Educational transitions occur throughout an individual’s academic career, with Ecclestone et al. (2009: 11) suggesting that “transition depicts change and shifts in identity and agency as people progress through the education system”. Much of the existing literature on the subject of transition agrees the process is likely to consist of – as a minimum – both academic and social change, with Terenzini et al. (1994: 58) noting the process of transition requires students to “become integrated into the academic and social systems of a college or university”; in other words, an individual must reconcile their own sense of who they are (and who they would like to be) with the educational structures and pathways available to them.

This transitional period is widely regarded as a time of potential risk; over the last twenty years, studies across a range of countries have suggested that children moving from primary to secondary school suffer drops in academic achievement or motivation (or both), due in part to an inability to handle the changes required by this process, such as new subjects and teachers (see, for example, Otis et al. 2005; McGee et al. 2003). Thus, much of the recent research in this area has explored the experiences of children making the transition from primary to secondary (such as Evans et al. 2018; Evangelou et al. 2008; Mumford & Birchwood 2020) and how pupils can be best supported during this process (for example, the emotional intervention designed by Bagnall 2020, and the focus on promoting resilience in Jindal-Snape & Hannah 2014).

There are similar concerns around transitions to Higher Education (HE) at universities worldwide. Over 20 years ago, Kantanis (2000: 100) noted that in Australia “approximately one third of students drop out in the first-year of university” in a study that suggests concerns over attracting and keeping students are not a recent development. Indeed, the changing nature of HE means that this sector continues to be a significant area of research interest (see, for example, the Multiple and Multi-dimensional Transitions model proposed by Jindal-Snape & Rientes (2016), which recognises that HE students – and in particular international students – face multiple and complex issues during transitions). In order to support and retain students, it is crucial to “raise awareness amongst academics, researchers, professionals, and policymakers of the positive effects of transitions, to build upon them, and of the negative effects, to successfully resolve them” (Jindal-Snape & Rientes 2016: 1).

This focus on retention is no longer limited to HE institutions. The raising of the school leaving age from September 2015 (DfE 2015) means that all learners in England are now required to continue in education or training until 18, giving rise to the category of 16–19 learners. Institutions receive substantial funding for each student they recruit and retain, and the penalties for failing to keep students can be severe. Thus it is crucial for educators to understand the impact of transition on students moving from secondary school to college in order to better support these students and ensure as far as possible that they are on the most appropriate study pathway. However, despite the wealth of research available on educational transitions, there is relatively little on transitions from secondary school to college and the impact the process may have on learner identity for those aged 16–19.

One key study in this field is Hernandez-Martinez et al.’s (2011: 119) research into A level Mathematics students transitioning from school to college, which found that whilst participants expressed some concerns (particularly around the difficulty of their Mathematics course), “these were largely balanced by a more positive discourse of challenge, growth and achievement”. This research took place when college education was still classed as post-compulsory, but their findings still chime with many of my own, particularly in terms of “rethink[ing] transitions as a question of identity in which persons see themselves developing due to the distinct social and academic demands that the new institution poses” (Hernandez-Martinez et al. 2011: 119).

Much of the older research on educational transitions for vocational students is markedly less positive in terms of presenting such transitions as an opportunity for growth or achievement, although the present study argues that such research is now dated and that perceptions of vocational qualifications and those who take them are beginning to change. For example, Ball et al. (1999) found in the late 1990s that A levels represented a well-trodden route into HE but that vocational students were vague and uncertain when considering their futures. Meanwhile, Colley et al. (2003: 482) argue that vocational courses can be perceived as aiming to “develop certain dispositions and demeanour”, and identify “vocational habitus” as being one which conditions learners to have lower expectations from their future careers and to develop more menial dispositions in preparation for their position in the workplace hierarchy (although it should be noted that this research took place within an occupational context). This perceived divide between “academic” and “vocational” courses means that choices made by 16-year-olds leaving school take on greater significance, with Fuller & Macfadyen (2011: 98) noting that “whilst students explicitly discuss autonomy in ‘choosing’ a vocational course…how students identify themselves in terms of academic success or failure matters in relationship to the educational choices they then go on to make”. This process of “choosing” is in practice limited by the options available, as outlined below.

