Education policy in the United Kingdom – and more widely, at a European level - has been increasingly dominated by a discourse emphasizing individual aspirations, choice and responsibility. The underlying assumption seems to be that a lack of aspirations is at the root of educational underperformance (Gorard 2010; Levin 2010). However, academic research has been persistently demonstrating that the majority of young people have high aspirations (Sinclair, Kendrick and Scott 2010), regardless of their socio-economic background (St Clair and Benjamin 2011).

With education policy emphasizing the individual level,  structural obstacles to academic attainment - such as the financial limitations of young people from low-income families; lack of adequate learning provision, information and guidance services, and employment opportunities later on - are being overlooked (Biggart 2007, Hayward and Williams 2011). In this discourse, young people are expected to become ‘intelligent customers’ in the education market, capable of making financially sound informed choices regarding their educational and occupational aspirations and strategies.

Youth researchers however draw attention to growing inequalities and diminishing social mobility in today’s British society (Schoon et al. 2004; Thompson, Henderson and Holland 2003). Instead of being a vehicle of social mobility – as portrayed in policy discourse - the education system seems to reinforce and reproduce social class differences (Reay 2006). In spite of this, young people tend to interpret social inequalities in individualised terms of personal failure (Furlong and Cartmel 1997), aligning with the official discourse on personal choice and responsibility. As Roberts pointed out (2009), working-class young people in fact are more ambitious than their more advantaged counterparts, taking into account their economically, socially and culturally disadvantaged position. From this starting point, fulfilling higher aspirations requires higher and riskier investment, as their ‘choices’ are bounded by structural inequalities (Ball et al. 1996; Reay 2001). Analysing critical moments in young people’s transition to adulthood, Thompson and colleagues (2002) reach the conclusion that “a ‘can do’ approach to life” is not enough to overcome structural constraints.

In this paper, I will draw on a longitudinal qualitative research exploring the educational and occupational aspirations of young people from London, identified as being at risk of educational underachievement. In addition, I will also investigate the specific strategies they employ to negotiate risk and opportunity in their transition from compulsory education.

The findings are based on the accounts of 15 young people, all of whom were interviewed twice over a two year period (November 2014 – October 2016). Eight of them were identified as being at risk of educational underachievement while still in education. The study also included three apprentices and four young people who were NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) at the time of the first interview. Participants came from various ethnic and migration background. They were aged between 16 and 21 at the time of the first interview – the age of leaving compulsory education (which shifted during the lifetime of this research project) and making the first move into higher or further education, employment, or something else. In order to analyse the data, I will draw on the concepts of structure and agency; habitus and field, different types of capital, illusio and social gravity developed by Bourdieu (Bourdieu 1986; France and Threadgold 2015). 

The questions addressed in this paper include:

• What criteria do young people take into account while developing their educational and occupational aspirations?
• What type of resources (informational, financial, emotional) do young people need in order to develop effective educational strategies and successfully implement their ‘aspirations’?
• What role do ‘aspirations’ play in the school-to-work transition process?

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