Families are vital

Families play a key role in how young people access information about science careers, says a report published by the ASPIRES research team at King’s College London.

Middle class families who are comfortable with science are more equipped to access and interpret careers information to help their children make educational choices. They are skilled and adept at making use of “cold” information found through the internet or from documents and prospectuses. However, for working-class learners formal, written information is not sufficient to change their patterns of choice - they prefer “hot” knowledge that comes from interpersonal contact and known or trusted sources.

“Our research shows that young people’s ambitions are strongly influenced by their social backgrounds – ethnicity, social class and gender- and by family contexts.” says Professor Louise Archer.

Children whose families have limited “science capital” (i.e. qualifications, knowledge, connections and interest in science) are much less likely to be aware of the breadth of career options available from science and to believe that studying science can only lead to being a scientist.

Nicola Hannam, the Science Council’s Education and Skills Director welcomed the King’s College report: “This research reinforces the need for the information for parents on our Future Morph careers website. We know that families have a strong influence on subject and career choice. We must find new ways to reach out to them to raise awareness of the huge breadth of career opportunities available from science.

We know that 20% of the UK workforce already uses science skills in their jobs and that this is set to increase. We need to attract more people to study science and do better at attracting a broader range of young people. We want to ignite their interest by shining a light on the scientists hidden in areas such as food production, healthcare and retail; this report shows us that we have to look for innovative ways to do this. Future Morph already mixes textual information with videos and games but we must also begin to engage with communities to spread the word.”

The Science Council’s Future Morph careers website, was launched in 2008 to provide good quality careers material, new and existing, for 11-19 year olds. The site includes material for teachers, careers advisers and parents.

The full report can be downloaded here (pdf 830KB)

*The current and future UK science workforce, Sept 2011