Abstract
dc:description.abstractWidening participation policies in England and the US exemplify concerted efforts to address socio-economic and demographic disparities in higher education (HE) access by removing financial, academic, informational and social barriers for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. These policies convey a ‘HE for all’ mentality, assuming that the futures associated with pursuing HE are equally desirable for all students. However, there are young people in both the US and the UK, despite having the qualifications to access HE, who choose not to pursue it. These young people are often judged by policymakers and practitioners as having ‘low aspirations’ or low ‘expectations’. Yet an increasing body of evidence and theories suggest that their decisions are shaped by complex identity formations and there are heterogeneities associated with the non-transitional decisions for these young people. To understand the heterogeneities, Chapter Four used two nationally representative datasets (Next Steps and NELS:88) and latent class analysis (LCA) to identify different classes of ‘qualified’ students who self-selected not to pursue HE: Work-Oriented Voluntary Leavers (WOVLs), HE Deniers, the ‘Uncertain group’ and the ‘Multiple Obstacles group’ in Next Steps; WOVLs, Deniers, Gappers, and Involuntary Leavers from NELS:88. Results suggest that the heterogeneity seemed to be a result of students’ identity formation regarding future plans and that, by applying Marcia’s identity statuses, different student classes appear to correspond to different identity statuses. Chapter Five explored the identification journey of these students, drawing on the socio-ecological model of agency, plus Boudon’s conceptualisation of primary and secondary effects. Results from a multinomial logistic regression model showed that agency, structure and academic performance play varying roles in predicting different identifications with future plans. Both agency and academic performance mediate the relationships between socioeconomic status and student classes of identification with future plans but to varying degrees. Chapter Six examined the trajectories of educational expectation for HE over time. Results showed that students with different identifications exhibited heterogeneous patterns in the probabilities of expecting to pursue HE from 8th to 12th grade. These patterns suggest that students may see themselves at differing positions relative to HE. Overall, the thesis found that young people may progress down one of several pathways of identification with HE as a possible outcome for them, calling for policy adjustments to recognise the role of students’ identifications with future plans in educational decision-making.
Degree
thesis:*- Name dc:type.qualificationname
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Level dc:type.qualificationlevel
- Doctoral
- Grantor dc:publisher.institution
- University of Cambridge
- Year dc:date.issued
- 2024
Author and committee
dc:creator, dc:contributor.*- Author dc:creator
-
- Zhu, Huitao
- Advisor dc:contributor.advisor
-
- Hayward, Geoff
Subjects
dc:subject × 7Rights
dc:rightsIdentifiers
dc:identifier.*- Author Identifier
- 0000-0002-5313-8228
- OAI identifier oai:identifier
- oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/381687