This article describes and highlights the potential contributions that the constructs multifinality, work hope, and possible selves make for designing career counseling interventions and for better understanding possible career-related factors associated with academic engagement and achievement among urban minority youth. Multifinality may serve…

The authors explore how individual and familial factors predict educational and career aspirations, plans, and vocational outcome expectations of urban, Chinese immigrant youths. Participants were 265 Chinese immigrant high school students in New York City. The results indicated that higher self-reported English language fluency and career-related…

Drawing from possible selves theory (H. Markus & P. Nurius, 1986), this study explored the roles of peer beliefs about school and gender differences in the development of academic and occupational visions of the future among 216 urban youths of color. Peer beliefs were not related to career and educational possible selves. No gender-based…

The authors explored the relationship between the career aspirations of 89 preadolescents from low socioeconomic backgrounds and the actual occupations of the working adults in their homes with regard to status, job gender identification, and interest (Holland, 1997). There was a significant relationship between boys' career aspirations and the…

This study explores the occupational aspirations of high school students planning to attend college by drawing on a multilayered model of college enrollment, social cognitive career theory, and multiple descriptive case studies of 15 high schools. Students' occupational aspirations and their understanding of the education required to achieve these…

Drawing primarily on the construct of psychological buffer, the purpose of this study was to explore the extent to which racism-related stress and ethnic identity are determinants of career aspirations. A total of 163 African American college students from a predominately White Midwestern university participated in the study. A moderation…

The authors examined the relationship between sexual identity, family/friend career support, and career aspirations in a sample of 381 sexual minority women. The results indicated that family career support and friend career support were positively related to career aspirations of sexual minority women. The results also indicated that the…

The authors examined the degree to which 1st-year college students endorse a career calling and how levels of calling differ across demographic variables and religiousness, life meaning, and life satisfaction. Forty-four percent of students believed that having a career calling was mostly or totally true of them, and 28% responded to searching for…

The authors investigated the relationship between adolescent occupational aspirations and midlife career success. The model for adolescent occupational aspirations was derived from Gottfredson's (1981) theory of circumscription and compromise. The authors hypothesized that parental socioeconomic status (SES), ability, and gender predict adolescent…

The authors investigated differences in college-going expectations of middle school students who would be the 1st in their families to attend college. Social-cognitive career theory (SCCT; R. W. Lent, S. D. Brown, & G. Hackett, 1994) was used to examine college-related expectations in 272 seventh-grade students. Differences were found between…

The well-documented aspiration-expectation gap refers to lower socioeconomic status (SES) adolescents of color expecting to attain occupations with lower pay and status than the occupations to which they aspire. Sociopolitical inequity, such as structural racism and asymmetrical access to resources, may explain this gap. This article examines the…

The authors assessed the career maturity of students in accelerated versus traditional academic programs. Students in traditional programs were hypothesized to be more advanced regarding their career decision making and development when compared with students in accelerated programs. The Medical Career Development Inventory (see M. L. Savickas,…

A portion of social-cognitive career theory (R. W. Lent, S. D. Brown, & G. Hackett, 1994) was tested by examining contextual factors related to the educational aspirations of 186 Mexican American high school students. A 3-step hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to determine the influence of gender, generation level, parents'…

In 1987, 208 second graders were interviewed about their occupational aspirations and expectations, school likes and dislikes, educational plans, and other variables. They were reinterviewed every 2 years through senior year in high school. A 5-year post-high school follow-up was conducted, and 35 young adults (23 years old) from the original…

Vocational development research and interventions have focused primarily on adolescents and young adults. The lack of attention to career development antecedents in children has led to a serious neglect of this period of life when the foundation is laid for career choices and outcomes in later life. A harmful by-product is the frequent preclusion…