Data from 34,118 American high school students were used to determine patterns o[ responses (/qcior structures, -' reliabilities, means, and standard deviations) to an Indicator of level of occupational aspirahon (LOA). Comparable analyses were performed on the total group and / / .¥iXteen mutually exclusive and exluiustive sub samples cross-classified by sex, lower and higher .-' . socioeconomic natus (SES). and grade in high school (9~12). LOA appears to be a single-facto'r ~concept in the' total sample and in each sub8ampie. Contrary to previous thinking, no evidence ;p 008 found of nontrivilli response pattern variations in realism or idealism by grade. The only .. n,pntriPial ~ differences in. reSponse patterns concerned the reliabilities, which were slightly lOwer for females than for males. SES differences were found only for means. Idealistic LOAs (stJ..caHed «aspirations'~ are as meaningful and as variable as realistic LOAs (so~caOed "expectations·~.' Both contribute to the same underlying psychological dimension, LOA. LOA response patter713 are essentially the same for boys as for girls and for youth in a.ll high school grades. By analogy, the analysis also elucidates certain parallel concepts: level of educational aspiration ane! ~ificant others' levels of occupational and educational expectation.S everal recent publications (Sewell, et al., 1969;Sewell, et al., 1970;Haller and Portes, 1973;Sewell and Hauser, 1972) have demonstrated the key role in early adult occupa-/ tiona! status attaiiJJnentpiayed by levels ofoe-. 61lpational aspiration (LOA) formed by the . . ·t11e youth is in high school. Specifically, we have found path coefficients describing the influence of 1957 LOA on 1964 occupational attainment of .14, .11, .10, .17, and .16 for young· Wisconsin men from farms, villages, small c~ties, medium sized cities, and large cities, respectively (Sewell, et al., 1970). This effect is in addition to the substantial effect of education and otheraniecedentvariables onaecupational attainment. That th~ is not just hap-1 The writer$ wish to thank Carl B. Hereford and penstance due tq the Wisconsin research site is Paul B. Messier for kindly permitting this secondary attested by the fact that similar coefficients analysis of data collected under a gIiI11t from the have been found to describe the relationship of United States Office of Education. We also gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Science. adolescent LOA to adult occupational status at-Founjation (Grant GS-29031), the University of tainments in at least two other data sets. In one Wisconsin (Madison) College of Agricultural and ille of these. a path coefficient of p = .13 was found Sciences, the Spencer Foundation (by means of a (after controlling educational attainment) begrant to the University's .School of Education), and tween the 1959 LOAs of COsta Rican high' the Research Committee of the University"s Graduate School for computer funds. We thank Lylas school boys and their 1968 occupational Brown and Maria Ciga1iovich for techn...
