Educational Achievement and Career Aspiration for Young British Pakistanis

Abstract

In this chapter we report on research conducted between 2004 and 2006 in Slough and Bradford which investigated the educational aspirations and experiences of young British Pakistani Muslim men and women. Our research, funded by the Leverhulme Trust within a wider programme on migration and citizenship, sought to understand the extent to which young British Pakistanis were making progress in terms of educational achievement and employment in relation to their peers and in relation to the wider findings of successive reports on the differential achievements of ethnic groups (Modood and Shiner, 1994; Modood et al., 1997). Our qualitative study explored the attitudes and dispositions towards education and career aspirations held by a range of young people including both those who had achieved a measure of success (entry into higher education, for example, or professional qualifications) and those who had left compulsory education with few qualifications including those who remained unemployed. One starting point for this research was work by Zhou (2000, 2005) on the high academic achievements of Asian-Americans (particularly those of Vietnamese and Chinese heritage) which posited the role of ‘ethnic social capital’ as being particularly significant in promoting academic achievement through the enforcement of familial and community norms. We wanted to see whether similar forms of ‘ethnic capital’ (Modood, 2004) also operated within Pakistani Muslim communities and whether they were significant in shaping improved educational outcomes for young people.