The article considers young people’s occupational choices at the age of 15 in relation to their educational attainment, the occupations of their parents and their actual occupations when they are in their early 20s. The data presented help to explain why socioeconomic status is reproduced across generations – children aspire to jobs similar to those their parents have. Children from the most advantaged parents were particularly likely to aspire to such occupations and were particularly unlikely to aspire to manual work. By contrast, many children of parents in manual occupations aspired to those jobs as well. Children from more advantaged families are more ambitious, achieve better educationally and have better occupational outcomes than other children. A possible educational implication of the study is that career interventions could be directed at under-ambitious but academically capable young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

This chapter conceptualises employer engagement in education through the ‘life course’ theory – arguing that life is contextually constructed in a social and cultural manner and that the outcomes of a person are shaped by past events and experiences, creating a chain of outcomes.

The authors depict employer engagement in education as a useful resource in the ‘life course’ as it provides advantages for youths when later progressing through the labour market. The benefits of increased levels of engagement can be broken down into human, social and cultural capital to form the basis of the theoretical framework.

Prior to the September 2004 introduction of the statutory requirement that all Key Stage 4 (KS4) pupils in English schools should experience some work-related learning (WRL), the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) undertook a baseline study to elicit attitudes of students and teachers towards WRL. 86% of students consider WRL helpful in achieving their goals regardless of their intention to go to university.

This paper tests whether school-to-work (STW) programs are particularly beneficial for those less likely to go to college. The data provide some evidence that STW program participation is particularly advantageous for men in the forgotten half. Among these men, certain programmes increase post-secondary education, and school enterprise, and internship/apprenticeship programmes boost employment and decrease idleness after leaving high school. The authors conclude that “there may be substantial benefits to STW efforts targeted towards those male high school students whose characteristics and backgrounds make them less likely to attend college”.

This chapter draws upon notions of social (in)equality and economic (dis)advantage to discuss how the career outcomes of young people are shaped by cultural capital accumulation. Social segregation within UK society pertains that more economically advantaged youths have greater cultural capital gains and are thus more likely to achieve their goals within the labour market. On the other side of the spectrum, more disadvantaged children witness fractured progression through education and into the workplace.