Making Modern Lives: schools, values, inequalities and social change

1. Making Modern Lives:schools, values, inequalities and social change Lyn Yates University of Melbourne

2. Do you think the school you’re at makes much difference to where you end up in life or what kind of person you become? “Well it does. I think so. Because different schools attract different sorts of people, and they also I think help mould you into sort of beliefs and that sort of thing.” (male, year 12 student, 1999)

3. Research and evidence “... people always ask you what you want to be when you grow up, and I just have no idea...” “...sometimes you say it because you don’t really want to go into it…” [extracts from 12 to 18 Project interviews, 1994 and 1995]

4. The 12 to 18 Project 1993-2001:a qualitative longitudinal study of young people and secondary schoolingLyn Yates (University of Melbourne) and Julie McLeod (Deakin University)funded by the Australian Research Council

5. Focus of the project: • Revisiting inequalities: • school effects on individuals over time • Gender and identity-making

6. a qualitative longitudinal study of students through each year of secondary school • twice-yearly interviews 1993 to 2000 • four schools (all co-educational): • one metropolitan high school • one metropolitan large private school • one provincial 'academic' high school • one provincial secondary college (ex-tech) • students from different backgrounds at the same school; and from similar backgrounds at different schools

7. In a study that followed students from different backgrounds in different types of schools, what came out in common across the four schools?

8. What do you think this school thinks is important? “probably our appearance and what the public thinks” “the right uniform and that” “uniform” “wearing the uniform” “uniform” “setting a good example after school if you are wearing your school uniform”

9. Findings common across schools • Schools emphasize school reputation (more than morality and in year 7 more than learning) • Individual teachers matter • Mathematics huge symbolic effect as measure of academic achievement • Year 7 decline in physical lunchtime activities • Year 8-10 ‘turning off’ • Choice of specific career directions little influenced by school practices.

10. What difference do particular schools make?

11. SCHOOL 1: What I'm going to do, I'm going to go through Year 10, to Year 10, and then and then do Year 12. If I fail that, I'm just going to quit altogether. I might have another go. I don't know. This is what I'm going to do. Girl in year 8, regional tech.

12. SCHOOL 2: It’s like introducing you to other sports so, in case you want to learn them later, or you go to a place where a lot of people play it and you want to join in. year 7 boy, private school.

13. SCHOOL 2: “I can’t see where they’re getting this diversity thing from, because you’ve got to play all this sport; you’ve got to get up on Saturday and play your sport and you don’t really have that much time to open up to anything else… but you know, it’s a nice thing to put in the brochure… I don’t think it’s really that genuine when it comes down to it.” ex-private school female at 18

14. SCHOOL 2: With unemployment in Australia, what do you think are the causes of it? “Um, I don’t know. I something think it’s just because people are really slack and because they have top qualifications they’re not even going to try. But I mean all my friends at school, we’ll just walk into a place and say, “oh excuse me, do you have any work,” and you know about three out of five times they’ll get a job, and that’s how I got my job. female, private school, year 10.

15. SCHOOL 3: “Yeah, they have a higher VCE, but they don't have like a too good a reputation. 'Cos all fights and stuff break out over there, and it's a dirty school. That's what a lot of people say and that. So I think we have a better reputation than a lot of other schools.” (year 7 girl, regional high school with good reputation,1994)

16. SCHOOL 3: Do you think much about the future? Yeah, the future’s… you’ve got to have, got to have a goal… because otherwise you just, you’re going to university and you think, oh what’s the point you know, so you’ve got to be focused on the end. male from Regional High in first post-school year

17. SCHOOL 4: Do you think much about the future? M: “Um, I try not to…” What would you really like to happen for you in the future? M: Um, I’d like to find out what it is that I want to do and go on and do it. I’d like to travel. Yeah, I just want to land on my feet, sort myself out… female, 18, dropped out of uni course in first month

18. SCHOOL 4 cohort in 7th year of project • one left school in year 10 to take up an apprenticeship, but has dropped out before completing this • one had hoped to get into a university course in an information technology area, but got a disappointing VCE result, and is doing a TAFE one-year course in a similar area • two are still at school because they dropped some of their studies last year (in one case, there were medical problems involved) • one took up an overseas exchange in year 11, and has not, as he had originally planned, returned to finish his schooling (though he has returned) • three began university courses, and of these • one had dropped out by May when we did the interview, • one was considering dropping out, • the other was continuing and had found a subject area she enjoyed (Women’s Studies).

