White Working Class Males in British Higher Education
Apprenticeships are really variable – they completely depend on the specific employer , where it is and how they do it as to whether they ’ re worth anything .
Participants in the FE based focus groups were more readily versed in the alternatives to university , they could see that finding work , doing further courses at college and finding an apprenticeship were all open to them .
You can get a job and work your way up , you don ’ t have to be stuck on the tills . You could do more at the college – level 2 or 3 .
Most were knowledgeable about apprenticeships and many learners appeared more comfortable discussing this route than HE . Participants identified low pay as the main disadvantage to apprenticeships and paid work but they understood that this varied between employers . They readily identified a range of advantages and overall their tone was most positive about apprenticeships as an option .
You get paid while you work . Get experience in the industry .
You have a better chance of getting a job – if you ’ ve been there 3 years , they might want to take you on .
Learn new things , don ’ t need to go to college – or just one day a week .
Some FE based participants highlighted the fact that they had received information about apprenticeships and jobs and this had increased their understanding and awareness . This however appeared in contrast to the lack of information they had received about university .
They ’ re [ apprenticeships ] talked more about here .
Our sort of subjects are around apprenticeships – you never hear anyone say ' I ’ m going to Uni after this '. This is our first thing about university .
5.6 Sense of belonging
In order to test whether participants felt they might belong at university , groups were asked to take part in a positioning exercise . Group members were asked to place themselves along an imagined continuum from strong disagree to strongly agree in response to specific statements and then discuss the reason for their choices . The statements were nuanced depending on the age of the learners and not all statements were used in every session due to time constraints .
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