Most learners in England take GCSE exams, a level 2 qualification, at the age of 16, and then progress to a level 3 qualification. The choice available has largely been either what is deemed an “academic” pathway (most usually A levels), or a vocational pathway. BTECs are currently the most popular vocational level 3 qualification, although these are due to be defunded in 2024 and replaced by new T levels, a similar vocational qualification. A levels (short for Advanced Levels) were introduced in the UK in 1951 and have been positioned in government policy discourses as “qualifications [which] focus on traditional study skills…They are highly valued by schools, colleges and employers” (Directgov undated: unpaged). Learners on this pathway study three or four individual subjects, with externally assessed examinations at the end of the two-year study period. BTECs (short for Business and Technology Education Council, who first ran the award) were introduced in 1984 and were specifically designed to be “vocational” – in other words, relating to the needs of the workplace. They are continually assessed through coursework and practical tasks, and may involve the need to pass a work placement element, although some subjects are now partly assessed via external examination (DfE 2014).

The data reported in this article are drawn from the Learner, Identity and Transition Project (LITP), a qualitative case study conducted at Northlands College of Further Education (NCFE) (anonymised name) in the north of England. A literature review conducted as a pilot study to the LITP (Gregory 2012) found that A levels were presented as being superior to other level 3 qualifications in a range of literatures and discourses, including the popular press, government documentation and academic journals; in other words, seen as the gold standard (Snapper 2007) among level 3 qualifications. Thus, the LITP was primarily a study of identity, examining the interplay between the identities assigned to learners embarking upon different study pathways by external actors such as parents, teachers and educational institutions, and the learners’ own sense of self perception whilst making the transition from school to college.

The LITP aimed to address the following four research questions:

By exploring whether a sense of collective or shared identity exists among learners on the same study pathway, the research draws upon Jenkins’ (2004) notion that an individual’s identity is both about sameness and difference, prompting a need to reconcile one’s own sense of self as an individual with a recognition that elements of this identity are likely to be shared with others. Tajfel (1974: 67) acknowledges that throughout life an individual encounters “a network of relationships into which he must fit himself”, and that the quest to “find, create and define his place in these networks” represents a “continuing process of definition”. As such, educational transitions become a site both of potential opportunity and of conflict as individuals negotiate their place within these groups and bid to have their own habitus and capital recognised. Thus, the study also uses Bourdieu’s (1977, 1986, 2004) thinking tools to consider whether the field of 16–19 education is a level playing field, or whether the different forms of capital attached to qualifications can lead to a sense of credentialing – the belief that following a particular study route provides a set of credentials that pre-qualifies certain individuals for greater academic opportunities. The study is also interested in how such perceptions of academic superiority may be asserted or challenged through discourse (Fairclough 2015).

A case study methodology was adopted for the research, in order to conduct “an empirical investigation of a particular contemporary phenomenon within its real life context” (Yin 1984: 23). This allowed me to collect qualitative data from learners aged 16–19 about their experiences of the transition process from level 2 to level 3 study, with my ‘case’ therefore being learner narratives of transition and identity. Interviews were conducted with learners (n = 24) in the first year of studying a two-year level 3 qualification at Northlands College of Further Education (NCFE), one of 231 general further education colleges in England (AoC, 2014), offering a range of courses at different levels to learners aged from 14 upwards.

Participants were recruited using purposive sampling via recruitment posters displayed around NCFE. At the time of the research, I was an A level teacher within the college, and thus it was likely that some potential participants would be known to me. Thus, interested parties were asked to contact one of my colleagues via email to express their interest, with the colleague then selecting participants randomly (but within the criteria parameters that participants be equally distributed across A level and BTEC study pathways). In this way, whilst not all volunteers were selected to participate in the study, I had no influence over the final selection.

