Adolescents' occupational and educational goals: A test of reciprocal relations

During adolescence, young people's future aspirations and expectations begin to crystallize, especially in the domains of education and occupation. Much of the research in this area has emphasized development within a particular domain (e.g., education) and relations between aspirations and expectations across domains remain largely unexplored, resulting in a lack of information on how goals develop in tandem and affect each other. It is also unclear whether these developmental processes differ by gender and socioeconomic status. We tested reciprocal effects between occupational and educational goals using a longitudinal sample of 636 adolescents (52% boys). Results from dynamic systems models indicated change in occupational and educational goals across high school. For all youth, occupational aspirations predicted change in occupational expectations. Educational expectations predicted change in occupational aspirations for youth in high but not low parent education groups, and occupational expectations predicted change in educational expectations for girls but not boys.     

Explaining Educational Aspirations of Minority Students: The Role of Social Capital and Students' Perceptions

Previous literature predicts disadvantaged groups to develop low aspirations and expectations, and has often explained high aspirations of these groups in terms of irrationality and fantasy. In this paper the educational aspirations of Palestinian students in Israel are examined using data from a representative sample of high school students. The results show that: (1) despite their disadvantage within the Israeli society, Palestinian students hold very high educational aspirations; (2) their low SES and minority status do not automatically lead to low educational aspirations; and (3) educational aspirations of students are highly associated with their social capital and perceptions. Specifically, the data suggest that students' perceptions of the importance of education and of the available opportunities for success within the education system and the job market determine whether the minority students develop high educational aspirations or adopt low ones. These results are discussed in the light of the unique social, economic and political context of the Palestinian community in Israel.     

Migrants as educators: reversing the order of beneficence

ABSTRACT

The discussion of migrants’ education focuses generally on whether and how host countries should educate their migrant populations, examining the goals and moral principles underlying educational services for immigrants. While apparently innocuous, such formulations of the issue stipulate a framework with clear roles: host countries are posited as providers and immigrants as recipients of services. Host countries are, thus, placed in a hierarchical position of ‘granting’ belonging, ‘granting’ services, ‘granting’ education, as benefactors, whether for the purposes of duty, utility, or justice. In this paper, I challenge this unidirectional order of beneficence. I propose that the inclusion of migrants in public institutions should more properly be viewed (also) as providing a necessary good/service for the host communities. The encounter with the alien, the foreign, the migrant, in oneself and in one's world, forces individuals and communities to reflect on what and who they are as well as what and who they want to be – their identity and their future development. I argue that migrant populations with diverse linguistic traditions and customs are uniquely situated to bring to consciousness and help denaturalize the given traditions and culture of their host communities and thus make possible a more self-aware, informed, and freer path of development for their host countries.     

Status and familial orientations of rural Mexican-American youth: Integration and conflict within aspirational frames of reference

Studies regarding status aspirations among Mexican-American youth have presumed that life goals are integrated and congruent. In the present paper, after reviewing cultural and structural explanations of low Mexican-American attainment, an alternative line of inquiry is suggested which questions these assumptions and specifies types of conflicts that may arise among occupational, educational, and familial orientations. Using data from a survey of South Texas high school students, the prevalence of such conflicts are observed by sex, and implications for future attainment patterns are discussed.     

Exploring perceptions about the feasibility of educational video resources as a strategy to support parental involvement in youth soccer

ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to explore parents’ and coaches’ perceptions about educational video resources to support parents’ involvement in youth soccer.DesignUsing an instrumental, qualitative case study design, 21 parents and coaches were recruited to participate in an individual interview. All participants were involved in one of the developmental stages of youth sport participation (sampling, specialising or investment years) in soccer in South Australia. Elicitation tools were used in the individual interviews in the form of educational video resources designed for parents involved in youth soccer to prompt dialogue. All interview data was analysed thematically.ResultsThree main themes were developed from the thematic analysis, including ‘Importance of targeted curriculum’, ‘Integrated delivery model’ and ‘Strategies to maximise impact’ of video-based parent education. Overall, parents and coaches perceive educational video resources as a promising addition to broader strategies aimed at enhancing parental involvement in youth soccer.ConclusionsThe findings highlight parents’ and coaches’ perceptions about the potential utility of educational video resources as a tool to communicate, support and educate parents involved in youth soccer. However, the findings also highlight the need to consider how such an approach can be optimised, tailored, and supported within a broader intervention strategy.     

