Trading Choices - School structures and discourses: providing choices, or screening and sorting?

School organisation for curriculum delivery
Subject clustering and student ‘choice’
The impact of gendered and hetero-normative thinking
The influence of careers advisers
The Gateway, STAR, and work experience programmes
Careers expos
Schools’ attempts to change the status quo
‘Transition’ from school and ‘practical’ aspects of decision making
Summary

This chapter reports and comments on what the young people we interviewed told us about how school structures and systems affected their career decision making. It also looks at the quality of the careers education advice they received, focusing in particular on the influence of the ideas and assumptions that organise ‘school’ thinking.
 

It is clear that the young people’s school experiences were an important influence on their choices, and that their schools (intentionally or not) played an important role in ‘filtering’ the opportunities available to them, in many different ways. Some of these are quite visible (for example, the way subjects are organised into timetable lines). Others are the result of tacit assumptions about what is appropriate for different ‘types’ of young people (for example, the continuation of the ‘old’ academic/vocational division between subjects, despite recent major changes to the assessment system that were, at least in part, designed to blur these boundaries). The experiences of the young people we talked to show that this filtering operates at nested levels of school organisation, and that a reconsideration of some of the assumptions that underpin it is an important precursor to the development of effective strategies for encouraging more young people into the trades.

This chapter synthesises the young people’s stories in terms of their experiences with:

• the way schools are organised (timetables, subject clustering, and other structural issues)
• the advice they received (from careers advisers, deans, teachers, and peers) about what was appropriate for them in relation to their abilities and interests, and in relation to their gender
• the types of ‘transition’, careers education, and/or work experience programmes they were offered.

All secondary schools have to balance the goal of educating many young people with diverse learning needs with the finite resources (money, time, etc.) available to do this. They must make critical decisions about how best to deploy the resources available to them, in ways that can achieve their local goals and their national obligations. Obviously, there will be no one way which is ‘right’ in all cases, but there are some practices that are well entrenched by tradition and expediency. Foremost of these is the organisation of the school timetable to accommodate as many subjects as possible within the finite constraints of the ‘periods’ of time available. Schools need to weigh the anticipated uptake or popularity of subjects (to avoid classes that are too small – which in turn must be counterbalanced by other classes that are too large) against how well the overall combination of subjects offered will meet student learning needs. Most schools seek to offer a broad yet balanced curriculum, and to avoid undue restriction of subject choices too early in students’ secondary career (Hipkins, Vaughan, Beals, Ferral, & Gardiner, 2005), but nevertheless they must make choices. This is important for the present purposes, as there is clear evidence that these choices impact on how students see their future options.

In two recent research projects, NZCER researchers have found that school timetabling practices effectively create subject ‘clusters’, and that those clusters are populated by quite distinct student groups. The school timetable functions to spread a given number of students and teachers across a set number of timeslots available in the school week. For a variety of reasons, ‘academic’ subjects tend to be plotted first and are often allocated multiple lines^[21] which means that there are fewer spaces available for ‘alternative’ subjects (for more detail see Hipkins & Vaughan, 2002). Each of these ‘alternative’ subjects is often given only one line on the timetable, effectively placing it in direct competition with other subjects offered in the same slot.^[22] On an individual level, this situation – with its knock-on effects – means that some subject combinations are easier to take than others, while students with ‘alternative’ interests have a greater likelihood of being in classes that are not of their first choosing. Multiply these constraining logistics across the full school timetable and student body and the result can be the unintentional formation of distinct groupings or clusters of subjects for different ‘types’ of students.

Typically, there will be about four clusters in each year of the senior secondary school (Hipkins et al., 2005; Wylie, Hipkins, & Hodgen, in press). Two of these clusters are likely to have a more ‘academic’ focus – one with an arts orientation and one with a science orientation. The other two clusters will provide some combination of contextual (subjects that make connections to life outside school such as media studies, photography, or environmental studies) and vocational subjects. Evidence of structural inequalities in the ways students are filtered into these clusters can be found in the social characteristics of the students. In both the Learning Curves study of the implementation of NCEA (Hipkins et al., 2005) and the Competent Learners longitudinal study (Wylie et al., in press) Māori and Pasifika students were more likely than Pākehā and Asian students to be taking nonacademic subject combinations. Males were also more likely to be taking these types of combinations while females were more likely to be taking academic subject combinations.^[23]

Clusters are associated with post-school decision making. For example, students in academic clusters are more likely to be headed for full-time university study, and to aspire to work in a professional occupation. But there are some suggestions that this is not a direction undertaken lightly – in the Competent Learners study, students in nonacademic clusters were more likely to say that lack of qualifications would be a barrier to the sort of life they wanted – and indeed to see a range of barriers that did not seem to be as constraining for other students. Students taking nonacademic subject combinations were more likely to be contemplating earning-while-learning options, to aspire to a trade, and to see connections between current and future work options (Vaughan, in press).

