Colley et al. (2003: 471) reiterate the centrality of habitus to the engagement with vocational training, the need to ‘orient to a particular set of dispositions
– both idealised and realised’. Colley et al. (ibid.) also highlight that vocational habitus ‘may reproduce social inequalities at the same time’. The identification by the mothers of vocational training and less ‘academic’ courses as inferior to a university course in a pre-1992 or ‘red brick’ institution was a repetitive thread during my interviews. For the two daughters who have not been to university, their mothers support their decisions to enter the workplace, yet for Kathy (mother) there is an attempt to justify Katherine’s decision:
‘There is an influence on the negative publicity that comes through the press on the value of a university education, y’know, if you’re not going to one of the top universities from the Russell Group or y’know, if you don’t get a good degree it’s going to be worthless anyway’ [Kathy, mother]
Leathwood and O’Connell (2010: 612) discuss the perception of ‘the denigration of the ‘new’ students and their studies’. They cite an article from The Guardian newspaper by historian David Starkey and examine how the public continues to differentiate post-1992 and Russell Group universities, shaped by media perception:
The problem is, that, following the idiocies of the Dearing Report, we pretend that all universities and all degrees are the same. We have got ourselves into a situation where we’re pretending that a degree from the London Metropolitan University is the same quality as a degree from Cambridge. It’s not. There are Mickey Mouse students for whom Mickey Mouse degrees are quite appropriate.
It is articles like Starkey’s that compound the public view that post-1992s are inferior to traditional or elite institutions. The neoliberal marketing of universities uses such branding to argue the misrecognition of the quality academic output (James, 1998). All universities have to meet local and global measurable outputs and reach standardised performance measures (Naidoo, 2003; Olssen and Peters, 2005), dismissed under Starkey’s argument for a
return to a binary system. Taylor (2011) recognises that elite institutions are in the unique position of being able to claim to be both exclusive and diverse.
Comments from two of the mothers implied that the expansion of higher education institutions has diluted the importance of a university degree. Helen’s opinions around the return of vocational learning are not dissimilar to Starkey’s:
‘I also think now that you’ve got so many people that are waving around a piece of paper saying ‘I’ve got a degree’ that some of them aren’t even worth the paper they’re written on, so I think by doing the tuition fees is probably going to stop those people going out and getting Mickey Mouse degrees and getting themselves into so much debt over three years. You know, some of the people would be better off going and doing apprenticeships and getting out into the workplace’. [Helen, mother].
Ball (2003: 107) and Brooks (2004) explore how the middle classes continue to enact roles as ‘status maintainers’ of educational advantage. Helen’s daughter, Helena did not specifically discuss the merits or otherwise of red- brick and post 1992 institutions, but she did offer her boyfriend’s view on the effect of tuition fees on certain groups of students and reiterated his view of symbolic domination over the working classes (Bourdieu, 1999): ‘He thinks that the higher tuition fees is good because it will deter the chavs and only the bright people will get in’. [Helena, daughter]
Another mother, Jenny, also expressed her feelings about the effect of increasing university attendance:
‘I think it’s wrong what the government are doing, encouraging everyone to go to university, I think it’s wrong. I think there’s a hell of a lot of rubbish courses out there. They come out, they can’t find work, but they expect to start at a certain level and I think they’ve made a big
mistake. They should be and they’re trying to do it now, promote apprenticeships’. [Jenny, mother]
Both Helen and Jenny made direct reference to the weakening of a degree based on the difference between post-1992 universities and elite institutions, citing some as ‘Mickey Mouse’ and ‘rubbish’. They both also highlighted the importance of vocational work and their understanding that university is, in their opinion, not for all:
‘I mean, going off to university be a plumber or whatever, it just seems a bit silly. You know, hands-on experience is far better. Three years getting your hands dirty would be better than three years writing it in a book’. [Helen, mother]
Despite their contestations of the dilution of the degree, neither Helen nor Jenny went to university, both going straight into employment following their A-levels to ‘get their hands dirty’. In both families, their husbands and all of their children have been independently educated. Helen and Jenny’s opinions reflect the notion of the position of the capital that they now possess and the habitus in which they currently exist. They both support the worth of higher education, but both suggest a ‘dumbing down’ of some subject areas to ‘Mickey Mouse’ levels. Helen and Jenny’s viewpoints reflect the symbolic domination that they exert in relation to their children acquiring higher education through their economic and social capital (Bourdieu, 1999), although neither undertook higher education themselves. It further highlights the transformation of their daughters’ opportunities (Reay, 1998b) and the different habitus in which the mothers were raised.
