Higher education students’ aspirations for their post-university lives: evidence from six European nations

Brooks, Rachel, Gupta, Achala and Jayadeva, Sazana (2021) Higher education students’ aspirations for their post-university lives: evidence from six European nations. Children's Geographies. (doi:10.1080/14733285.2021.1934403).

Record type: Article

Abstract

While there is now a relatively large literature on young people's aspirations with respect to their transitions from compulsory schooling, the body of work on the aspirations of those within higher education is rather less well-developed. This article draws on data from undergraduate students in six European countries to explore their hopes for their post-university lives. It demonstrates that although aspirations for employment were discussed most frequently, non-economic plans and desires were also important. Moreover, despite significant commonalities across the six nations, aspirations were also differentiated, to some extent at least, by national context, institutional setting and subject of study.

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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 18 May 2021

Published date: 22 June 2021

Additional Information: Funding Information: We are grateful to all those who gave up their time to participate in one of the focus groups. We would also like to thank the European Research Council for the award of a Consolidator Grant to Rachel Brooks, which funded the study (EUROSTUDENTS_681018). We are also grateful to Jessie Abrahams for her significant contribution to the data collection. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Keywords: Aspiration, Europe, higher education, place, students

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