Girls can and boys can't? : the factors shaping choice and the new compulsory schooling age in single sex, ethnically diverse south-western Sydney high schools

In this paper the question of whether girls and boys can or can't make choices about their educational pathways is examined in the context of a policy disjuncture. In 2010 the New South Wales (NSW) State Government in Australia extended the compulsory schooling age from 15 to 17 years. There was little warning and no additional resources for schools when this policy was first introduced. Scant consideration was given to the complex contexts that exist in some of the most disadvantaged areas of Sydney and, for that matter, other centres around the state of NSW. NSW was one of the few states in Australia left with a compulsory schooling age below 17 years and so this was one of the justifications for the change but it is also part of a globalising agenda (Lingard 2010) whereby the OECD has argued for increasing the number of years of schooling, a trend noticed in many Western nations. This chapter reports on a project that sought to understand the impact of the change on ethnically diverse high schools in south-western Sydney. Following Ball (2006), Bourdieu (1984) and Connell (2011) the paper reveals the inherent contradictions of the "freedom" to choose, especially when neo-liberal policy and politics assume social and cultural capital among some of the most disadvantaged communities and especially when choice has created residualised schools that cannot fulfill the promise of extending the years of compulsory schooling (Reid and Young 2012).