Career Guidance, School Experiences and the University Participation of Young People from Equity Groups
University participation is a strong predictor of labour market success, personal health and wellbeing, and positive familial and social outcomes. However, in contemporary Australia large differences in University participation rates remain between young people from advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds. We leverage longitudinal data for a representative Australian sample of students and state-of-the-art statistical techniques to examine how belonging to an equity-group (coming from a low socio-economic background, non-English-speaking background or a regional/remote area), school factors (career guidance and school experiences), and students’ likelihood to enrol into University are intertwined.
The research yields three key findings. First, young people from low socio-economic backgrounds and from regional/remote areas within Australia are less likely to enrol into University than young people from high socio-economic backgrounds and non-regional/remote areas within Australia. The picture is different for our third equity group of interest: students from non-English-speaking backgrounds are more likely to enrol at University. Second, our two sets of school factors were generally associated with an increasing probability to attend University: students who held positive attitudes towards school, who reported having a positive relationship with their teachers, and who received different forms of career guidance were more likely to enrol at University, and did so at earlier ages. Third, we find some evidence that some school factors have stronger effects on University enrolment amongst students from equity groups. For example, positive student-teacher relations and talks by school career advisors were more conducive to subsequent University enrolment amongst young people from low socio-economic backgrounds, and positive student-teacher relations and career group discussions more strongly predicted subsequent University enrolment amongst young people from regional/remote areas within Australia.
Education-Policy-Brief-Feb2017-FINAL
