School and College Influences on the Formation of Careers

Abstract

This chapter builds on the previous chapter to look more broadly at the role of schools in facilitating access to cultural capital. Schools sometimes fulfilled an important function for my informants in engendering and supporting alternative aspirations, and providing opportunities to acquire cultural capital. However, while all my informants attended state schools and colleges, in more or less the same area, there was considerable variation in how these institutions shaped aspirations and in what resources they could supply. This was not as simple as variation in what is often referred to as ‘the school effect’. Differences between individual schools reflected variations in the social class composition of the student body in each school, and how this affected teachers’ expectations and the school ethos. This chapter analyses how educational structures and cultures contributed to nurturing aspirations, raising expectations, and facilitating the meeting of goals (such as achieving educational qualifications), while at other times putting up barriers. Relationships with teachers and the women’s own responses to opportunities and obstacles presented by schools are discussed.