This paper considers youth engagement with dominant discourses regarding school completion. The paper is fundamentally concerned with the way the notion of school completion is being cast, its supporting discourse and the manner in which this potentially marginalizes and excludes. The ultimate efficacy of secondary school completion in the current economic climate is not questioned, however, policy that aggressively promotes and normalizes universal Year 12 completion raises issues of equity and social exclusion for those who opt for other pathways for whatever reasons. Data are drawn from a qualitative longitudinal project tracking trade-oriented adolescent boys from five Western Australian secondary schools who undertook the same Year 11 cross-sectoral building and construction vocational education and training programme. Half of this cohort subsequently left secondary school prior to Year 12, while the other half chose to complete their final year of secondary schooling. The school completers endorsed the dominant ideas concerning the efficacy of Year 12 although few believed that they gained much academically or vocationally from their final school year. Contrary to the dominant claims made for Year 12 completion, however, the early exits tended to view their Year 12 peers as lacking in maturity, motivation and vocational commitment. Youth engagement with, and negotiation of, the dominant ideology and supporting discourse concerning the efficacy and purpose of school completion, such as that reported here, have implications for the manner in which encouragement to complete secondary school is presented to youth in the post-compulsory years.
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