School leavers’ progression to bachelors-level study

6. Discussion

This study has found there are several factors that interact to influence the likelihood of studying at bachelors level for students leaving school. For those students with the qualifications that allow them entry to bachelors-level study, their level of school achievement was an important factor. In addition, for some students, the decile of the school they attended influenced this likelihood, while for other groups of students, their ethnic identification was also important.

Previous reports on educational outcomes in New Zealand have consistently shown differences between ethnic groups. In performance at school, rates of transition to higher levels of tertiary education, and success in tertiary education, young Māori and Pasifika students tend not to reach the same levels as European and Asian students. This study too, found differences between ethnic groups, but only for students from lower-decile schools, and then only for students with higher achievement scores. The results for students with higher achievement scores from higher-decile schools showed essentially no differences between ethnic groups – Māori and Pasifika students in the study population were just as likely to study at bachelors level as their European and Asian counterparts. It is clear that when achievement levels and socio-economic factors are controlled for, there is no difference in the likelihood of studying at bachelors level for students from higher-decile schools.

This study has also demonstrated differences within some ethnic groups. For the Asian ethnic group, ever-Asian students with lower achievement scores were less likely to progress to bachelors-level study than sole-Asian students. And for Pasifika, it is the sole-Pasifika students with higher achievement scores from lower-decile schools who are less likely to progress to bachelors-level study.

On the other hand, there are essentially no differences between the sole- and ever-European ethnic group categories, either by achievement score, or by school decile. For Māori, sole- and ever-Māori students showed similar patterns; Māori students with higher achievement scores from lower-decile schools were less likely to progress to bachelors level study than students from higher-decile schools.

The method of reporting ethnicity in the present study, using never-, ever- and sole-ethnic categories for each ethnic group, is a way of dealing with different sources of ethnicity in the study data, and the fact that a student’s ethnic identification could vary. This variation in ethnicity represents the phenomenon of ethnic mobility (Callister et al 2009). People’s ethnicity can, and does change, and for data that spanned several years of a person’s life, using just a single source of ethnicity does not seem appropriate.

It is worthwhile reiterating that the ethnic group categories in the present study do not represent the degree of cultural alignment, cultural affiliation, or cultural strength. Rather, it simply records the choices made by individuals in their responses to questions on data capture forms. This measure of ethnicity, as in most administrative data, represents the identification of a person’s ethnicity, not their ethnic identity, their cultural or ethnic attachment, or their ethnic orientation¹⁴. While these other facets of identity may have an influence on educational and other outcomes, they were not able to be measured in this study.

Several other studies have found within ethnic group differences in New Zealand (although only the Māori ethnic group has been studied in this manner in the past). Chapple (2000) found differences between sole- and ever-Māori groups for employment rate and median income, controlling for education level and other social factors. Chapple showed that in some cases, the differences between these groups were diminished when controlling for other factors. In his summary, he states it is ‘sole-Māori living in rural areas, with low levels of education, lower than average literacy, and living in Northland and in the central North Island’ who have lower unemployment rates relative to others in the same area. Like the present study, Chapple found that no single variable explains the observed differences between groups; rather, a number of interacting variables need to be considered to understand the trends.

Marie et al (2008) also found differences between sole- and ever-Māori groups for various educational attainment measures, but these differences were diminished when controlling for socio-economic factors¹⁵. That paper finds that the proportion of people in their study cohort who attended university was not different between ethnic groupings when controlling for socio-economic factors, but without this control, sole-Māori participation was much lower. This finding is interesting, since it is known that Māori generally have the highest participation rates in tertiary education, although this is mostly in the lower level qualifications (Ministry of Education 2009).

Their results also show lower completion rates for bachelor-level study for sole-Māori and ever-Māori ethnic categories, compared to the non-Māori group, and this persisted somewhat even when controlling for socio-economic factors. The factors that might affect the completion of a degree are likely to be different from, but possibly overlap, the factors that affect the decision to start a degree¹⁶. However, the overall conclusion reached by Marie et al (2008) is that socio-economic conditions are more important than ethnic identity in explaining differences in educational achievement.

One further New Zealand study warrants discussion. Fergusson et al (2008), using the same cohort as Marie et al (2008), found that a person’s financial circumstances played little role in educational disadvantage. Instead, it appeared that individual cognitive ability, child behaviour and family aspirations were important. In particular, Fergusson et al found that access to material resources did not link directly to later educational achievement. While they found a link between the decile rating of a young person’s school and their family’s socio-economic status, there was no evidence that school decile was related to education achievement after other factors (notably childhood cognitive ability and parental aspirations) were taken into account¹⁷.

The present analysis finds that it is neither ethnic identification alone, nor the school alone (acting as a proxy for socio-economic status, or factors associated with the school itself), which provide the best explanation of the likelihood of moving from school to bachelors study. Rather, both factors appear to be important, together with the student’s level of achievement. After controlling for tertiary study entry requirements, it is the higher achieving students from schools with lower decile ratings, for some ethnic groups, and for some of the people in an ethnic group, that are associated with educational disadvantage.

What the present study cannot do is determine the causal links between the study variables and bachelors-level study. For this, qualitative research needs to be undertaken. What this study has done however is to report these important findings, so at least this deeper research