1. Moving beyond taste: desire and capability
for higher education aspirations
Stephen Parker
Trevor Gale
Jessica Bok
Deakin University
Australia

2. The context of aspiration
192
10,066
3,666 5,060 1,339
14,721
12,835
6,024
19,853
0
50,000
100,000
150,000
200,000
250,000
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Number of commencing domestic bachelor
students, Australia, 2003-2012
Increase on previous year
Source: DIICCSRTE Selected Higher Education Statistics, 2004-2013.
• by 2020, 20% of all
undergraduate students
in higher education will
come from low
socioeconomic status
(SES) backgrounds;
• by 2025, 40% of all 25-
34 year olds will hold a
Bachelor’s degree
• 25,000 new students
needed each year
• Deficit based discourse of
“Raising aspirations”

3. Aspirations for higher education
When you are the same age as your parents, would you like to have a
university degree?
Strongly Agree or Agree – 67% (Central Queensalnd)
Strongly Agree or Agree – 70% (north Geelong, Victoria)
“Approximately 70% (n=2,169) of respondents aspire to attend university and
about 85% aspire to some form of tertiary education (university and TAFE). Only
8.2% opt explicitly for an apprenticeship. Given the low socio-economic status and
culturally diverse nature of the western region, this is an important finding in
itself.” (Bowden & Doughney 2010: 118)

4. Our aspirations are formed
within constraints
“‘That isn’t for the likes of us’, that is, we are not the people for whom this object or
this activity exists as an objective possibility; as a result, this object or this activity
would only exist for us as a ‘reasonable’ possibility if we were different, if we were
placed in different conditions of existence … But to say ‘that isn't for the likes of us’
is to say something more than ‘it’s too expensive’ (for us) [limited resources]: the
expression of internalized necessity, this formula is, so to speak, in the indicative-
imperative (or ‘is-ought’) mode because it simultaneously expresses an impossibility
and an interdiction [tacit rules].”
(Bourdieu et al. 1990: 16-17)
“aspirations … are determined, in both form and content, by objective conditions
which exclude the possibility of desiring the impossible”. (Bourdieu et al. 1990: 15-
16)

5. University
degree
Male Female All
Like to have 60.0% 71.1% 67.1%
Will have 46.8% 67.2% 59.7%
Desire and possibility
In the future, when you are the same age as your parents or guardians are
now, what would you LIKE TO have or own? What WILL you have or own?
For some students, particularly males, their desire to go to
university is tempered by what they think is possible

6. Other accounts of aspiration
• “The capacity to imagine futures” (Sellar &
Gale 2011: 122)
• As a capability (Sen, Nussbaum, Hart)
– “Practical reason. Being able to form a conception
of the good and to engage in critical reflection
about the planning of one’s life.” (Nussbaum
2011: 34)
• As navigational capacity: “formed in
interaction and in the thick of social life”; as a
“navigational capacity” (Appadurai 2004: 67)

7. Aspiration as navigational capacity
Appadurai 2004, The Capacity to Aspire
• Planning and working towards future goals is a
form of ‘navigation’ with a ‘map’
• Requires knowledge of both a destination and
intermediate stops (or nodes) along the way
• Relies on resources – economic, social and
cultural – including knowledge and previous
experiences of successful navigation (“archives of
experience”)
• Differentiated access to resources leads to
varying capacities to “navigate futures” (Sellar &
Gale 2011)

8. ‘... the map of aspirations ...
Is a dense combination of
nodes and pathways’
experiencenearexperiencedistant
Different capacities to aspire
‘smaller number of
aspirational nodes’
‘thinner, weaker
sense of pathways
from concrete wants
to intermediate
contexts to general
norms and back
again’
The disadvantaged have a…
disadvantaged advantaged
(Appadurai 2004: 69; Gale 2010)

