The culture of futility and its impact on study culture in technical/vocational schools in Belgium

Starting from the present knowledge society with its social overvaluing of cognition and white-collar jobs at the expense of manual labour, this article examines whether school type—academic versus technical/vocational schools—relates to students’ sense of futility. It assesses the schools’ culture of futility and investigates the explanatory value of sense of futility and culture of futility in the relation of school type with study involvement and study culture. Multilevel analyses of data from 6,373 students in 44 Flemish schools (2004–2005) show that students in technical/vocational schools share higher feelings of futility, suggesting the existence of cultures of futility. The students’ study involvement relates to their sense of futility. The schools’ futility culture affects the students’ study involvement independent of their sense of futility. Finally, futility culture explains the association between school type and study involvement, and is responsible for less study-oriented cultures in technical/vocational schools