Participants were split equally between two different study pathways: those studying an A level programme comprising three or four separate A level subjects, and those following a single-subject BTEC pathway. The randomised selection process resulted in a sample that included three BTEC subjects: ICT, Childcare, and Sport, although a wide range of A level subjects were represented in the sample. The study’s interest lies in study pathways rather than individual subject choices, but it should be kept in mind that the findings reflect a relatively narrow spread of BTEC subjects and may be different had more been represented. For ease of identification, A level students were given alphabetical identifiers from A-L, and BTEC students were given a numerical identifier from 1–12. The research was conducted pre-Covid as part of a professional doctorate (Gregory 2018) and received ethical approval from a University Research Ethics Panel.

The participants were invited to take part in individual semi-structured narrative interviews lasting between 30 and 60 minutes. Narratives here are defined using Riessman & Quinney’s (2005: 394) notion of “a discrete unit of discourse…topically-centred and temporally-organized” rather than a full life story. The conceptualisation for the study was provided by a theoretical framework called the MERITS Plus model, as summarised in Table 1 below. This model was designed over the course of two pilot studies and during the main fieldwork (this process is detailed further in Gregory 2020) as a means of understanding the literatures on learner motivations, expectations, realities, identity and transitions, and how these elements might interrelate to produce an individual’s own particular story or experience of academic transition.

Interview participants were asked three questions relating to the first three elements of the model as a prompt for them to select and discuss the aspects of their experiences that were important to them: why they had selected their chosen course in preference to a different course or finding an apprenticeship, what their expectations of that course had been, and to what extent their experience had matched their expectations. These questions were worded to correspond to the first three elements of the framework as a way of eliciting data relevant to the next three – identity, transition and stories/synthesis – without asking participants directly about concepts they may find challenging to answer, such as whether they believed they shared a collective identity with others on their study pathway.

Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim before being subjected to both a thematic and linguistic analysis using the framework. Themes relating to motivations, expectations, reality, identity and the process of transition were identified, and in order to address stories and synthesis a linguistic analysis was conducted to identify the words most commonly used (in other words, identified by prevalence) in the participants’ narratives to describe their experiences of transition as relating to the study’s research questions. This reflected my interest in collective identity, by considering whether these frequently-used words were more common to participants on a particular study pathway. The participants’ own words were used to form composite profiles of the different types of students that may exist in this type of educational setting. These composite profiles are not discussed in this article for reasons of space, although a number of the words used most frequently in the narratives are presented in the findings. The final layer of analysis, the use of Bourdieu’s (1977, 1986, 2004) thinking tools, was incorporated into the model as a means of understanding the data and their implications within their wider social contexts.

The findings are presented in the following section, where data from the interviews are used to help address the LITP’s four research questions. Under each of the four questions, data from both the thematic and linguistic analyses are brought together to address each question.

The data raise interesting questions of how to conceptualise what it means to be an A level or a BTEC student, and how such conceptualisations impact on the ways in which learners narrate their experiences of transitioning from level 2 to level 3 study. Whilst a number of common ideas emerged in the data across the two cohorts, such as growing in confidence and having more freedom, other points were surprisingly different considering that all participants had studied the same qualification – GCSEs – before moving to college.

The frequent mention of A levels as an academically-superior form of qualification in both sets of narratives appeared to stem from a combination of intrinsic belief and extrinsic approbation from parents and teachers, with the narratives of the A level participants protecting and re-asserting their sense of identity by emphasising their differentness from the other group under consideration – in this case, those perceived as being on the less academic programme. Their similarity with others on the A level programme could only be established by evoking differentiation and creating a boundary that both includes themselves and excludes others (Jenkins 2004). For some participants, this went beyond perceived academic ability to encompass levels of behaviour and maturity, as seen with Student G’s comment about “boys” play-fighting in the Construction Centre behaving as if they were still in secondary school. If power is not permanent or undisputed (Fairclough 2015: 94), then “those who hold power at a particular moment have to constantly reassert their power” – even if this assertion may not always appear to be a conscious decision.

