iCeGS Seminar: Inside the Social Field of HE Decision-Making

Mapping Value Transmission Between Parents and Students

Understanding how young people navigate decisions about university pathways is central to careers education, information, advice and guidance (CEIAG) practice in schools. This webinar presents findings from her recent study examining the extent to which parental values about higher education are transmitted to their children, and how these shared or divergent values shape decision-making in a competitive and information-dense HE landscape.

Drawing on Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, capital and field, and situated within Perna’s four-layer model of HE choice, her research combines quantitative survey data with a novel ‘diamond 9’ methodology to assess the relative importance placed on different values. Statistical comparisons explore how parental and student values align across demographic groups and within matched parent-child pairs.

The session will discuss how these patterns of value transmission interact with the wider structures and constraints of the HE market, and the implications for practitioners supporting learners and families. It will conclude by reflecting on how CEIAG practice can engage more effectively with the social, cultural and relational dynamics that underpin choice-making.