ABSTRACT
One of the key features of the careership of almost all of the young people in our study cohort is the instability and unpredictability of their education and work transitions (see Chapter 2). The accounts presented in the other chapters demonstrate various false-starts, detours and hiatuses. At first sight the significant exception to this was those students following, or expecting (and expected) to follow, the path from GCSEs to A-levels to university to a professional career. Such young people often had this pathway well established in advance of the key 'choice' point at 16 and most gave little or no consideration to other possibilities. In one sense these young people had a wide range of choices available to them at 16 by virtue of their relatively successful educational experiences and attainments up to that point. However, in practice they had little choice in that they and/or their families assumed/expected/hoped that a university degree would provide them with the social advantages and insurance of a later point of entry into the professional labour market. Nonetheless, as we shall see, not all of these apparently settled and predictable trajectories turn out to be that way in practice (witness Anne in Chapter 5). Furthermore, these young people, these A-levellers', were not of a piece. The numbers of students taking A-levels has expanded markedly over the past ten years. As one would expect, many young people who now take A-levels are the first, or part of the first, generation in their family to do so. We found significant differences between what might be called 'traditional' and 'new' A-levellers (see Chapter 7 — Luke and Jordan). (GNVQ qualifications now offer another but distinct route into higher education.) The A-level experience is also very different in different places - small or large sixth forms, crammers, FE or tertiary colleges. The A-level route has been and to a great extent remains strongly 'classed' and certainly social class participation rates in higher education have changed only marginally despite the increase in overall age participation rates in the past 20 years. Indeed, the participation rate of children of the professional middle class increased from 73 per cent in 1993/4 to 80 per cent in 1997/8, the intermediate middle class from 42 per cent to 49 per cent, the skilled non-manual group from 29 to 32, skilled manual from 17 to 19, partly-skilled from 16 to 18, and unskilled, working-class from 11 to 14 (from Table 3.13, Social Trends 29, HMSO, 1999). Over this period the class differentials have actually increased.
