TCELT Research Seminar: September 2026

Aspirations and Destinations: Analysis of post-school transitions using Growing Up in Scotland

This presentation presents findings and insights from early intersectional work, using Multilevel Analysis of Individual Heterogeneity and Discriminatory Accuracy (MAIHDA), to investigate the ‘aspiration-realisation gap’ in Scotland. Analysis is conducted using Growing Up in Scotland data.
In previous work, Hannah demonstrated that young people’s post-school aspirations are not stratified by social class, despite Scottish Government administrative statistics indicating that post-school destinations are stratified by social class. Sticky notions of ‘poverty of aspiration’ continue to inspire policy solutions to ‘raise aspirations’ and not tackle the fundamental barriers preventing working-class young Scots from achieving their same aspirations at similar rates to their more socially advantaged peers.
In this presentation, Hannah will introduce her concept of the ‘aspiration-realisation gap’, which she proposes as a means to move on from ‘poverty of aspiration’ discourse, and highlight the intersectional characteristics associated with young people most and least likely to realise their post-school aspirations.

Speaker biography

Hannah Glover is a Postgraduate Research Student working towards a PhD in Social Policy at the University of Edinburgh. Her PhD is sponsored by Skills Development Scotland, Scotland’s national skills agency, through Scottish Graduate School for Social Sciences ESRC funding.
She is interested in researching young people’s post-school aspirations, destinations, and how careers information, advice, and guidance shapes the post-school transition journey. She uses quantitative methods, analysing the birth cohort study Growing Up in Scotland.
Born in Dumfries, Hannah herself has navigated school and the post-school transition in Scotland, and hopes her research can support future generations of young Scots to flourish in their own journeys, regardless of their social background.

This presentation will be online (MS Teams) on 2 September 2026. If you do not have a link to join, please email [email protected]