‘I can’t do any more education’: class, individualisation and educational decision‐making

Abstract

This paper, drawing upon a recent study of youth post‐compulsory educational and occupational decision‐making, argues for a culturalist perspective to understand the persistence of class‐based inequalities within VET. The paper begins by outlining two broadly distinct perspectives within current research into youth: an ‘individualist’ approach influenced by the work of Ulrich Beck and a ‘culturalist’ approach influenced by Pierre Bourdieu. Findings from the author’s own study of a sample of AVCE students are then employed to interrogate the explanatory utility of these two perspectives. The students, working‐class high achievers, exhibited a strong subjective sense of choice and individual responsibility combined with a tacit sense of class voiced in discourses that constructed a ‘practical’ rather than ‘academic’ self and which actively resisted the value of higher education. It is concluded from this that a Bourdieu‐influenced culturalist methodology offers the greatest potential to understand how class‐based educational identities may interrelate with apparently individualised identities.

Keywords:

• educational decision‐making
• vocational education
• individualisation
• class