The Effects of Cultural Capital in the Education System and the Follow on Effect: Less Representation of Lower Socio- Economic Students

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The statistics from the Australian Department of Education, Undergraduate Applications, Offers and Acceptances 2014 report shows how the patterns just keep repeating themselves. As expected the lower SES students do not fare well; Applicants from low SES backgrounds are less likely to receive an offer compared with high SES applicants. Their offer rate was 80.0% compared with 83.5% for high SES applicants in 2013. Low SES applicants who received an offer were slightly less likely to accept their offer, compared with other SES groups. Lower SES applicants recorded a lower acceptance rate (69.9%) compared with high SES applicants (70.5%). In addition to being less likely to apply for university entry, persons from low SES backgrounds who apply to university are slightly less likely to receive an offer. High SES applicants had the highest offer rate of 80.2%. Lower SES applicants were less successful with 76.2%. The pattern of under-representation of low SES persons in applications and offers data translates into lower participation at university. In 2010, low SES students constituted 16.5% of domestic undergraduate students. While low SES share of enrolments is slightly lower than their share of applications (18.6%), it is the lower propensity to apply for university, and not lower offer rates, which appears to be the bigger contributing factor to the low enrolment of low SES persons at university. These statistics are not surprising when you look at the data collected from the Study of Higher Education and the Youth Research Centre of the University of Melbourne.

The database comprises information on the attitudes and views towards life, school, and post-secondary education of over 7000 young Australians in Years 10, 11, and 12. Higher socioeconomic background students demonstrated stronger confidence in securing a path to university study (nearly 70 per cent of them thought they would do so) than medium or lower socioeconomic background students (50 per cent and contents 42 per cent respectively). Sixteen per cent of students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds reported they hoped to go to university but believed they would not be able to do so. (James 2002, p. ix).

It is important to look at the subjects lower SES students apply for as this demonstrates the continuing effects of their cultural capital on future employment. In comparison with high SES applicants, low SES applicants are more likely to apply for courses in Education and Nursing and are less likely to apply for Medical Studies, Management and Commerce, Society and Culture and Creative Arts courses than high SES applicants. In 2011, 1,360 students from lower SES applied for Medical Studies compared to 5,523 from higher SES. However 5,825 lower SES students applied for Nursing compared to 3,929 from higher SES.This trends continues with 5,962 lower SES students applying for Management and Commerce compared to 12,254 from higher SES students.

In conclusion, cultural capital seems to have an effect on lower SES student’s education, to what degree is an unknown quantity. All the studies done and statistics provided would lead you to the conclusion lower SES students are kept in their place in society by the educational system in Australia. It would seem there are two choices reshape the educational system or reshape the minds of lower SES students. Both would be a difficult task, reshaping the minds of lower SES students would mean dealing with deep-seated habits that have been developed over the course of a life time. Reshaping the education system would mean reshaping the minds of those that develop the education system, people from higher SES backgrounds. Interesting quandary.

References

Classes and classifications 1979, France Subject Archive, Philosophy Archive@marxists.org, viewed 21 January 2015, http://www. marxists.org/reference/subject/.../bourdieu-forms-capital.

Bradley et al. 2009, ‘Higher Education Report’, p. xiv

Tranter, D 2005, ‘Why university? A case of socio-cultural reproduction in disadvantaged secondary schools’, Hawke Research Institute Postgraduate Working paper Series, no. 1, p. 3, viewed 10 January 2015, http://www.hawkecentre.unisa.edu.au/institute/

James, R 2014,‘Socioeconomic Background and Higher Education Participation: An analysis of school students’ aspirations and expectations’, Commonwealth Department of education Science & Training, Google, 15 January 2015,

htt://www.scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=socioeconomic+background+and+higher+education+participation p. ix.

Australia Government Department of Education and Training Report On Government Services 2013, ‘Higher Education Report 2008’, Australia Government Department of Education, viewed 18 January 2014, http://docs.education.gov.au.

Hillman, K 2010, ‘Attitudes, Intentions and Participation in Education: Year 12 and Beyond’, Australian Council for Educational Research ACEReSearch,

p. 1, viewed 10 January 2015, http://research.acer.edu.au/lsay_briefs

Australia Government Department of Education and Training, 2014, 16 January 2015, ‘Undergraduate Applications, Offers and Acceptances, viewed 15 January 2015.

https://www.education.gov.au/undergraduate-applications-offers-and-acceptances-publications

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