Adding to this picture of inequalities in opportunities, the Learning Curves analysis suggested that even the ‘core’ subjects such as English and mathematics, seemingly taken in common by most students at least until the end of Year 11, will look very different for students in these different clusters, and will be assessed by quite different combinations of achievement and unit standards (Hipkins et al., 2006). This point is not just of academic interest – entrance to university is enabled or constrained by having the correct combination of four factors:

• total number of Level 3 credits
• a literacy requirement
• a numeracy requirement
• having certain kinds of credits (these credits, mostly from achievement standards, must be distributed in certain ways across ‘approved subjects’ from a published list generated in consultation with university vice chancellors).

 
Recent research from the Star Path project at Auckland University has shown that, of those four factors, not having the correct distribution of credits across subjects is the main ‘choke point’ for Māori and Pasifika students from low-decile schools. Even if they satisfy the other three requirements, ‘choosing’ a subject combination that does not yield the necessary pattern of credits prevents them from taking up university study immediately after they leave school (McKinley, 2008). Since clustering practices mean these students are more likely to find themselves in subjects that are not on the ‘approved’ list for entry to university, it is not difficult to see how school timetabling practices contribute directly to this outcome.

Subject clustering also has an effect on students not aiming towards university. The resource-intensive nature of practical subjects such as woodwork, metalwork, and other technology options adds a further complication. These subjects require specialist learning spaces and tools and generate ongoing material costs. There are compelling reasons for schools to restrict their availability in the timetable lines. These subjects are frequently the site of the most visible gender imbalances within schools. Already restricted in availability, gendered decision making may act to close out choices for students of the ‘wrong’ gender. Evidence of the impact of these structural constraints on the young people we interviewed is now presented.

Students are, in theory, encouraged to make their own combination of choices from among all the available subjects: however, the strong clustering patterns described above suggest that they are in fact operating within constraints (and that they may not be aware of these constraint). They are subject to the framework of possibilities available in schools. These frameworks are shaped by the school, and by the decisions of various adults associated with them (Hipkins et al., 2005, p. 15).

When the timetable (and the adults who design the structure and then make it work) acts to filter student choices, a ‘hidden curriculum’ is implicated. There are hints of this ‘tacit teaching of social and economic norms and expectations to students in schools’ (Apple with King, 2004, p. 42) in the findings from other research (reported above). In theory, all things being equal, any type of student could choose any type of combination of subjects to fit their aptitudes and interests. But this is precisely the point at which tacit value judgements come into play. What ‘types’ of students have the aptitudes for what types of subjects? What ought females to be interested in?

What should males be interested in? How are perceptions of learning abilities implicated in the choosing? How adults in schools answer these questions has an impact on the spaces in which the students ‘choose’ their subjects. When choices are visibly constrained, the values that underpin the filtering process come clearly into view. In the following comment, one of the young people we interviewed describes trying to ‘choose’ carefully as required, only to be confronted by the prosaic attitude of the school dean entrusted with providing guidance:

And it also depends what your other options that you know you’re going to be doing because it all has to fit in. They have to all fit in with each other. If there are two [subjects] that you want to do that are in the same time slot then you can’t do both. So he [the dean] said it was more about the logistics rather than actually helping you make the decision about if that’s what you want to do more. (Junior secondary student, female, traditional)

We see a clear illustration here of the limits of ‘choice’ for students who don’t fit the traditional ‘academic’ mould. Practical subjects of interest to them are less likely to be offered on more than one timetable line (which provides a means of avoiding clashes in academic subjects with a larger uptake). A forced choice on this line could well result in a second forced choice – between offerings of little or no interest – on another timetable line. This influences the range of learning experiences to which these students are exposed at school, and in turn, the possibilities they can see for their futures.

