Leaving Town? Differential Effects of Geography on Youths’ Higher Education Aspirations

Researchers and theorists have long documented a link between social capital and educational outcomes, a relationship that may be of particular importance in rural areas where geographic isolation and smaller community sizes can foster distinct social structures. This PhD thesis investigates the relationship between geography, social capital, and higher education aspirations, in addressing the critical issue of persistent disparities in higher education outcomes between youth in rural and urban Australia. Aspirations play a pivotal role in shaping education outcomes. Additionally, there is increasing focus on social capital as a key explanatory factor for educational outcome disparities, including those in higher education outcomes between rural and urban areas. While many factors shape higher education aspirations, this thesis focuses on social capital. Therefore, the overarching aim is to further understand the role and importance of social capital in the relationship between geography and higher education aspirations for youth in rural Australia. Using a mixed methods research approach, I attempted to bring quantitative and qualitative data together to examine this relationship. The research comprises three studies; two empirical quantitative studies which apply multilevel modelling techniques on data collected from 10, 370 students nationally across rural and urban Australia, and a qualitative synthesis of 108 studies. Furthermore, I used differences in higher education aspirations as a proxy for whether youth in rural Australia perceive higher education as a real choice for them. My findings in Study 1 indicate that youth in rural Australia experience differences in both quantity and type of social capital compared to their urban counterparts, with geography serving as a significant predictor of social capital. Youth in rural Australia were found to experience more social capital overall than their urban counterparts, including across four out of the six social capital measures examined. Further, my findings revealed an important disparity; youth in rural Australia experienced less of the forms of social capital positively associated with higher education aspirations, and more of the forms of social capital negatively associated with higher education aspirations, compared to their urban counterparts. Thus, the disparity in likelihood of aspiring to higher education for youth in rural Australia may reflect the type of social capital they experience rather than simply the amount. In Study 2, my analysis found that social capital is a practically and statistically significant mediator in the relationship between geography and higher education aspirations. However, this mediating relationship was weaker than expected. A strong relationship between geography and higher education aspirations was revealed even accounting for social capital, underscoring the significance of geography and the structure of rural, in shaping youths’ higher education aspirations. While much of the relationship between rural status and higher education aspirations remains unexplained, social capital was a meaningful mediator that should be considered. Critically, my study found a significant disparity in the likelihood to aspire to higher education between youth in rural and urban Australia, with youth in rural Australia significantly less likely to aspire. Thus, indicating that they do not perceive higher education to be a real choice. My findings in Study 1 and 2 complicate simplistic assumptions that policy and interventions merely need to increase social capital to improve higher education aspirations for youth in rural areas, and yet reinforce the continued need to consider social capital as part of a well-rounded intervention and policy approach. In Study 3, I sought to enrich the picture of the role of social capital through a mixed methods approach. I undertook a meta-synthesis of 108 qualitative studies on the relationship between rural status and higher education aspirations. Social capital emerged as a significant but not sufficient explanation of the link between geography and higher education aspirations. Hence, it is suggested that consideration be given to other likely important factors in the relationship between geography and higher education aspirations. Such as, the structures of rural and urban, which in turn shape policies, resource distribution, and consequently, choices available to youth in rural Australia. The goal being to inform the development of equitable policies that provide youth in rural Australia with a real choice to aspire to and access higher education.