Rodd, Greg Stratton and Teresa Moore; as well as the staff and students of the schools that participated in the survey. Thanks also to Bob Lingard for his comments and input on earlier drafts of the paper.

Notes

1. In September 2013 the Labour government was voted out of office and replaced by a conservative Coalition government, which has since abandoned these targets and has assumed a more hard-line neo-liberal approach to higher education funding. As part of this, the new Australian Government has plans to deregulate student fees, allowing institutions to set their own limits on what they charge students to engage in higher education, while at the same time reducing government funding to universities.

2. See also http://www.acer.edu.au/ausei06

3. Females tended to make more prestigious occupational choices than males, particularly in their restricted occupational choices.

4. See http://www.vnca.asn.au/my-career/training-pathways/