It is no accident that a dean was implicated here. Other research has shown that their perceptions of what is appropriate can have a disproportionate influence on students’ subject combinations, especially where students are perceived to have ‘learning needs’ that may not be met by the traditional ‘academic’ subjects (Hipkins et al., 2005). Deans generally fulfil a role involving a mix of subject administration, student support, and behaviour management. Conflation of these roles can colour the way they see students’ options, especially when timetable clashes arise for students who have been in trouble for one reason or another. This young person’s comment reveals an anger that is highly informative in the context of this report:

Teachers could be more encouraging about encouraging girls into trades-related courses. When I was at X college my dean asked what I wanted to do in the long-run, what am I good at? And I said something with my hands. So she said, ‘So do you want to do sewing?’ I said ‘No, fixing things like metals and things’. She said ‘What! There’s woodwork but there’s lots of guys in it’. I said ‘I don’t give a XXXX’ and she tossed me out of her office because I swore at her. But I didn’t give a toss that I’m the only girl. I just wanted to do what I want to do. I ended up doing the course and passed it. The teacher was fine and so were my classmates. It was just the woman dean who freaked out. (Trainee, female, nontraditional)

Perceptions of what is appropriate for more ‘academic’ and more ‘vocationally -oriented’ students undoubtedly also act as a filter. Already built into the timetable structure, they are given additional impetus via the thinking of those who help students ‘choose’:

You get told that university is the next step if you want your life to go anywhere. (Apprentice, male, traditional)

Some students would take them as they are interested in it and others to avoid work, especially academic work. I found there was a mix of those people in there. Definitely some who were keen and completed it like myself but others weren’t really interested. (Senior secondary student, female, nontraditional)

Here we see the perception that a choice of a vocational orientation is an inferior or default choice, one that ought not to be made by any student who has more academic options available. In the Learning Curves project, both technology and arts curriculum area leaders lamented the role played by deans in discouraging able students from taking their subjects, even though they were well aware of the levels of learning challenge (both practical and intellectual) they could provide, and of the range of career options that could open up (Hipkins, Vaughan, Beals, & Ferral, 2004). In the Competent Learners at 16 research, not one student in the highest quartile for total number of Level 1 NCEA credits said they intended to head for a career in a trade, compared to 33 percent of those in the lowest quartile for this factor (Vaughan, in press).

It is likely that the implementation of the NCEA has exacerbated this hidden value judgement even though the intention was to do the opposite, by introducing ‘parity of esteem’ for all subjects. The distinction made between achievement standards (perceived as the assessment instruments to choose for academic subjects) and unit standards (for vocational assessments) seems largely responsible here, even though many teachers do hold a much more nuanced view of their relative strengths and will typically choose the most appropriate for the context (Hipkins et al., 2005). Within schools this filter has impacted on the ways in which some students view vocational subjects and the value they place on the skills and knowledge learnt in them:

Most of my friends thought I should be doing more academic courses as I was mainly doing unit standards. They might have thought that I was limiting myself if I did those practical subjects etc. I wasn’t worried; I do well for me, not other people or prizes. (Senior secondary student, female, nontraditional)

The overall impact of this perceptual filter is that there is a strong preference in schools for young people to pursue more academically-orientated pathways. Students are exposed to a range of negative stereotypes about the types of people that take vocational subjects, the value of those subjects, and the robustness of assessment occurring in those subjects. In schools this can result in academic options/pathways being more visible and accessible to large numbers of students while vocational subjects are seen as an ‘easy option’, targeted at smaller groups of students who are perceived as not ‘having what it takes’ to succeed in the academic subjects. One young woman in our feedback workshop strongly supported our analysis, and shared her unsatisfactory experiences in attempting to combine her practical interests with her desire for ‘rounded’ academic success:

They [her school] count workshop as a bum subject and everyone who has a subject clash just gets put in there. When I talked to my careers adviser and said I wanted to be a digger driver or builder, she said to do Gateway. But it’s a whole day once a week and there’s a high workload. You can’t do Gateway and also do other things you want to do… In Gateway the unit standards are only 6^th Form level but you have to do Gateway in 7^th form, so it doesn’t look good. (Female, feedback comment)

She also thought that girls were expected to opt into hairdressing, not the male-dominated trades. We explore this issue in the next section.
 

