Conversations with young people: Using a creative arts outreach programme to access, mobilise and activate capital to navigate to higher education

This study examined how a Creative Arts Initiative (CAI) outreach program could develop aspirations for higher education among students from low-SES backgrounds in Western Australia. Using the lens of bio-ecological systems and social capital frameworks, the Creative Arts program was examined as a facilitator of interactions between students and embedded social resources. The proposed model suggests a process where accessed resources can be mobilised into capital and activated as required to aid students’ transitions into higher education. We hypothesised that mentors and role models as embedded resources would help students in low-ICSEA schools to build creative arts skills and competencies and acquire ‘real-world’ information about post-school university participation. Focus group data were collected from 28 participants in four schools. Students reported positive interactions with role models and mentors and personal development. Data analysis identified opportunities for acquisition of new skills and for mobilising resources into capital. Findings support the proposition that mobilisation and activation of newly acquired capital increase students’ navigational capacity to achieve desired post-school goals. Resource-rich outreach programmes can be useful to engage students in learning, to acquire technical and interpersonal skills, for personal development, and as an activation tool for social and cultural capital to aid in post-school transitions