Whilst Fairclough (2015) posits that individuals lacking in power may decide to make a bid for it through their discourse, this does not appear to be directly the case in the narratives provided by the vocational learners. Instead, the data suggested a sense of freedom and relief at the different expectations now required from them in comparison with those on the A level pathway, particularly with the removal of examinations as the key means of assessment. This resonates with the vocational learners interviewed in Fuller & Macfadyen’s (2011: 96) study, where “students were keen to emphasise a view of themselves as a ‘different type of learner’, a learner much better suited to college and the courses they have chosen”. It was also noticeable that the narratives of the vocational learners created Jenkins’ (2004) notion of boundary not through criticism of, or negative comparisons with, the other group (in this case, the A level students) but through an emphasis on unifying factors such as personality and personal and professional interests within the cohort, suggesting Tajfel’s (1982: 11) belief that “when the group suffers at the same time from low status in the society at large, the strength drawn by its members from its internal and positive social identity may come into conflict with the negative evaluations from ‘outside’”. This focus on social cohesion was a key theme in the vocational narratives, and may represent an indirect bid for power and recognition of capital by the vocational participants.

Bourdieu’s (1986) notion of capital can help understand why different values might be attached to different qualifications that are, in theory, academically equivalent, and by whom. In particular, if cultural capital “is convertible, on certain conditions, into economic capital and which may be institutionalised in the form of educational qualifications” (Bourdieu 1986: 47), it follows that for students entering any given educational field – in this case, the field of 16–19 education – the odds of academic recognition can be automatically restricted or enhanced by the choice of a particular “game” (or educational pathway) conferring a particular kind of cultural capital. In other words, educational fields are not level playing surfaces, particularly since it is capital that makes “the games of society…something other than simple games of chance offering at every moment the possibility of a miracle” (Bourdieu 1986: 46). As noted, a literature review conducted as a pilot study to the LITP (Gregory 2012) found that A levels were recognised as being superior to other level 3 qualifications in a range of literatures and popular discourses, suggesting this particular educational choice currently carries higher value in terms of the cultural capital it can confer, along with recognition that those entering the A level pathway may already possess more cultural capital as a result of their academic success at school. However, the objectified nature of this form of cultural capital means that values are not fixed, and instead are modified as cultural tastes adapt and change, offering the potential for a shift in any given field.

This perception of certain qualifications as being more desirable than others suggests that a particular game is in play in the field of 16–19 education, where academic choices carry far greater significance than a simple decision based on personal preferences. The findings presented in this article, however, suggest that the “rules of the game” (Bourdieu 2004: 64) may be beginning to change. The findings of the LITP contradict existing research suggesting vocational learners have lower expectations than their more “academic” counterparts, such as Fuller & Macfadyen’s (2011) findings that from a cohort of 40 vocational students across two FE colleges, only two had any aspiration to go on to HE. Similarly, Ball et al.’s (1999) findings that only A levels offered a well-trodden route into HE are contradicted in the data presented here, with a clear sense of trajectory outlined in the vocational learner narratives both in terms of further study and future career prospects. Thus, the findings of the LITP are in line with data suggesting the status of vocational qualifications is changing, with more than a third of employers valuing vocational and academic qualifications equally (CBI/Pearson 2015), and with more learners entering HE with vocational qualifications than previously (HEFCE 2015). Such changes take time, and at present still come with caveats; more A level applicants are admitted to university than those with BTECs (UCAS 2021), and BTEC students are more likely to attend a post-92 institution (see, for example, Shields & Masardo 2015).

Whilst it is evident, however, that the LITP’s participants were at least partly aware of the perceived value of their academic choices and of the discourses that exist around particular qualifications, the data also suggest some young people are beginning to construct new narratives around their educational choices that have the potential to modify the existing values attached to academic and vocational qualifications. In this way, transition from level 2 to level 3 study has the potential to remain a time of exciting opportunity both socially and academically, offering possibilities for positive changes in identity as well as challenges.

This study focused on a relatively small sample of 24 students in one single location, and as such cannot claim to be representative of the population of level 3 learners. As a case study however, the research aims to be illustrative and provide insight into the views of learners at a particular place at a particular time rather than making claims to be representative of a wider population. I am also aware that in interviewing participants on different study pathways, I may be contributing to a sense of divide between qualifications. However, the use the same three open questions for all participants aimed to minimise this by allowing participants to talk freely about their experiences and self-select the aspects they wished to present in their interviews.

As this research formed part of a doctoral programme, participants were not asked to give consent for their data to be made widely available and thus data has not been made accessible for this publication.