Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of Wyoming, 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Nov. 13, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 102-104).

Researchers hold numerous perceptions of the educational aspirations and future career choices of teenage girls. Studies argue that factors such as the curriculum, teachers' and parents' attitudes, the impact of HIV/AIDS, and teenage pregnancy, influence girls' future educational and occupational hopes and dreams either positively or negatively. Other researchers claim that learners' career choice is limited by their potential and school performance. The existing literature also suggests that girls have lower self-esteem and levels of achievement than boys. This research seeks to gain insight into high school girls' perceived academic and vocational prospects. The research was carried out in an interpretive paradigm. Six secondary school female learners from one school participated in the study. Semistructured interviews were the core method of data collection, supplemented by questionnaires and a focus group interview. As teenagers, the girls were expected to already have started to think about their future hopes and dreams. The findings revealed that all the girls seemed to experience school as a place where they could acquire knowledge about what they needed to make them autonomous and successful in adult life. For them, their parents remained their major significant others. They regarded fear of poverty as a major factor motivating them to achieve their educational and vocational aspirations. Peer pressure appeared not to be a major determinant of these girls' successes in school. The girls believed that there is a relationship between their academic performance and their future vocational choice. In addition, the girls did not see boys as a threat to their climbing the ladder of success.

I demonstrate that household investments in children's education in Ethiopia are affected by parents' self-beliefs (such as their locus of control), parents' aspirations for children's educational attainment, children's conceptions of their roles and identities in the household and at school, and children's own preferences, all concepts not widely studied in development economics. Two empirical chapters report on a field experiment in which randomly selected adults watched documentaries about role models who were poor but succeeded in agriculture or small business. Six months later, parents' self-beliefs and aspirations for children's education were higher in the treatment than in the placebo and control groups. Enrolment of children in school, spending on education, saving and use of credit also increased. A third empirical chapter draws on longitudinal qualitative research to argue that children's preferences for their time allocation between work and school are strongly influenced by the desire to comply with valued identities as students and as independent earners and contributors to the household. The fourth chapter suggests that understanding children's preferences might improve predictions about their reaction to education policies. The literature predicts an increase in time in school will not improve test scores: children will reduce effort because they desire a limited amount of learning. I find a reform to lengthen the Ethiopian primary school day improves test scores. Although this could occur through many mechanisms, one possibility is that children do not prefer to limit their desired amount of learning. This suggests that better evidence on children's preferences might improve prediction of the effects of policies to alter school inputs. The conclusion reflects on whether the empirical relevance of concepts of self-beliefs, aspirations and identities implies that assumptions in standard models of decision-making in economics about the characteristics of beliefs and preferences ought to be rejected. I argue that these ideas can be captured by existing economic concepts of beliefs and preferences and by standard assumptions about these concepts. I suggest that, contrary to recent accounts building on human capital theory, self-beliefs should be viewed as beliefs, not non-cognitive skills. I consider aspirations as a type of preference, shaped by both objective constraints and self-beliefs. I consider identity as a preference for complying with a social role, but highlight that such preferences are often altruistic, rather than self-interested. In conclusion, I argue that economics should draw further on other social sciences, including psychology, to develop substantive theories of the formation and characteristics of beliefs and preferences. Doing so will suggest when it is appropriate to apply standard models and how their assumptions can be modified if their predictions do not hold.

It is thus the purpose of this study to explore the educational aspirations of a group of high school students whose ethnic background is Chinese with the intention of filling the gap in sociological research that has overlooked the Chinese community. As there are many opposing theories on the subject of aspiration, this case study of Chinese students seeks to clarify some of the theoretical perspectives and their problems. Moreover, any study of a minority group would inevitably expose some of the problems that the group faces. Once the nature of the problems is identified and understood, hopefully, solutions may be forthcoming. It is for these research, theoretical, and practical reasons that the present study is undertaken.

Vocational disruption for survivors of interpersonal trauma has been noted by both practitioners and researchers. While limited empirical support exists, a firm theoretical framework and a full range of outcomes have not been explored. Guided by the framework of social cognitive career theory (SCCT), a promising framework recommended in the previous literature, the aim of the current study was to explore the function of contextual barriers and supports as predictors of career decision self-efficacy (CDSE). Due to the lack of consistency in previous research and absent theoretical specification of the particular mode of intervening variables, both mediation and moderation were explored using multiple regression. The results indicate the relationship between background factors (i.e., childhood maltreatment) and CDSE was fully mediated by an indirect pathway via personal factors (i.e., trauma-related symptoms) and learning experiences (i.e., anxious and avoidant attachment with a career-related mentor) in the prediction of CDSE. The results also indicate that personal factors (i.e., trauma-related symptoms) function as a moderator between background factors (i.e., childhood maltreatment) and learning experiences as anxious attachment with a career-related mentor. Finally, learning experiences as anxious attachment with a career-related mentor moderated the relationship between personal factors (i.e., trauma-related symptoms) and CDSE. Overall, within the SCCT model, the proposed predictors help explain differences in CDSE as related to childhood maltreatment through mediation and moderation. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of parental educational involvement, acculturation and self-esteem on the academic performance and academic aspirations of Mexican American adolescents.