Gender (and sexuality) ‘norming’ is experienced by students through interactions with their peers and teachers. They also play out in ways subjects are structured and, as we have already seen, ways in which the timetable is organised. While there is explicit superficial support for students of either gender to pursue roles considered ‘normal’ for their gender, young people who express nontraditional gender interests may experience both direct and indirect messages about ‘appropriate’ gender/sexuality roles:

I think people laughed at first [about me taking furniture making]. All our friends, boys and the girls, they would ask ‘Why are you taking that?’ Some of them think you are a dyke. Everyone thought we were crazy. (Senior secondary student, female, nontraditional)

In 5th Form science I got 100 percent for electricity course, and my teachers should have given me the chance to explore this area more…should have given me the possibilities that this could lead to. (Apprentice, female, nontraditional)

I took those courses at school [woodwork etc.] because I enjoyed them. I didn’t think of it as a career at that stage. It wasn’t until it got pointed out to me at the expo that I could actually be a builder… it made me really happy to find that out [and be told]. (Trainee, female, nontraditional)

Organisational decisions made by management in single-sex schools reflect tacit gendered thinking, and thus provide opportunities to explore how this can act to filter students’ choices:

You can see that things have changed in some areas like chefing and nursing but there is a long way to go before you have hairdressing as a subject in a boys’ school. (Senior secondary student, female, nontraditional)

I went to an all girls’ school and they didn’t have woodwork classes, we had technology. (Ex-trainee, female)

At co-ed schools both genders have more options to do different stuff. At boys schools it’s all technical and at all girls’ schools it’s about fabrics and cooking. (Senior secondary student, female, nontraditional)

My dance friends are mainly from a single-sex school and they have very little idea about practical skills like set construction for stage performances. Had I gone to an all girls’ school I wouldn’t have been able to do the subjects and get interested in these [building and automotive] things. I think it’s sad that girls’ schools don’t have those subjects, I’m pro co-ed education as it’s closer to the real world and people have the chance to develop good skills. (Senior secondary student, female, nontraditional)

However, it is important to note here that, if young people can get past the structural and perceptual filters described above, there is evidence that supportive subject teachers can make a difference by ameliorating the pressures of normative thinking from elsewhere, and by confirming and supporting nontraditional choices. Their specialist knowledge and skills are likely to give weight to the views they express to students about their likely ongoing success in any chosen pathway:

My technology teacher was really happy as I was the first girl from my school to pursue being a builder. (Trainee, female, nontraditional)

One teacher noticed I had a knack for building and said I should follow it up. At that point I was choosing between building and hospitality so it was good advice. (Ex-trainee, female)

Student 1: Mr X is good about it. He doesn’t see it as weird. He knows we’re there to enjoy ourselves and he helps us out and stuff.

Student 2: He’s really good at helping us out. I think he really likes when he sees us learning something.

Student 3: Yeah, it’s like he’s really determined that we do well. (Senior secondary students, female, nontraditional)

Subject teachers are also a potential source of subject-focused careers support:

The HOD [head of department] of technology got me involved with the course at X… My graphics teacher also took some of us to meet lecturers at university and we visited another university. All of this was good as it showed me different options, places to study as well as topics. (Senior secondary student, female, nontraditional)

We have no evidence of young men being explicitly encouraged to choose subjects that are traditionally taken by girls, but this could of course be because we had a smaller number of interviewees taking traditionally female-dominated subjects. A young woman considered this in her posted feedback to our analysis presentation:

I think it has become more acceptable for a female to do a workshop class but males tend to still get ridiculed for taking fabrics. (Female, feedback comment)

The influence of careers advisers
Students typically have contact with the school’s careers advisers at a number of points in their schooling experience. External visits by tertiary providers and other training organisations are commonly arranged, whether from regional, national, or international groups. Here again there is evidence that gendered thinking (by careers advisers or by those who design and provide publicity material for schools) constrains schools’ ability to help students who are considering nontraditional choices. There is also evidence that students considering such choices need to be determined and persevering if they are to bypass this kind of thinking. According to some of the young people we interviewed: 

Need better steps in place for when a girl does want to do it [plumbing or trades in general]. It’s not just about posters in guidance counsellors’ offices. (Apprentice, female, nontraditional)

[At school] it was just ‘choose something and we’ll help you follow it up’. They weren’t really showing you different things that you hadn’t tried or considered. If you didn’t indicate an interest they wouldn’t tell you about it. (Ex-trainee, female)

[They need] flyers or brochures about more jobs and better careers advisers. All they asked me was if I was going to university. (Apprentice, female, nontraditional)