9. Tour knowledge – knowledge of things as they happen
‘Tourists’ are subject to the limitations of the ‘tour guide’
Map knowledge – knowledge of things before they happen
Not just knowledge of the map but they are the
cartographers themselves
Those from advantaged backgrounds tend to have map
knowledge
Those from disadvantaged backgrounds tend to have tour
knowledge
Map and tour knowledge
de Certeau 1984

10. The Australian Survey of
Student Aspirations
• Questions informed by six theoretical
concepts from the literature:
– social imaginary (Taylor 2004); taste (Bourdieu);
desire (Butler); possibility (Bourdieu); resources
(Appadurai); and sociocultural navigation
(Appadurai, de Certeau)
• 258 students enrolled in 14 schools in Central
Queensland
• Mostly Years 9-11
• Navigational capacity emerged as a key theme

11. Central Queensland

12. University preferences
Male Female Total
I don’t know 24 55 79
Central Queensland University 26 13 39
James Cook University 5 18 23
University of the Sunshine Coast 4 10 14
University of Queensland 0 11 11
Griffith University 2 7 9
Queensland University of Technology 3 4 7
University of New South Wales (2 ADFA, 1
NIDA)
0 3 3
A NZ University 0 2 2
University of the Southern Queensland 1 0 1
University of New England 0 1 1
University of Wollongong 1 0 1
Total 76 130 190

13. Some students aspire to go to universities
that do not lead to their career aspirations
• 9% of students aspired to be either a Veterinarian,
Veterinary Nurse, or related position
• Universities such as CQ University, QUT and USC were
all incorrectly identified in student responses as
offering Veterinary Science degrees
• Only a few students correctly selected the UQ and JCU
as institutions offering the vet science
• “i would need to do the course for vet nurse in
brisbane”

14. Occupation preference
requires university
Perceived need to go
to university to obtain
occupation
% %
Male 23.3% 70.9%
Female 79.6% 74.3%
Total 58.2% 73.0%
Inflated view of the education required to qualify
for their desired career
1. Medical doctor
2. Lawyer
3. TAFE Teacher
4. Social worker
5. IT support technician
6. Dental technician
7. Aircraft maintenance engineer
8. Data processing operator
9. Storeperson
10. Cleaner

15. Agree or Strongly Agree
Number %
Get good results at school 219 93.9
Study hard 218 93.1
Choose the right subjects at
school
215 91.9
Finish secondary school 207 88.5
Go to university 168 73.0
Move to another city 109 48.4
Go to TAFE 100 46.9
If you were to get to do your first [job] preference, what things between now
and then would you need to do?
58% selected a job that requires university
73% anticipated going to university
Only 33% of students attend a school within 50 km
of a university campus
Relocation to attend higher education

16. * % does not total 100 as students gave more than one source of information
All*
(n=213)
Male
(81)
Female
(132)
University/TAFE 22.4% 21.0% 26.5%
Parents/family 46.9% 46.9% 47.0%
Teachers/school 40.4% 30.9% 46.2%
Friends 14.1% 13.6% 14.4%
Internet 31.9% 22.4% 34.8%
Other 15.0% 16.0% 14.4%
Resourcing university aspirations:
information
Parents with a university degree:
Mothers 12.9%
Fathers 5.0%

17. Implications and conclusions
• Navigational capacities can be resourced
• There are interim steps / navigational nodes
between where students are currently located
and their aspirations
• There are multiple pathways to reach desired
ends
• Students should be provided with reliable
information about post-school pathways, and
should be made explicit rather than assumed
to be self-evident

18. Contact: stephen.parker@deakin.edu.au
Gale, T., Parker, S., Rodd, P., Stratton, G.
& Sealey, T. with T. Moore (2013).
Student Aspirations for Higher Education
in Central Queensland: A survey of school
students’ navigational capacities. Report
submitted to CQ University, Australia.
Centre for Research in Education Futures
and Innovation (CREFI), Deakin
University, Melbourne, Australia.
http://www.deakin.edu.au/arts-
ed/efi/pubs/Student%20Aspirations%20for%20Hig
her%20Education%20in%20Central%20Queesnland
.pdf