The concept of aspiration is central to current policy debates about educational and social inequality in the UK. Aspiration, or rather ‘poverty of aspiration’, is often cited as a significant problem and is commonly deployed as an explanation for the low educational performance of disadvantaged students and the educational choices they make. A wide range of policy documents relating to child poverty and social mobility repeatedly make reference to the deleterious effects of low aspirations. For social scientists interested in educational inequality and youth transitions, aspirations are important because they may matter for the sorts of educational choices students make, how much they invest in schooling, and therefore patterns of educational and social inequality.

This paper will report on part of a mixed methods study of young people’s aspirations in England. A goal of the project was to develop a better understand how young peoples’ aspirations were formed. Thus, a key research question was: What are they key processes and factors that shape young peoples’ educational aspirations? The focus of this paper will be discussing data gathered from 29 semi-structured interviews with young people age 16-18. The interviews focused on how they approached decisions regarding the future. A concern here was to develop a better theoretical account of how we should understand aspirations and also better understand the meaning that students attached to them

The paper will be focused on a particularly striking theme that emerged from the data. I will argue that the expression of high aspirations by students created social distance between themselves and other young people; thus, their talk about ambitious educational and occupational goals was a way of managing peer social hierarchies. In emphasising that they valued education, and held high aspirations, students distanced themselves from their less academically focused peers who were positioned as morally inferior. This was often done by emphasising the importance of personal characteristics such as hard work, and contrasting this with how negative characteristics, such as laziness, led to educational, social, and economic ‘failure’. I will further argue that the use of moral language and judgements with regard to their aspirations was part of how they created distinct boundaries between themselves and those they perceived as being below them in the social structure. A novel feature of my analysis in this chapter, therefore, is that I take aspirations to be a cultural tool that students used to define the boundaries of group membership. In making this argument, I draw from recent work from cultural sociology, the sociology of education, and the U.S urban poverty literature.

Although focused on aspirations and England, this project speaks to much broader issues about educational inequality in the UK, Europe and beyond, during turbulent economic times, when young people are faced with numerous challenges in transitioning into the labour market and seemingly reduced opportunities for social mobility. I will draw out some of these comparative themes.

Frye, M. (2012). Bright futures in Malawi’s new dawn: Educational aspirations as assertions of identity. American Journal of Sociology, 117(6), pp. 1565-1624. Lamont, M. (2000). The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Immigration. New York: Russell Sage Foundation Lareau, A. (2011). Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race and Family Life. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Macloed, J. (2009). Ain’t No Makin’ It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low-Income Neighbourhood (3rd). Boulder: Westview Press. Reay, D., David, M. and Ball, S. (2005). Degrees of Choice: Social Class, Race and Gender in Higher Education. London: Trentham Books. Sanchez-Jankowski, M. (2008). Cracks in the Pavement: Social Change and Resilience in Poor Neighbourhoods. Berkeley: University of California Press. Strand, S. and Winston, J. (2008). Educational aspirations in inner city schools. Educational Studies, 34(4), pp. 249-267. St Clair, R. and Benjamin, A. (2011). Performing desires: the dilemma of aspirations and educational attainment. British Educational Research Journal, 37(3), pp. 501–517. Vaisey, S. (2010). What people want: Rethinking poverty, culture and educational attainment. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 629(1), pp. 101-75. Young, Jr., A.A. (2004). The Minds of Marginalized Black Men: Making Sense of Mobility, Opportunity, and Future Life Chances. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.