Social advantage, access to employers and the role of schools in modern british education

1. Social advantage, access to employers and the role of schools in modern british education Christian Percy and Elnaz Kashefpakdel (Education and Employers)

2. Introduction- This chapter looks into the • Relationship between social advantage and a particular aspect of careers guidance as it manifests in modern British secondary schools and that it the use of school-mediated employer engagement • EE in general terms is designed to provide career-relevant experiences and insights to young people while in full-time education • We particularly explored the issue of access to network of professionals in work and what impact these contacts have on young people’s lives as they move towards the working life • Whether schools can harness such engagement activities in order to challenge social reproduction • Focused on career talks and short wex placements as most common forms of employer engagement activities in secondary schools in the UK

3. Early perspectives on employer engagement • Coinciding with the dominance of neoliberalism over the last generation is the emergence of EE as a tool within careers guidance • EE has long featured within UK education and it is defined as: “The process within which a young person engages with the members of the economic community via school, with the aim of influencing their educational achievement, engagement and/or progress into the ultimate employment” by Stanley and Mann (2014). • As an example we can refer to wex introduced in 60s as the result of Newsom report, as tasters of the labour market mainly targeted at disengaged students who expected to leave education at the earliest possible. • There have been however scepticism as to whether this has contributed to social inequality- work experience in low skilled jobs/low quality wex perpetuating social reproduction

4. Changes in school-to-work transitions • Since Newsom report much has changed including features of school-to-work transition such as the education process, types of work available post-graduation and how they are accessed. • Few key trends: most young people stay in education longer than past generations, higher accumulated human capital; less traditional routes to job market; increasingly complex and opaque labour market due to technological advancements, globalisations and migration; disappearance of low-semi skilled jobs which enacted as a platform for skills development and progression outside school • recruitment is also is moving away from pure qualifications to employers demanding more skills and more critical of young people work readiness and education system overall to deliver in light of the 21st century workplaces • When thinking of modern transitions higher education is also under scrutiny in terms of value for money and returns on investment which is linked to the choice of courses and institutions

5. Implications for pathway decision –making • When thinking about these changes, one can feel the pressure and challenges young people are faced with • On top of this, there has been a proliferation of data sources, advice and marketing to young people: there are around 50,000 undergrad courses available to choose from, league tables and university world rankings, labour market statistics and average salaries across sectors to take into account. • So the stakes are high, young people have to make informed decisions about their future relatively early. • Focus groups with young people suggests many simply shut down in the face of these decisions and opt in for the most obvious route instead of exploring a range of options available to them

6. Implications for modern employer engagement • Making choices is perceived to be even more difficult as young people appear to have less personal experiences of the world of work than before. In 90s over 40% of young people aged 16-17 combined FT education with PT work; now fewer than 1 in 5 do so. • Making informed investment choices while in education and the complexity/changes of the modern workplaces have been the main rational for increasing employer engagement activities as pat of a broader high quality career guidance. • A related hypothesis is that a longer stay in the education system has made labour market a distant horizon and harder to imagine and relate to. • Which only makes the role of direct contact with employers particularly relevant; providing a chance to hear authentic messages to cut through the noise of day to day pressure from learning the curriculum, exams, future pathways etc. Allowing for the relevant information to come to rescue of labour market statistics and quarantined in-house advice and guidance

7. Granovetter, Bourdiue and uneven distribution of capital • Many researchers highlighting the importance of person-to-person exposures, propose that contemporary episodes of employer engagement are best understood through the conceptual lens of social and cultural capital where young people’s perception of self and abilities to achieve may change. The work of Granovetter’s power of weak ties and Bordiue’s notion of capital has informed a range of works in this area. • Commonly EE has been viewed as a catalyst in improving access to social and cultural capital, notably in terms of providing authentic non-redundant and trustworthy information which can be used as an insight into imagined futures, allowing young people to draw a connection between education and potential future selves. • The link between EE and wider economic and education outcomes have been quantified and reported in the past literature. • The key question is whether EE activities reinforce or redistribute inequalities in employment and wage?

8. Inequality and employer engagement • The evidence we looked at in this chapter revolves around this question: What happens when schools enable episodes of work experience? • 3 case studies: English fee-paying/private schools, access to specific professions such as medical which requires prior work experience, state-funded school in west midland which provided work experience • Also looked at insights we gathered from the analysis of a large scale longitudinal dataset • In each case we questioned whether these experiences of working life were meaningful in any way for young people, challenged young people’s perception of self and what they are aspired to and also is access to work experience is equally distributed among young people from different socio-economic backgrounds and whether schools played a role in tackling this class difference and compensate for social capital deficiencies among teenagers

9. Summary findings

10. Conclusion

11. Neoliberal policies, social justice and modern education • Neoliberalist policies- individuals taking control of their lives showing a sense of agency to navigate through the system, neglecting very commonly that where they come from can shape who they want to become, access to employment opportunities and social and cultural capital • Sometimes this flaw is recognised in the work of policymakers but the solution to it is rather framed within the neoliberal principles and once the market is failed • Social justice (as defined by this chapter) challenges neoliberalism by underlining the fact that background should not limit opportunities