Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1514428
12 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 14 JANUARY 2024 NEWS MATTHEW VELLA mvella@mediatoday.com.mt Degrees of a lesser god: social class MCAST researchers have found varying public perceptions to- wards vocational institutions and degrees, suggesting the lat- ter qualifications do not enjoy the respect of self-identifying members of higher class or high- er income groups. The study, a survey of 573 adults using a Google Forms questionnaire, measured the different attitudes to- wards three specific Maltese state-sponsored further and higher education institutions – MCAST and ITS, vocational or VET institutes, and the tra- ditionally academic University of Malta. The main variable was de- fined in terms of difference in attitudes toward the new voca- tional, as opposed to tradition- al academic institutions. The findings revealed small, but statistically significant ef- fects of self-identified social class, income and level of ed- ucation: the higher these so- cio-economic values, the lower the positive perceptions of vo- cational education. The study effectively shows that such arbitrary attribu- tions of prestige to institutions such as the University of Malta, broadly undermined the pros- pects of a truly meritocratic society, by reducing qualifica- tions "to mere referents of oth- erwise fixed social status." The study shows that an ele- ment of status is still linked to traditionally academic further and higher education in Malta. While social class explains only a relatively low proportion of this variation, the research- ers queried whether vocational educational was also perpetu- ating a traditional division be- tween working-class graduates from technical institutes, and higher-class graduates in aca- demia. MCAST researchers Franc- esca Mizzi-Caruana, Matthew Muscat-Inglott, and Renzo Kerr-Cumbo – writing in the Malta Review of Education- al Research – said higher ed- ucation qualifications from MCAST or ITS were at par with those of the University of Malta, offering an opportuni- ty to students who would not have otherwise been granted access. "If education is really a vehicle of social mobility, then such educational pathways should by default also lead up the social ladder," researchers said, noting the high preva- lence of MCAST students from economically 'poorer' towns in the southern harbour region of the island. But the researchers noted a high variance amongst upper middle-class groups, suggest- ing these represent a particular bourgeoisie or employer class. "If employers exhibit negative attitudes towards VET on the basis of assumed personal sta- tus and prestige, their views must simultaneously account for the reality that their very existence as a class is contin- gent on the availability of coop- erative employees," they point- ed out. "If state-sponsored VET insti- tutions help reproduce a sub- servient employee class across generations, then employers must juxtapose both sympa- thetic and stigmatising views of VET, a conflict that helps explain the disparate views ob- served." By way of analogy, the re- searchers said this was akin to parents who exhibit positive attitudes toward state schools and the public education sys- tem but would still not admit their own child in such schools. "In the same way, an employer may value VET in principle, yet reject the possibility of pursu- ing such a pathway personally, as well as discourage their chil- dren from doing so also." The most significant dif- ferences in attitudes towards VET occurred among those groups earning above €1,625 a month, a midpoint of sorts in the NSO's "average" Maltese gross monthly salary of any- thing between €1,500-€1,800. Researchers said this suggests that receiving a monthly in- come either immediately above or below the average, has the most significant impact on at- titudes towards VET. Another statistically signif- icant relationship similarly emerged between attitudes to VET and own education lev- el: the higher the level of edu- cation, the lower perceptions tended to be of VET. The researchers said that since the highest levels of de- grees currently held by Maltese graduates were predominant- ly attained either from UM or foreign institutions, further re- search might investigate how this influences their attitudes towards VET. With MCAST also now providing postgradu- ate and doctoral programmes, such trends may yet change. "An observable and statis- tically significant association can be inferred between atti- tudes to vocational education and self-identified social class," the researchers said. "The same holds for financial income and education level... Across all these factors, increases in status were associated with decreas- ing approval of new vocational MCAST researchers think higher-income groups look down on vocational education degrees despite their equality to traditional university degrees if education is actually reinforcing class divisions instead of disrupting them, then qualifications are simply become symbols, or what sociologist Godfrey Baldacchino termed as "status exhibitionism"