Aspiration and Determination in the Career Choices of Adolescent Boys

Education and the Social Psychology of Time

“…Even if the middle classes do value foresight and planning this does not mean that the working classes positively embrace short-run hedonism; their lack of interest in the future (if it were established) might be an index of poor social morale see (Marriott, 1969) or of fear of failure ("It is better to take a good job now than risk being disappointed later"). Cohen's theory of delinquency, however, supposes a definite reaction-formation among certain lower-class groups against dominant values; the findings reported in section 5 above and Sugarman's work on the "teenage" culture suggest that this issue could be profitably pursued.…”

“…A study by Marriott (1967) of 438 fourth-year boys in five widely contrasting schools in a northern industrial city (see Marriott, 1969 for a description of the sample) produced much less definite results. A Likert-type scale often items designed to measure "concern for the future" was constructed, containing such statements as "The person who plans ahead will be happiest in the long run" and "money spent by youngsters on motor-cycles, fashionable clothes and so on is wasted; they should save it to give themselves a good start in life"; a test-retest study with a pilot sample showed the scale to have adequate reliability.…”

“…Here is an interesting problem in interpretation: if these results were replicable it would suggest that the "sponsorship" represented by selection for a grammar school tends to reduce the importance of individual drive in some degree. To further complicate the picture it was found that in one grammar and one secondary modern school there was an association between low future-orientation and low "levels of determination" in career choice (that is, willingness to accept a relatively low level of occupational status as tolerable; see Marriott, 1969, for a discussion of this concept).…”

“…Although the broad criterion of social class as measured, say, by the head of household's occupational status continues to yield significant findings (see for example Marriott, 1969), for some purposes it is excessively broad. Criminologists and students of the sociology of work, for instance, have been concerned to identify sub-cultural groupings much more restricted than whole social classes; some educationists have brought attention to important variations of values and attitudes within a social class (Swift, 1967;Entwistle, 1968); and with the concept of "under-the-roof culture" individual families may become the focus of attention (Sprott, 1954).…”