School-Leavers' Career Choices: An Investigation of the Relationship between Action and Structure

Abstract

School-leavers' career choices are discussed from the perspective of both structure and action. Very little research has attempted to reconcile the structural conditioning of students' choices with students' own worldview orientations. To help bridge this gap this paper presents a broader analysis of school-leavers' choices, by investigating the combined effects of gender, social class, geographical locality together with students' own worldview orientations and expectations. An attempt will be made to operationalise the link between opportunity structure and worldview by examining the students' educational and occupational aspirations, their migration intentions and their perceptions of the labour market. Using discriminant analysis, the final section seeks to explicate the main factors predicting higher education intentions.