When you think about the apprenticeships that might be up for grabs, where are they looking for people? Probably going to the places where students are doing the subjects. This has an impact on what sort of information is sent and displayed in schools, so you won’t get trades information at a girls’ school etc. (Senior secondary student, female, nontraditional)

Other New Zealand studies have found evidence that haphazard school-based careers guidance and poor advice from careers advisers (for example, about industry and trades) inhibits young people’s ability to make career decisions (Higgins & Nairn, 2006; Vaughan & Boyd, 2004; Vaughan et al., 2006; Wilson & Young, 1998). However, there is also evidence of systemic constraints and weaknesses in the school-based careers education system, i.e., this issue is not solely the responsibility of individual careers advisers. Constraints include a school-based careers workforce with a low level of professional qualifications in the ‘careers’ field (and limited professional development); the low status of careers positions compared with other management positions; and the association of careers education with (low-status) vocational transition programmes (Vaughan & Gardiner, 2007). At a systemic level, providing information (often marketing brochures) is privileged over assisting students to make sense of the information or to learn decision-making skills. There is a mismatch between National Administration Guideline 1.6 (which emphasises the former) and the Ministry of Education’s careers guidance handbook to schools (which emphasises the latter) (Vaughan & Gardiner, 2007). These constraints and systemic weaknesses mean that school-based careers advisers have been slow to recognise – or be assisted to understand and work with – a wider shift away from careers ‘guidance’ as vocational matching (what job are you suited to?) towards careers management (how can you manage yourself as a lifelong learner–worker?).

The Gateway, STAR, and work experience programmes
In addition to the trades-focused subjects, there is a range of programmes and systems in place within schools to assist young people with careers decision making related to vocational pathways. They are connected to the wider school system and are designed to do certain things within it. In some cases these programmes are not taught within the school. Rather, links to other educational providers allow students to pursue these subjects/ educational experiences in other settings. In many cases students need to explicitly express an interest in vocational training, and to complete an interview/selection process to gain entry. Once they have been chosen for a course, some rule it out as a potential pathway by deciding it does not suit. Students need to ‘search’ within vocational areas, just as they do in academic areas. A preference for practical or ‘hands-on’ work and learning does not imply that any trade will do, and there is often a scoping element to work experience:

My work experience was really valuable…to realise that the way you might be thinking could be too narrow. Broadening your horizons and give things a go, you won’t know till you try. (Ex-trainee, female)

When I came to college I didn’t know what I wanted to be. Gateway helped me out because it gave me a lot of options. (Senior secondary student, male, traditional)

Gateway really helps you find something to do – plus there are the courses you can take (defensive driving, engineering, plumbing, etc.). You can also get ITO training paid for by the school. (Senior secondary student, male, traditional)

In the light of this, the actual experience young people have on work placement becomes important to their potential continued participation. Here again, gendered thinking may be a negative influence. How will the people at the placement treat female students? Will they consider their interest genuine or that they are capable of succeeding in this area? The following comments from the young people we interviewed provide some insights:^[24]

Oh well I did a [Gateway] course in April and I went to X and did four days of work experience up there and it sort of made me want to go there and study. (Senior secondary student, female, nontraditional)

I did do outdoor experience at school which was how I got interested in rafting. But I decided that I didn’t want a big student loan and you don’t get very good money doing it. (Trainee, male, traditional)

When I went to work experience with X they made me wash cars all day. The next year they obviously thought ‘Oh, she is really interested’ so I worked on cars that time. It was like they didn’t believe a girl was really interested the first time. (Trainee, female, nontraditional)

In 6^th Form there was a timetable muck-up and I got to do automotive [STAR course]. It was really good and now I understand a lot more about cars and engines. In 7^th Form there was another timetable muck-up and this time I took carpentry. I had known there was a good teacher there who had skills. I really liked being able to fix things and learn more about the construction side of subjects like graphics etc. (Senior secondary student, female, nontraditional)

For one of my [school] courses I got to work with second-year mechanical engineers at X and saw how they did stuff and where I could be if I followed it up. (Senior secondary student, female, nontraditional)

Still, not all of our female interviewees had taken up – or been offered – Gateway, STAR, or work experience opportunities:

I didn’t do any work experience. It wasn’t really available at my school and what there was had a tourism and travel focus. That wasn’t interesting to me. (Ex-trainee, female)

