ABSTRACT
Policy conversation in higher education has become increasingly focused on the promise of Career and Technical Education (CTE) to both meet the demands of the labor market and ensure every student has the chance to obtain a high-paying, high-skilled job. Funds of knowledge (FK) are the historically-accumulated skills and cultural resources that students use to navigate their daily lives. Using a FK framework to better understand students' career aspirations revealed several important findings. CTE reform frames education as a means for supporting economic growth and providing high-skilled, high-quality job training opportunities. Students' educational and career aspirations complicate this framing of CTE. The most common theme in the development of students' career aspirations and reasons for pursuing CTE, with more than 80 percent of students indicating these factors, was the desire to use their education and training to help people and make a change in their communities.