Sport,Girls, Trouble and Humour: Black and Indian Boys Negotiating Gender,Race and Class in a Formerly White Single Sex School in South Africa

This article reports on an interview study conducted by Deevia Bhana and Rob Pattman of Grade 11 (16–17 year old) boys attending different kinds of public schools in the Durban, South Africa. It investigated their accounts personal lives and identities as young men and women in and outside their schools. We conducted semi-structured interviews with the participants to determine how they experienced school and how they presented themselves in the interviews, their interests, aspirations, relations with other boys and girls in and out of school, and the kinds of identifications they made. The data for this are from two interviews conducted with black and Indian boys at Elmsdale, a formerly white boys' high school near Durban with an excellent academic and sporting reputation. We analyzed the data using narrative and discourse analysis. Concerns about being marginalised in school were expressed by both the black and the Indian boys. Issues of gender, race, class, sexuality and power were prominent in the interviews, notably when the boys were discussing sport, trouble, being funny and girls.     

Coping self-efficacy and psychosocial well-being of marginalised South African youth

The aim of this study was to investigate coping self-efficacy and aspects of psychosocial well-being amongst youth from marginalised backgrounds. A total of 794 black South African marginalised youth (males = 54%, females = 46%, age range between 18 and 30 years) voluntarily participated in this cross-sectional study. The participants completed surveys of coping self-efficacy, mental health, and mood disorder. Structural equation modelling was applied to construct an explanatory model for coping self-efficacy and psychosocial well-being among the marginalised youth. The resulting structural model showed that coping self-efficacy significantly and positively predicted the emotional and psychological dimensions of psychosocial well-being among the youth. Psychosocial well-being was associated with of a lower risk for symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress in these marginalised young people.     

“There is soccer but we have to watch”: the embodied consequences of rhetorics of inclusion for South African children with cerebral palsy

Twenty years after the advent of democracy in South Africa (SA), there have been some successes in the achievement of greater equality, access and inclusion for many persons with disabilities. The move towards inclusive education may, however, have had unanticipated embodied consequences for people positioned discursively as included, but who in fact may in some respects be further marginalised than they had been under apartheid. We describe ethnographic research conducted in a special needs school in SA to explore the lived experiences of children with cerebral palsy and their involvement in physical activity. Our study shows how inclusive educational practices in SA have impeded involvement in sport for some children with motor impairments because of resource limitations and other historic reasons. This paper raises important questions about the role of community psychology in recognising, naming and contributing to action around injustices, which may be hard to see but which can have profound effects on the lives and bodies of those who experience exclusion. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Good omens? The intricate relations between educational and vocational identity in adolescence

Abstract

This study examines the relation between educational and vocational identity in Romanian adolescents. Access to work-relevant experiences is very limited among Romanian adolescents, and most encounters with career constructs are confined to educational settings. Hence, to gain a better understanding of how identity processes in the educational and vocational domains support or inhibit each other, we aimed at investigating: (a) educational and vocational identity statuses through cluster analysis and (b) associations between identity statuses in these life domains. Participants were 1551 Romanian youth, aged 14–20 (39.3% girls), who completed measures of educational and vocational identity. Results indicated that, in the Romanian context, educational and vocational identities are closely linked, as adolescents draw information for future career development mostly from their educational experiences. Implications for youth policies and for applied interventions sensitive to socioeconomic and cultural realities are discussed.     

The changing meaning of sport during forced immigrant youths' acculturative journeys

ObjectivesTo facilitate intercultural understanding by centralizing forced immigrant youths' voices in the knowledge development phase of a community-based participatory action research (CBPAR) project. The aim of this paper is to reveal the role of sport in forced immigrant youths' acculturative journeys in different communities.MethodologyWe utilized ‘get-to-know-you’ arts-based conversational interviews (m time = 38 min) held at the onset of a community-based participatory action research project. A polyphonic (i.e., multi-voiced) vignette is used to portray an interpretive account of the stories told by 22 refugee and asylum seeking (i.e., forced immigrant) youth (m age – 13.4 years) developed through a reflexive thematic analysis.ResultsThe three-scene polyphonic vignette stories the role sport has played, and continues to play, in forced immigrant youths' life journeys. The opening scene brings to light stories related to home country sport involvement. The second scene depicts how sport was engaged in during their journey to their current host community. The third scene completes the story focusing on how youth engage in sport during resettlement in their host Canadian community.ConclusionsThe meaning of sport, and what it means to be safe in sport, changes over the course of forced immigrant youths' acculturative journeys. Feeling safe in sport offers a unique opportunity for youth to feel a sense of sharing their acculturative journey with those around them.     

