Forming Aspirations: Interplays of Capital, Social Inequalities, and Family Habitus in the Development of Children’s Science Aspirations

• In Event: Science Education, Capital, and Power

Abstract

Objectives/ purposes:
Families can play an important role in shaping students’ engagement and achievement in science (e.g. Aschbacher, Li & Roth, 2009; Gilmartin et al., 2006), although the nature of this relationship is complex (Atherton et al., 2009). This paper explores how families can shape children’s propensity to develop science-related aspirations, focusing on the 10-14 age period (when children’s science aspirations are largely formed, Tai et al 2006; Lindhal, 2007). The paper analyses how family ‘habitus’ (a family’s everyday practices and sense of ‘who we are’) and ‘capital’ (the generic and science-related resources that families have at their disposal) can interact to influence the extent to which children come to see science as an (im)possible and/or (un)desirable future career path.

Perspectives/ theoretical framework:
A Bourdieuian theoretical framework (e.g. Bourdieu 1977, 1984, 2001), notably Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and capital , is applied to the data and used to understand classed and racialised patterns in children’s and their parents’ articulation of science-related aspirations. The paper develops a theorisation of ‘family habitus’ for understanding the socially embedded nature of the development of children’s aspirations.

Methods:
The paper draws on survey data and semi-structured interview data from the first phase of an ongoing, longitudinal five year UK study that explores the development of children’s science attitudes and aspirations from the ages of 10-14. Data were collected from over 9,000 elementary school children in England (age 10/11) through an online survey in Fall 2009 and via 160 semi-structured interviews conducted in Spring 2010 with 92 children (aged 10/11, drawn from 11 schools in England) and 78 parents.

Results:
Analysis shows that parental attitudes to science play an important role in shaping children’s science aspirations, with positive parental attitudes associated with stronger aspirations in science. However, the nature and form of habitus and capital within families are strongly shaped by relations of power, producing classed and racialised patterns in children’s science aspirations. We discuss how social inequalities in the distribution of capital and differentially classed family habitus can make science aspirations more ‘thinkable’ for ‘middle-class’ (socially advantaged) children compared to those from less advantaged backgrounds (e.g. working-class, African-Caribbean). For instance, we discuss how class privilege can compensate for a lack of science-specific capital. We also highlight intersections with ethnic/ cultural discourses (e.g. among some South Asian families), which further promoted and supported children’s science aspirations.

While attention is drawn to the non-deterministic nature of family habitus (with examples of children exercising agency and ‘going against the grain’ of family expectations), we also discuss how the classed, racialised (and gendered) contexts within which children and families are located provide important constraints on the realisation of this agency.

Significance of the study:
ASPIRES is the first major UK study of its kind. The paper develops a novel theorisation of ‘family habitus’ and illuminates the disconnect between children’s general enjoyment of science age 10/11 and their emergent aspirations (very few aspire to science careers), highlighting how social inequalities contribute to facilitating or constraining children’s potential science aspirations.

Authors

• Louise Archer, Kings College, London

• Jennifer DeWitt, Kings College, London