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On 2 February 2009, the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) published an Ipsos MORI report detailing the affect of teachers’ attitudes on higher education aspirations.
The research was conducted using a qualitative, case-study approach in a cross-section of English 11-16 and 11-18 schools and sixth form colleges with lower than anticipated rates of progression into post-16 and/or post-18 education and training, in order to explore the role teachers play in helping to raise their pupils' higher education aspirations.
The report finds that in the schools and sixth form colleges visited, a ‘holistic', longer-term view of progression is often lacking in favour of a concentration on the immediate ‘next step’ - relative rather than absolute progression. Moreover, the teachers concerned often do not (or feel they cannot) provide a sufficiently robust challenge to more pervasive attitudes and behaviour around aspiration and progression in the communities they serve.
Another key issue is the extent to which teachers consider it to be part of their role to encourage progression. The report asks whether they are reactive or proactive in raising aspirations and encouraging progression. Similarly, do they regard education as an intrinsic or instrumental good?
The report constructs a typology of five distinct mindsets (‘campaigning', ‘vocationalist', ‘entrepreneurial', ‘laissez-faire' and ‘resigned'). Mapping teachers in terms of these five mindsets, the report attempts to assess the extent to which attitudes and practices vary between colleagues in the same school and across different types of school. It also uses this approach to examine the central role played by school leaders in shaping attitudes to progression and creating the circumstances in which it can be effective.
Raising young people's higher education aspirations: teachers' attitudes