A key point that emerged from the mothers’ stories collectively is that vocational options were much more widely accepted as good choices for the mothers during their youth and in the main, there was no ‘expectation’ of having to go to university. Steph undertook her National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) in silver service waitressing and Kathy completed her Higher National Diploma (HND) in hotel catering and management. Tara and
Elle qualified through the National Nursery Examination Board (NNEB), although both subsequently went on to study for further qualifications at university as mature students.
Sue, a Mathematics teacher, has noticed a change in choices her A-level students are making in the academic year 2012, leading up the tuition fee increase:
‘You have some students that do come from more hard-up families and a few of them have decided to start training as an accountant with day release, in other words, not going to university but still getting a degree or some kind of accountancy qualification and I can see that happening more and more […] I think people will be looking at apprenticeships and getting, like the accountancy, getting a job and getting day release. I think they will be looking at alternatives, definitely’. [Sue, mother] Her daughter, Suzanne, who attended the same school that her mother Sue teaches at, also made a comment regarding vocational training. Sophie highlights here Sayer’s (2012: 163) ‘unequal recognition’ in the vocational- educational debate.
‘I think that it’s gone too far in this country, like the whole equal opportunities for everyone. I think it was better when there was more variety, like, if you want to go into a job it is possible, people don’t look down at you, like it’s gone too far these days’. [Suzanne, daughter] Vicky (mother) remembers the generational change in the options beyond school other than university:
‘When I was a young girl people went to college, with less going to university and I think they’ll only get those people that can really, really afford university to go there’. [Vicky, mother]
Many of the daughters picked up on their mothers’ lack of opportunities to go to university and the choices that they have subsequently received. Debbie (mother) had a traumatic childhood that included school bullying and her parent’s divorce, but she met and married her husband aged 17. They started a family straight away, which along with her broken education meant that university was not an option when she was 18. Roberts and Evans (2012) describe how the choice to have children at a young age and forego higher education clashes with middle class ideals. Having worked in childcare during her children’s early years, Debbie progressed through various childcare courses, ultimately gaining her degree as a mature student. Her daughter, Deborah, picked up on these lost opportunities:
‘I think she always wished she could’ve gone further in education when she was younger and that she probably might have instilled some of that on me’. [Deborah, daughter]
Jennifer (daughter) echoes similar views regarding her mother Jenny’s background:
‘I probably regretted not going to university. The regrets that I had I took care of and now I’ve got absolutely no interest in doing any other qualification at all, none at all’. [Jenny, mother]
‘I think Mum wanted to go to university but didn’t so she was obviously keen for me to go’. [Jennifer, daughter]
Like the women in Archer and Leathwood’s (2003: 188) study, the daughters are articulating their mother’s ‘hidden and wasted potential’, the mothers wanting their daughters to ‘escape from their working class lives’. Leigh and her daughters are a useful example. Leigh migrated in the 1960s to the UK from Jamaica with her husband in search of ‘a better life’. Leigh was unable to study once she was settled in the UK as she continued to support her family who remained in Jamaica. Leigh instilled a sense of improvement and opportunity in her daughters through education:
‘I had a family at home where some of them were dependent on me to help them out […] we didn’t have higher education, but we tried to help them to succeed’. [Leigh, mother]
Leona: We saw our parents working hard, so that was always … Leanne: … they worked very hard …
Leona: … the expectation was to do as well as you can academically’. [Leona and Leanne, daughters]
The participants’ accounts challenge whether the workforce of the future will be divided by the life choices afforded through education and whether there may be a return to class based divisions of previous generations (Roberts, 2012). This idea can be explored through the 2012 tuition fee increase and the concern around the debt involved in pursuing higher education.