19. Gender, self, the future: What has changed? What hasn’t? Is gender an issue for individuals? Is gender an issue for schools?

20. Do you think much about the future? Belinda: Yeah. How famous I'd be. Sally: About getting a job. Steve: Sport. Sally: Marriage, having kids. Int: What do you think about Steve? Steve: Oh, I just think about playing footy or basketball, which one I'll choose. Oh, I don't know… if you are still friends with your friends now. Int: What about you Sally? Sally: Yep, oh yeah, sometimes I think about getting married and having children. Whether we would have enough money, and getting a job. Getting a job mainly, probably. Belinda: Yeah, it is mainly jobs, because I've never thought about marriage. interview in year 7, regional high

21. Equal opportunity language is now seen as the norm – but there is also an assumption that different things are ‘normal’ for girls and boys.

22. “Boys are just normal” (i) Is body image important for to you? No, if they say something to you, you just don't listen, just ignore them. Is it different for girls? Yeah, they have to like... if they’re fat or something they have to go on a diet, whereas males wouldn’t really care. They don't really care how they look. Like if they were really fat or something, they’d have to try and go on a diet or something or exercise, but most males are just normal. year 8 boys

23. “boys are just normal” (ii) Andrew: Well, most of the boys sort of piss, stuff around. Yeah, they stuff around and they don't do a real lot in class and that. Jeremy: Basically, they have more fun or try and have you know, mess around and play up to see what they can get away with. Stuff like that. The girls more or less just get straight down to work and stuff like that and work hard. Not to say that boys don't work hard that is. Do you think it is something schools should do something about? Andrew: Um, well, there’s not a real lot you can do about it, um, because if you send them out then they are only going to get further behind. If they stuff around and you just send out, they are only going to get further behind and teachers don't really have a say about what you do in your spare time, whether you do your homework or not, so... What’s your opinion on this? Derek: I think that boys and girls have got the same chances to do well in VCE, but as Andrew said, they, boys, tend to stuff around a bit more. But you can’t stop that. Boys will be boys. So there’s not a lot you can really do, it’s their choice. [year 10 boys, regional school]

24. Some themes for boys: • Friendships and relationships mattered – both in present and in future • Some inclination to turn away from an activity if girls are doing well • Bullying was an issue at all schools • Present-focused and uncertainty about the future, about where life was going • For working class boys, the impact on school attachment of concerns about being a man

25. “You go to work, they treat you like an adult; at TAFE they treat you like and adult, but here (school) they just treat you like a kid really, a little kid.” year 12 male, regional school.

26. Being a (female) good student: “I’ve had the same teacher twice in a row, and I’m finding him really hard to understand… he’s the sort of person who could get a little bit offended if I went and asked for help” year 9 female, private school

27. Some themes for girls: • School friendships with other girls intensely important and one source of disengagement from school • Different patterns of relationship with mothers of middle-class and working-class • Sense of possibility about the future • Pressures for middle class girls of ‘impossible expectations’ • Self-reflexivity a source of both opportunity and pressure

28. VELS 2006 All students need to develop the capacities to: • Manage themselves as individuals and in relation to others • Understand the world in which they live • Act effectively in that world. Students will need to create a future which is • Sustainable • Innovative • Builds strong communities

29. Schooling is the social institution that we subject all young lives to, and all those lives matter.