Do Mixed Unions Foster Integration? The Educational Outcomes of Mixed-Parentage Children in Italy

We investigate the nexus between intermarriage and immigrant integration by analyzing mixed-parentage children’s educational outcomes. We use Italian Labor Force Survey data to compare the upper secondary school participation of children of different types of mixed unions with that of children of two native and two migrant couples. Our results show that mixed-parentage children perform halfway between natives and immigrants, but their educational careers are highly heterogeneous. Among families with non-Western origins, mixed-parentage children improve substantially with respect to their peers with two migrant parents. But if the mother was born abroad, the children still exhibit higher dropout risks and lower general school enrolment as compared to children of natives and all other mixed-parentage children. A pivotal role in accounting for this educational disadvantage is played by the higher incidence in this specific type of union of nonstandard family dynamics and household fragilities that may give rise to less parental monitoring and lower educational performance. This finding is consistent with a prediction based on the status exchange theory, according to which such unions are more likely affected by instability and conflict.     

Stuck in a Vicious Cycle? Career Aspirations and Entrapment Among Turkish Au Pairs in the United States

While the service demands of au pair programs have come under much scrutiny, less visible are the ways in which au pair positions are utilized as a career transformation strategy for skilled young women. Building on in-depth and semi-structured interviews with a dozen college-educated Turkish au pairs who left their jobs in Turkey to take care of children abroad, this study shows how young women hope to utilize the educational component of the au pair year to realize their aspirations for career change. However, attempting to stretch the au pair system beyond its original purpose runs the risk of trapping mobile young women in a continuing cycle of service jobs that hinder their academic and career goals. The study shows that transient positions provide only a limited venue to create sufficient human capital and capability to realize such aspirations, instead leading to the effective entrapment of young women abroad in potentially precarious legal and financial positions.     

Occupational Aspirations of Selected Appalachian Youth

This study examines the concepts that Appalachian youth have concerning their probable life work. After comparing and contrasting these students with a group of native and Appalachian migrant students in an Ohio city, the following results were noted: (a) Appalachian youth who stay in the geographic area have a significantly lower aspirational level than do those students who are native to a rurban area; (b) the Appalachian youth have different personal role models and characteristics for success than those students who have migrated from the Appalachian area; (c) one of the major problems in raising the occupational aspirations of Appalachian students appears to be lack of information and opportunity rather than lack of ability.     

Empowering Change Agents: Youth Organizing Groups as Sites for Sociopolitical Development

In addition to social action campaigns, some youth organizing groups provide formative learning experiences which engage youth in relevant sociopolitical issues through critical approaches. These groups support sociopolitical development (SPD), a self and socially‐oriented process which influences youth personally, politically, and professionally into adulthood. This study explored how youth organizing experiences influenced SPD in the professional domain, applying an empowerment lens. Phenomenologically‐based interviews were conducted with former sexual health education youth organizers and adult program staff. Former youth participants chose socially‐oriented career paths influenced by the group's empowering approach to sexual health education and advocacy. They related meaningful sociopolitical learning experiences (e.g., interpersonal, educational, and civic engagement) to empowerment outcomes (e.g., political efficacy, critical awareness, and participatory behaviors) which informed career decisions. Professionally, participants sought to empower others as the group empowered them, drawing upon youth organizing social and human capital as they worked toward this aim. Combining sociopolitical and empowerment theorizing, the study adds to what is known about how purposefully designed youth organizing experiences support long‐term development outcomes for individuals. Viewed as socially‐oriented career development sites, youth organizing groups build capacity for social change beyond the groups themselves. Implications for youth organizing scholars and practitioners are provided.     

Neighborhood Context and Perceptions of Stress Over Time: An Ecological Model of Neighborhood Stressors and Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Resources

We examine the association between neighborhood socio-economic disadvantage and perceived stress during middle and late adolescence among African American youth (N = 665; 51 % female; M = 15.9 years at baseline). In addition, we explored the ways through which neighborhood stressors interacted with an individual’s intra- and interpersonal resources (e.g., coping, social support and substance use), to affect their perceived stress trajectories during adolescence. First, we tested a neighborhood stressors model and found that youth who lived in neighborhoods with greater socioeconomic disadvantage had higher baseline stress and a steeper increase in stress over time. When we included individual-level risk and promotive factors in the model, however, the effect of neighborhood disadvantage on perceived stress was no longer significant, and the stress trajectory was explained by adolescent substance use, social support and perceptions of the neighborhood. Our results support theories of stress and coping, and the importance of proximal intra- and interpersonal factors in either amplifying or mitigating perceptions of stress. We discuss implications of the neighborhood context and how our findings may inform future prevention and intervention related to adolescent stress and development.     

Focusing on children and youth: The role of social capital in educational outcomes in the context of immigration and diversity

Social capital matters for young people, especially for immigrant and minority youth; however what counts as social capital for young people is poorly specified. This paper reviews recent studies on the influences of parents, communities and schools; then focuses on youth social networks that begin to reveal how young people form, develop and use social capital. In light of this knowledge base, we address social and educational policy-making, making suggestions for capacity building for future policy and research. We conclude with recommendations toward a model of social capital accumulation.     

