How Much of What We Study Is Actually Our Own Choice?

Have you ever gone to buy a coffee and ordered your usual? Why that one? Probably not because you tried every coffee on the menu and crowned a winner. More likely, it reflects how much money was in your account that day, or a cappuccino your mum once bought you that you’ve never quite moved on from. Our educational choices work in similar ways, often to a much greater extent. It can feel as if everyone has an opinion on what is best for you, and what you actually want gets tangled up in other people’s expectations. This article explores those influences. I hope it helps you reflect on what you might study, and sort through what society expects of you so you can choose what’s best for you.

Firstly, the most obvious influence is parental and familial pressure. Parents often teach us to read, and they show us whether it is “normal” to be curious and to enjoy learning. This can seep into our subconscious and shape whether we think we are hard-working, or smart enough for a certain course. Encouragement matters too. A parent who praises effort and welcomes questions quietly tells a child that learning is something they can do.

Yet direct pressure is less common than we might expect. Hegna and Smette (2017) studied Norway, where the choice of what to study is meant to be the young person’s own from the age of 15 or 16. Most students there experienced little or no direct pressure from their parents, and most described their educational choices as “their own”. The main exception was immigrant parents, especially those from lower-middle or working-class backgrounds. These families were more likely to push, which the study links to a “migration legacy”: the hope that the next generation will use education to establish the family in a new country.

The most striking finding, though, was about negative pressure. When parents held strong, negative opinions, these became one of the biggest factors in a student’s choice. They complicated the process and threatened young people’s sense of autonomy, and the effect was significant only for female students. Parents could also add confusion in quieter ways, for example by questioning whether leisure interests should guide an educational path at all. So for most students, day-to-day parental pressure is small. That doesn’t mean it is absent. Parents’ deepest influence may lie in how we first learn to see school, and that influence is quiet rather than forceful.

When choosing what to study, you might also turn to a professional, such as a teacher. But have you considered their hidden biases? Streaming is a revealing example. Grades obviously matter, yet Riley and Ungerleider (2012) found that equally capable students were not equally likely to be placed in higher streams. In their Canadian study, teachers tended to place high-achieving Aboriginal students lower, partly because they anticipated stress or pressure in the students’ home lives. The decision may be well-meant, but it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The consequences can be severe. In the UK, a student entered for foundation-tier GCSE maths is capped at a grade 5, while those on the higher paper can reach a grade 9. A capped student will struggle to move on to higher maths and science. They are more likely to believe they aren’t “good at” the subject, and they are also formally limited in what they can study. Their choice has been narrowed before they ever make it.

Advice can be biased too. Students are often told to ask teachers or careers advisors what to do next. Riley (2015) found that teachers tended to hold higher expectations of students whose backgrounds resembled their own. Factors like work ethic, social maturity, socioeconomic status and family background all fed into placement decisions. This suggests that advice may favour students who look like the adviser. Those who don’t may be encouraged less, or pushed too hard too early, and withdraw from a subject as a result. For students from minority or underprivileged backgrounds, teachers may therefore shape later study even more than parents do.

But what about the people around us every day? Friends and classroom norms also play a part. Kilduff (1992) found that in organizational settings, people’s choices were shaped by those of their friends. School offers an easy parallel. A large friend group decides on the same sixth form or university, and you don’t want to be left out, so you apply too, even if your course is stronger elsewhere. Going alone feels new and unsafe, and you may not want to cause an argument. This fear of confrontation can hold back your studies. Thankfully, many students avoid the trap, as friendship groups often fall apart at the point of higher education.

The opposite situation can limit you as well. If you have no friend group, or are bullied, you may avoid certain schools or classrooms, which reduces your chances of reaching better institutions. Both patterns are understandable, as we naturally avoid change when we are comfortable. But the easiest option is not always the best one.

Then there are the deeper, cultural influences. Could the media we see, or traditional ideas of who studies what, change our sense of what is possible? UNESCO reports that women still make up only around 35% of STEM graduates worldwide. The studies on teachers focused far more on class, ethnicity and language than on gender, which suggests that inside the classroom, gender may matter less than those factors. That is what makes the 35% figure interesting. If gender is not shaping opportunities at the point of placement, the influence may be arriving earlier or elsewhere, in the home, the media and the people we see working in a field.

In conclusion, our decisions are shaped by many factors: family, teachers, friends and the wider culture. Most students feel in control of what they study, and the Norwegian data supports that. But feeling free is not the same as being free. A teacher’s streaming decision can quietly close doors, and parental expectations can steer us long before we notice. So the real question is less whether we choose, and more how much of the choosing happened before we were aware of it.