School of Education

Wednesday 21st September 2022, 16:00-17:00

Room 432, St Andrew's Building, 11 Eldon Street, Glasgow G3 6NH

 

Impact of expectations of parental engagement in career development

This talk explores a project which investigated the structure of the education system and transitions from secondary to tertiary education. The project took as the central case the support for care experienced young people to examine the roles of key players in career transitions and advancement, including teachers and schools, careers counselling, university and other tertiary sector marketing personnel. It unpacks equity and diversity issues and support available to students from disadvantaged and marginalised backgrounds and will be published in a forthcoming 2023 book by Palgrave Macmillian Education and Career Disruptors - Parenting and Obligations of the State. 

This presentation draws on a critical element in the research which examines the expectations of parental capability to support children in their career development journey to tertiary education. The capability of families is interrogated and the growth of the state’s need for parental involvement as higher education has massified is considered. This work looks from a position that assumptions exclude many individuals, including young people estranged from their parents or those who are care experienced which means institutional and jurisdictional assumptions intensify disadvantage where there are many examples of parents providing substantive support to their children beyond these ages.

About the speaker

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Knight is a research fellow at the Centre for International Research on Education Systems, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University. Her research areas include provision of career information, higher vocational education, transitions to tertiary education and the nature of graduate employment and employability. A key area of interest is equity of access to and in tertiary education, the provision of institutional information and support for transition into post-school education. Prior to joining CIRES, Lizzie was a research fellow at Monash University. Her role included project managing an Australian Research Council Discovery Project: ‘Vocational institutions, undergraduate degrees: distinction and inequality’ from 2017 to 2020, researching the growth of higher education in TAFE institutes. Lizzie has also been a professional careers counsellor for 10 years. She worked for the Ministerial Company Education Services Australia (ESA) as the subject matter expert on the myfuture website between 2015 and 2020, and has trained careers counsellors and teachers in every state and territory in Australia. She acts as the research advisor for the Career Industry Council of Australia and sits on the executive of the Australian Vocational Education Research Association.

 

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First published: 31 August 2022