A Longitudinal Investigation of African American and Hispanic Adolescents' Educational and Occupational Expectations and Corresponding Attainment in Adulthood

Abstract

Adolescents' expectations about school and work may be key antecedents of adult attainment and this relationship may vary by specific racial, ethnic, and gender groups. This article examines how educational and occupational expectations change in adolescence and how expectations predict corresponding attainment in adulthood. Participants included African American and Hispanic females and males. Educational and occupational expectations were reported at ages 14, 16, and 18, and educational and occupational attainment at ages 20 and 26. Results indicated distinct developmental trajectories per racial or ethnic and gender group. Educational expectations were more nuanced for African American and Hispanic females than for their male counterparts; occupational expectations were more varied for Hispanic females than for other groups. Educational expectations positively predicted educational attainment for all participants, whereas occupational attainment was predicted just by educational expectations and for Hispanic females and males only.

Theories School Psychologists Should Know: Culture and Academic Achievement

“…For example, Isensee and Vasquez () reported that the state of Florida “hopes to have 86 percent of White students at or above grade level in math, but for Black students, the goal is 74 percent.” In a similar move, Virginia has set different passing rates in reading and mathematics by race/ethnicity and disability status: “82 percent for Asian students, 68 percent for Whites, 52 percent for Latinos, 45 percent for Blacks and 33 percent for kids with disabilities” (Sanchez, ). Although these policies may be well‐intentioned and are premised on the differing average levels of achievement across racial/ethnic groups (Aud et al., ), they also run counter to evidence that expectations matter, including the expectations that teachers have for students (Weinstein, ) and the expectations that students have for themselves (Mello, Anton‐Stang, Monaghan, Roberts, & Worrell, ).…”

“…A host of reasons have been put forward for the achievement gap, ranging from genetics and biology (e.g., Herrnstein & Murray, ; Jensen, ) to environmental factors such as poverty and racism (Darling‐Hammond, ; Ford, , ; Kunjufu, 1985, 1986), and it is clear that no single factor fully explains this longstanding and pervasive social concern (Erwin & Worrell, ). The focus of this paper is on cultural factors and their role in explaining the achievement gap.…”

Growth trajectories of Mexican-origin adolescent mothers’ educational expectations

“…Studies using variable-centered approaches have identified that non-parenting youths’ expectations about their future schooling are largely established in adolescence and remain stable through adulthood (e.g., Mello, 2009; Trusty, 2000); importantly, these findings are generally consistent across ethnicity/race. Yet, research using a person-centered approach with a sample of non-parenting African American and Hispanic female adolescents identified four distinct patterns of change in educational expectations across late adolescence: a stable trajectory of graduate school completion, two slightly fluctuating trajectories that hovered around some college completion (one U-shaped curve, and one inverted U-shaped curve), and a stable trajectory that reflected completion of trade school (Mello, Anton-Stang, Monaghan, Roberts, & Worrell, 2012). Additional person-centered longitudinal research with Finnish youth (Tynkkynen, Tolvanen, & Salmela-Aro, 2012) documented five patterns of change in educational expectations across the transition to young adulthood (i.e., consistently high, increasing high, decreasing, consistently low, consistently very low), providing further evidence that heterogeneity in trajectories exists in patterns of change in expectations across this developmental period.…”

Mexican-origin adolescents' educational expectation trajectories: Intersection of nativity, sex, and socioeconomic status

“…Scholars who study Mexican-origin adolescents' achievement gap have focused on educational attainment (e.g., obtaining a high school degree or not), but few have focused on adolescents' educational expectations : self-assessments of the level of schooling adolescents expect to complete (Bohon, Johnson, & Gorman, 2006; Eamon, 2005). This oversight is significant as cognitive theories (Expectancy-Value Theory: Eccles & Wigfield, 2002) and research (Mello, Anton-Stang, Monaghan, Roberts, & Worrell, 2012) suggest that expectations of school success predict future educational and career attainment. Further, theory suggests that individual characteristics (i.e., nativity, sex) and family socioeconomic status (SES) can inform such expectations (García Coll et al, 1996; Wigfield, Tonks, & Eccles, 2004).…”