This research examined the relationships between international students' acculturation levels and their motives for study abroad, residency intentions regarding the United States, English proficiency, and length of residency in the United States. Implications are discussed, including how the understanding of students' motives can be used in counseling and recruitment of international students.

Much has been done to promote the use of management techniques designed to develop human resources within the business enterprise. Unfortunately, most of these procedures are applied after the individual has become an employee of the firm. Similar management techniques are needed for the proper recruitment and placement of each new employee. A major source of employee dissatisfaction and turnover lies in the incapacity of some jobs to satisfy the aspirations and job values of certain types of employees. Therefore, one key to employment stability for the college graduate is the relative compatibility between his job values and the capacity of the job to provide fulfillment for those aspirations. Much needs to be done in the areas of predicting the job values of a college senior and matching the individual graduate with that job which is most apt to provide a productive and meaningful career. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between grade point averages, job values, and career decisions as perceived by the Ma3 1973, graduating seniors of the College of Business Administration at North Texas State University, their professors, and their employment recruiters. The students provided background data such as grade point average, SAT scores, and marital status in addition to Likert-type rankings of family experiences and job values. The professors also provided rankings of their job values. Those employers who had interviewed seniors through the Business Employment Services office during the spring semester of 1973 ranked the same job values and selected student characteristics in accordance with the emphasis placed upon them during recruitment. Significant relationships were identified through the calculation of product-moment correlation coefficients. Comparisons were made utilizing t-tests of significance.

The purpose of this study was to identify the occupational aspirations and expectations of students majoring in jazz studies, and to investigate relationships between students' aspirations, expectations and selected variables including significant others, choice of school, instrument type, academic achievement, academic level, socioeconomic status, age, gender, and early jazz experience. All jazz studies majors enrolled at the University of North Texas during the Spring 2001 academic semester responded to a pilot test questionnaire (return rate 85%, N = 211). Frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviations described the students' occupational aspirations, occupational expectations, backgrounds and training in jazz prior to entering UNT, and determined the extent to which parents, relatives, teachers, friends, and role models helped steer them into jazz (Pearson r, Spearman Rho and Point Biserial correlation coefficients provided). The low to moderate positive correlation between aspirations and expectations (r = 0.43) indicated that the two variables were different and measured different types of occupations. Fifty percent of students aspired to be jazz performers whereas 29.7% expected to be jazz performers. While 42% aspired to be engaged in a combination of occupational activities, 48% expected a combination of occupational activities. Only 4.7% aspired to teach; however, almost 16% expected to be engaged in teaching. Low positive correlations were found between aspirations and significant others, expectations and significant others, expectations and gender, and expectations and role models. Respondents indicated that role models (jazz musicians, community musicians, and college instructors) had contributed the most to their decision to major in jazz. Recommendations for educators, researchers, and improvements to the questionnaire are provided.

While the connection between major choice and career goals seems logically obvious, research exploring this process is limited, particularly concerning how socio-economic class, based on parents' educational levels, influences the choice process. An important initial step in understanding this larger process is to explore how SES-based differences affect the process of choosing a major, a career goal and the way in which students link their major to a possible career. This study utilizes a comparative interview design to explore the lived experiences regarding major and career aspirations of first generation and traditional college seniors who have transferred from a community college to Portland State University. This study considers a first generation student to be any student that does not have a parent that has graduated from a four-year university in the United States. A traditional student is any student that has one or more parents who have earned at least a four-year degree in the U.S. Using a conceptual framework based on Pierre Bourdieu's work on social reproduction, this qualitative interview study examines how social and cultural capital as well as habitus influences first generation and traditional community college transfer students' choice of career, major and the link these students make between the two. This research found that the majority of students, both first generation and traditional community college transfer students, gained domain specific information that helped them with their major and or career goals from mentors such as, professors and academic advisers. However, Traditional students received "life advice" and encouragement from family members and employers that helped them to stay on track and gain inside information regarding their career choices. Traditional students used their past and current work history to assist them in strengthening their chances at realizing their career goals. Many traditional students planned to use the degrees they earned at college to advance within fields they already were working in. In comparison, it was only after they started college and settled on specific majors that first generation students looked for work experiences to help explore possible occupational outcomes. Another major difference between the two groups of students was that traditional students linked their majors to multiple jobs in an occupational area while first generation students linked their major to specific occupational positions. While there has been a large amount of research in the United States using Bourdieu's theory to examine how micro processes of language and teacher's expectations are utilized to maintain social stratification in K-12 education, there has been little research done on the micro processes that occur in college that lead to the reproduction of social class. This thesis illustrates how family background-based advantages that lead to differences in students' K-12 success actually continue after they enter higher education. By drawing attention to the importance of how family-background impacts major and career choices for community college transfer students after they arrive at the university, this thesis contributes to Bourdieu's explanation of how education at all levels contributes to the reproduction of a socially stratified society.