Exclusion and Discrimination: Zimbabwean Migrant Children and South African Schools

Post-2005 migration movements from Zimbabwe to South Africa have included a growing number of children. These children face considerable difficulties in accessing the South African educational system. School attendance rates are significantly lower amongst migrant than South African children. This paper is based on recent interviews with Zimbabwean parents and guardians in Cape Town and Johannesburg and shows the levels and types of discrimination they and their children face as well as their powerlessness to effect change. The exclusion of migrant children from education contravenes South Africa’s international human rights obligations as well as its own Bill of Rights and Department of Education directives. The Department of Home Affairs, however, makes schools sites for the enforcement of the draconian provisions of the 2002 Immigration Act. School authorities therefore operate with conflicting mandates. The evidence suggests that most prefer to side with the Department of Home Affairs and make their schools unwelcoming spaces for Zimbabwean children.     

“Women easily feel that they have lost a year if they don’t ski faster”: Finnish ski coaches’ discursive constructions of gendered dual career pathways

ObjectivesEarlier qualitative researchers studying athletes’ dual careers (DCs) have shown that sociocultural discourses on gender are ingrained in DC policies and practices, creating gender inequalities and hierarchies. In this study, we aimed to extend this body of research by examining how Finnish elite youth ski coaches discursively construct athletes’ education and gender in their talk and coaching practices. Similarly, we examined how coaches’ beliefs about athletes' holistic development are interlinked with broader sociocultural discourses on gender.DesignQualitative study.MethodsWe conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 Finnish ski coaches (seven male, three female) aged 25–62 years (M = 38.5), and then analyzed the data using reflexive thematic analysis, interpreted through a feminist poststructuralist lens.FindingsCoaches’ discursive practices regarding education depended on their athletes' ages. For athletes in secondary education, the coaches predominantly drew on DC discourses that emphasized the compatibility of sports and education, but for athletes transitioning to senior-level sports, they drew on dominant performance discourses, believing that athletes at the senior level should prioritize their sports. Moreover, coaches discursively constructed athletic development as especially important for female athletes, who were perceived as less capable of excelling in sports and therefore needing to invest in multiple careers.ConclusionsBy drawing on gender stereotypes and binary understandings of gender, the coaches discursively reproduced gender hierarchies and unequal power relations in sports. These gendered discourses influence athletes' DC aspirations and the gendering of DC pathways.     

Can We Uncouple Neighborhood Disadvantage and Delinquent Behaviors? An Experimental Test of Family Resilience Guided by the Social Disorganization Theory of Delinquent Behaviors

Although the influence of neighborhood disadvantage on youth development of delinquent behavior is well established, findings from this research have yet to inform the development of family-centered prevention programming to protect youth from these erosive effects. The current paper examines the role of family integration in buffering the impact of social disadvantage in a sample of N = 298 families randomly assigned either to a control condition or to a family-based prevention program previously shown to enhance marriage and parenting. We first confirmed that neighborhood concentrated disadvantage predicted change in delinquent behaviors across the course of the study. Additionally, replicating prior work, parents participating in the Protecting Strong African American Families (ProSAAF) program, relative to those randomly assigned to the control group, significantly improved their use of effective communication strategies with each other and reduced ineffective conflict in front of youth. This resulted in a significant indirect effect of ProSAAF on change in youth delinquent behaviors. Furthermore, using mediated moderation analysis, the study tested the buffering effect of greater family integration, showing that experimentally produced change in interparental communication skills and the resulting reduction in youth exposure to parental conflict buffered the effect of neighborhood disadvantage on change in youth delinquent behaviors, supporting a mediated moderation model in which family environments buffer neighborhood effects.     

The role of psychological control,socioeconomic status and academic achievement in parents' educational aspirations for their adolescent children

The present study examined the associations between mothers' and fathers' psychological control, socioeconomic status (SES) and their role in parents' educational aspirations for their adolescent children. Moreover, we examined to what extent SES and psychological control predicted their child's grade point average (GPA) and educational aspirations. A total of 1,034 Finnish adolescents aged 15 to 16 and their parents (720 mothers, 542 fathers) were surveyed at the beginning of the last grade of compulsory school. The results showed that the use of psychological control was more common among parents with lower SES. Moreover, the lower parents' SES was and the more psychological control they imposed, the lower were their educational aspirations for their adolescent children and lower was their child's GPA. The impact of SES was partially mediated by psychological control. The effects were similar for mothers and fathers.