Mitchell, Emma; (2022) Post-16 curriculum choice: processes, values and tensions at a dual-curriculum UK independent school. Doctoral thesis (Ed.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This study explores the processes, values and tensions experienced by students when making post-compulsory curriculum choices at the independent boys’ school in South London where I am International Baccalaureate Coordinator. The research was conducted with Year 11 students as they chose what subjects to study in Year 12 and under which overarching curriculum (IB Diploma or A-levels). A purposive sample of 21 students (10 individuals and two groups), manifesting wide-ranging attributes, were interviewed in a coaching format on three occasions across a six-month period in the academic year 2020-21. Narrative and thematic analyses of the interview transcripts revealed that post-16 curriculum choice is guided by subject interests, ongoing progress in Key Stage 4 courses and assessments, aspirations, influential family members and friends, advice from teachers, perceived ‘fit’, extra-curricular interests and past experiences. The information on which decisions are based is often inaccurate or incomplete, and some students demonstrated negative self-talk. Each individual student selects their curriculum route and subjects in adherence with school requirements, but is influenced by the values they hold (and the relative importance of these values). Yet, five categories of choice process emerged: placidity, quiet assurance, borderline obsessional, performances of satisfaction and thriving. Combining a Bourdieusian lens with critical realism tools reveals the relevance of capital, habitus, field, reproduction, doxa and symbolic violence, and I have noted some of the tensions in my professional role through autoethnographic techniques. The International Baccalaureate mission encourages educators to increase uptake. But efforts to do so without establishing how distinctive students in particular school settings make curriculum choices are futile. I argue that educators and researchers can connect to students through coaching to reveal more than could have been discovered otherwise. All 16-year-olds, when making curriculum choices, deserve to be informed about the short-term realities and awakened to the long-term implications.

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