I guess the Gateway programme is encouraging. If I had been able to do that I would have. You would get good experience and stuff. It’d be easier for girls to try it out and learn without the commitment of a polytechnic course, huge debt, or a year of full-time study. (Apprentice, female, nontraditional)

I didn’t hear a lot about trades, only saw info about it at the expo. Didn’t hear anything about it at school, only reps from universities visited our school. No trades places [visited] or even polytechnics…hmmm actually maybe one polytechnic did visit. (Trainee, female, nontraditional)

Schools don’t do it [work experience] early enough. They organise work experience two months before you leave school and by then you’ve taken all the wrong subjects. They should do it in the 4th Form. Get them interested in the 4th Form and do it then. (Ex-trainee, female)

Some of these quotes support the findings of UK-based research which suggests that work experience take-up is gendered: that is, it channels males and females into different areas (especially when students are encouraged to set up their own engagements) (Osgood et al., 2006).

Careers expos
These events also play a role in assisting students to think about subject/ career/job choices. Career expos aim to present a broad range of options to large numbers of students looking to refine their existing interests or prospective pathways. They can be useful, for example: 

I really got into it [building] at the end of 7^th Form. I went to a careers expo and saw a display. I had planned to do a joinery course then I found out I could do the carpentry one and if you did that it gave you pre-trade for either building or joinery. (Trainee, female, nontraditional)

However, students frequently do not attend these events until Years 12/13. By this point many have left school, or are committed to particular pathways, so that change is difficult. Some students experienced negative reactions to nontraditional pathways while attending these events:

They have careers days in Wellington, but I didn’t feel like it was for me. When I asked questions [about trades training] the guys gave me strange looks, like ‘What are you doing here?’ and I just felt sort of awkward. (Trainee, female, nontraditional)

I think events like careers expo are really good. All schools (single-sex or co-ed) get shown the same material. You get areas that are more set up for boys or girls but at least you have a chance to have a look. (Senior secondary student, female, nontraditional)

Some of the young people made suggestions for improving the careers days. For example:

Get local companies involved to show them what they’d do rather than a brochure or an ad on TV. Seeing the real parts of the job rather than the glossy pamphlet. (Ex-trainee, female)

Schools’ attempts to change the status quo
Many interviewees suggested that schools could do more to disrupt gender-related pathways:

But they [girls] need to be aware that it’s an option for them. So maybe in school when you do woodwork they could do some more courses to give girls a little taste of it. And if they knew that there were other females doing it it would give them a boost. (Employee, female, nontraditional)

School is a big part of it [helping people into the trades]. Being offered a range of subjects earlier, having careers people coming in to talk to the single-sex schools. (Senior secondary student, female, nontraditional)

One school we visited was doing just that. As noted in Chapter 2, we had difficulty recruiting sufficient young people in the nontraditional category and, to increase the numbers, we included students from a school that requires all Year 9 students to do ‘taster’ courses in all of the technology subjects. These students take a total of 12 electives/options during the four terms of their Year 9 year. These include fabrics, technology (practical), and food technology, subjects that are typically gender-segregated when participation is a choice. The intention is to help students make more informed decisions about their Year 10 subjects: however, there is some evidence that this strategy encourages students to take a wider view of the options available to them. Below are two focus group discussions about the schools’ approach. Both involve students from a Year 10 design technology class looking back at their Year 9 experience. The first conversation is from an all-male focus group:

Student one:  I think it’s a brilliant idea…but can be annoying with classes you don’t like. But you get more experience and this makes the choice easier for Year 10.

Student two:  This is the same as in England. It’s a good idea.

Student three: I think it’s a good idea. Everyone should try everything.

Student one: Fabrics are ok, but I don’t like sewing. I liked cooking and I’ve liked it for quite a while now.

Student two: It’s a very good idea. You still get the basics. Cooking is great fun! I mean…what more could you want!

Student three: I hated fabrics and cooking. But I enjoyed music and drama. But it’s still good to get basic ideas.

Interviewer: Why do you think this school has all Year 9s doing all electives?

Student two: To stop people from being sexist. They are stopping that…to show that everyone can do it.

Student three: By making us do all the classes, they want us to have a good idea.

Student one: They definitely should keep it going. (Junior secondary students, male, traditional)

Similar opinions were shared by this next group of young women:

Student one: At [a local girls’ school] you choose your options in Year 9. I thought it [our school’s approach] was really good. You get to know what they’re all like.

