From Leaving CertiFiCate to Leaving SChooL a Longitudinal Study ...

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From Leaving Certificate to Leaving School
the guidance counsellor in choosing Maths levels; 48 per cent of the
lowest Junior Certificate quintile consider them important compared with
10 per cent of the highest quintile. This is consistent with previous research
internationally that guidance counsellors are especially important
sources of information for young people with no family traditions, or
experience, of higher education (McDonough 1997; Foskett et al., 2008).
Lower-achieving and working-class students are also more likely to
deem their friends an important influence on their decision-making, with
young people again substituting for an absence of ‘expertise’ in their
families regarding educational pathways. In contrast, students who had
taken Transition Year made decisions more independently, being less
reliant on the guidance counsellor or their friends than other students.
The role of the guidance counsellor in choosing Maths levels varied
across the schools, being deemed more important in Barrack Street, Hay
Street and Dawes Point, all working-class schools. The reliance on formal
guidance in decision-making about post-school pathways is explored
in Chapter Five.
In the focus group interviews, students highlighted how choosing the
subject level in Maths was slightly different to choosing subject levels in
other subjects. In keeping with the survey responses, teachers played a
major role in the decision regarding a student’s Maths level. Some of the
students referred to being ‘told’ which level to take and some expressed
concern about being placed in the ordinary level Maths class when they
felt they could have excelled at higher level:
They told us all to move down to, like we weren’t even allowed, like
given the choice to stay in honours … we all dropped to pass…
Now we’re all excelling at pass.
Yeah, we’re all given As.
We’re all getting As so we could have taken honours. (Harris Street,
girls’ school, middle-class intake)
As in other subjects, movement between subject levels tended to be restricted:
‘one or two will drop down but not many people would have
come up from pass to honours’ (Wattle Street, staff, mixed boys’