Pride and Prospects: Developing a socially just level 1 curriculum to enable more positive school to work transitions

This paper reports on an ongoing project, being conducted in Guernsey, which is evaluating the medium term impact of a new curriculum model designed to enable more successful, and less precrious transitions to work for young people undertaking broad vocational education at level 1. Careers Education and Guidance (CEG) forms a central plank of the curriculum, in response to earlier research (Bathmaker, 2001; Atkins, 2009; Atkins et al, 2015) suggesting that young people undertaking programmes at this level have aspirations similar to their higher achieving peers, but lack the support, and cultural and social capital to realise those aspirations. The paper highlights the particular challenges faced by these young people, of whom 33% became NEET in 2015/16 (Guernsey College data), with particular reference to their career aspirations and the ways in which these are supported by the college. The paper positions the study as research for social justice, rather than socially just research (Atkins and Duckworth, 2019), but draws on theoretical concepts of social justice to inform the conduct of the study (e.g. Lincoln and Denzin, 2013). Theoretically, it draws on, amongst others, the work of Bourdieu (e.g.1990) Bourdieu and Passeron (1990) , Hodkinson et al (1996) and Hodkinson (e.g. 1996; 1998; 2008).