Student two: Looking at the [local girls’ school] options, I would have chosen to do graphics. But now I know I hate graphics and I hate sewing.

Student one: They’re getting us to know who we want to be and what we want to do.

Student two: If you know what you want to be you can do options related to it.

Student two: It’s nice seeing they [boys] have a feminine touch [in sewing]. It’s annoying when they are more fashionable than you. It’s cool when you outsmart guys on more masculine stuff. (Junior secondary students, female, nontraditional)

When we mentioned this school’s strategy at our feedback workshops, both the young women and young men (none of whom had experienced it) expressed some caution. They supported nontraditional options being actively offered to male and female students, and they recognised that schools and peer groups make some paths more accessible to one gender. However, they were not comfortable with the idea of ‘forced choice’, especially at secondary school. Their discussion illustrates the dilemmas that emerge when the discourse of ‘individual choice’ meets the ‘equal opportunities for all’ discourse within a model of educational progression based on prerequisites and a privileging of the academic curriculum. Some of the participants explicitly said that school influences hadn’t been that important in their decision making:

Participant one: We had compulsory subjects like art and music. It depends. It does slow you down.

Participant two: Maybe more in primary but in college it shouldn’t be forced. Otherwise it could feel like a waste of time being forced to do something. It’s good at intermediate though.

Participant three: I’ve done a late apprenticeship, at 24. I don’t regret that. I was academic at school, I hadn’t been exposed to the manual side. I went to a girls’ school and those options weren’t there. Yeah a bit of exposure to it [is good] but school isn’t the be all and end all. There are other opportunities.

Work-based learning in schools and the permeability between schools and other training providers are part of the ‘bigger picture’ of a rapidly changing labour market that demands different skills from workers and different kinds of connections with the education system. These ideas are underpinned by shifts in the way knowledge is understood and used. As ontological forms of knowledge or how we can be in the world (Barnett, 2004) become at least as important as what we know or can store up (Gilbert, 2005), workplaces will increasingly be seen as learning environments (Billett, 2006).

Some aspects of the current school–work transition environment encouraged our interviewees to either consider or take up trades training/work. For example, the ‘learning-while-earning’ aspect of apprenticeships was a definite incentive for many:

What was attractive was the pay because there was such a shortage. (Ex-trainee, female)

I want to do an apprenticeship next year. I was going to mechanical engineering at Weltec in 2007 but I didn’t have the $5k for the course. (Senior secondary student, female, nontraditional)

With an apprenticeship you make money, it’s only 3.5 years, it’s internationally recognised, and hands on. (Apprentice, female, nontraditional)

However, this was not necessarily the deciding factor, and many of the participants commented on the low wages received by apprentices, particularly those who had started apprenticeships when older. Some also had stories that contradicted recent media messages about trades shortages and/or the financial benefits of trades apprenticeships and employment:

Earning-while-learning influenced me because I came from a full-time job but didn’t have any formal qualifications that would help me get overseas. But I didn’t know how much the wages would suck. The cost of training is pretty good though. It’s cheaper than uni. If there were higher costs it would put people off. (Female, feedback comment)

I’d like to do mechanical engineering – but my dad doesn’t want me to [because I] won’t earn much money. If you’re a dentist you earn a lot more money. (Senior secondary student, female, nontraditional)

They’re not paid that well. (Female, feedback comment)

Also, perceptions about whether or not the trades are sufficiently well paid and the meaning of money varied considerably amongst the young people we interviewed:

Nothing is really stopping me – you can find solutions money wise; you just need to focus on what you want. (Senior secondary student, female, nontraditional)

Interviewee one: Even though it doesn’t bring you happiness you need money to look after family, pay your mortgage. It’s always good to have. Money doesn’t equal happiness but it helps you do what you want.

Interviewee two: Money to do what you want. Be stable and then I could race cars

Interviewee one: I’d kind of prefer a low-paying job cause the more money you have the more money you want and money really doesn’t make you happy so why chase it.

Interviewee three: Yeah it doesn’t make you happy but how are you going to do that course that you wanted without it? (Senior secondary students, female, nontraditional)

Another NZCER study has shown that young people’s pathways navigation is driven in part by the importance of security, and in part by the ability to explore (Vaughan et al., 2006). Each of these parts has a different meaning and is weighted differently for every young person. The young women we interviewed for this research project saw both as being possible through trades training and work. For example, many hoped that a trade ‘ticket’ would assure them of a long-term career should they choose to ‘stay on the tools’. This security also had the potential to help them explore the trades further (for example, through specialisation or management opportunities), explore overseas countries as a tradesperson, or to explore quite different careers. These ‘exploring’ narratives might be unsettling for policy makers and industry leaders who might expect trades shortages to be filled by people in a ‘job for life’. However, it seems to us, such expectations are now outdated, considering 21^st century society’s pace of change and economic development drivers. Here are some comments participants gave in response to our question about what would encourage women to stay:

Decent pay rates and lots of travel opportunities. (Apprentice, female, nontraditional)

Nothing would keep me in joinery unless I was getting paid big bucks – I never did it to become a joiner, just to learn the skills and move on. (Employee, female, nontraditional)

I like the lifestyle, money’s not important. (Ex-trainee, female)

I probably might not be an electrician for the rest of my life. I’m only doing it to travel on OE. (Apprentice, female, nontraditional)

I’ve got [franchise] training that I’ll keep doing – you do the same training all around the world and there are different levels of it. You keep doing that throughout your career… there’s about 50 exams or something… why would I turn it down. It’s good for my career – I can go to another branch with these certificates. (Apprentice, female, nontraditional)

Overall, many of the reasons for young women’s attraction to trades-related work appear to be very similar to those given by men (practical work, good money, earning-while-learning, good humour, career security, career development opportunities, skills for life, alternative to academia, and so on). However, their ‘identity investments’ (Hollway & Jefferson, 2000) do not necessarily fit with old-fashioned notions of what it is to be a tradesperson. Rather than it being the final destination of what they wanted to be, they spoke of their trades skills as being a ‘pathway’ to who they wanted to be, where they wanted to go, and what they wanted to do.

If the experiences of the young people we interviewed are typical, then schools clearly make a difference to the career decision-making process for most young people. The structures and systems they have in place, and the advice they give students, in many cases acts to direct students, especially girls, away from careers in the trades. There is some evidence (but this is not strong, as the study was not set up to do this) that ‘alternative’ school structures can facilitate better decision making by students (or at least that they help students consider a wider range of options). There is also evidence that individual teachers of specialist subjects are often an important influence on students who ‘go against the tide’ of other advice they are given. It appears that where students feel supported by their school (or by individual teachers), they are more likely to be influenced by school factors, and less reliant on external factors (such as family and friends).

As outlined in Chapter 3, young people bring a variety of different views to the career decision-making process. Schools can add to and support these views, or they can discourage and close them down. The experiences of the young people we interviewed point to the need for more and different kinds of information at an earlier stage, and for ongoing ‘personalised’ systems that are designed to co-ordinate, monitor, and take responsibility for supporting young people as they explore the different options.^[25] Recent literature on careers management, as opposed to careers matching, suggests that more emphasis needs to be placed on ‘understanding the ways that certain jobs or pathways give access to the kinds of people they would like to become’ (Vaughan & Roberts, 2007, p. 92) and on seeing careers as a process, not a structure (Wijers & Meijers, 1996).

…young people ‘produce’ careers in that they do not simply enter or follow them. The combinations of training, study and employment they undertake, together with different employment structures and institutional arrangements, can create a variety of unique careers – careers which are dynamic, rather than pre-conceived entities… (Vaughan & Roberts, 2007, p. 91)

Career decision making is clearly a highly complex interaction of ideas and influences that can be very different for different students. While schools are a major source of information, they are also a major site of ‘screening and sorting’ (Gilbert, 2005). Today’s schools are still very much based on the Industrial Age model in which a major function is to sort students into one of two main employment destination channels – the management/professional channel or the worker/vocational/trades channel. These structures are of course no longer appropriate in the post-Industrial Age 21^st century contexts (Bolstad & Gilbert, 2008): however, they continue to have a major influence on young people’s career decision-making processes. When taken together with other outdated (but still common) assumptions about gender roles, these structures work against the goal of increasing the numbers of young people, especially women, heading for trades-related careers. However, as we argue in Chapter 7, the ‘problem’ of gender and career decision making is a highly complex one, one that is unlikely to be solved via interventions that focus simply on either attempting to change people’s assumptions about gender, or changing school structures – without a deep understanding of the context and the reasons why these need to change.