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Many students had high educational and occupational aspirations, regardless of
socioeconomic background. One junior high school
student with failing grades
wanted to be a lawyer. Some high school students wanted to be athletes, doctors,
and engineers. Many cases of similar optimism about career goals were found at
schools in all areas at all research sites.
One student who was taking several vocational courses in math and science at
Uptown High School in Metro City was enrolled in the metal works program for
11th-grade students. In addition to drafting, gym, and trigonometry, she was taking
technical math,
technical English, and machine shop. Her grades were average.
Although these courses were not at the college preparatory level, she was plan-
ning to attend a 4-year college to become an electrical engineer. When we asked
about the level of her course selections, she said that her schedule was rigorous
enough to prepare her for college. In reality, the courses she was taking probably
would not prepare her for the academic rigor
of most engineering programs,
which typically require high-level math and science skills.
In fact, like most students at most of the high schools we visited, the majority
of students at Uptown High School were not taking courses that were sufficiently
rigorous for selective 4-year colleges and universities. As the student described
above, many students reported high educational and occupational aspirations, but
these aspirations were not matched by an appropriate selection of academic
classes or by their success within these classes. In contrast,
students in affluent
districts with similarly high aspirations were more likely to be taking rigorous
courses. A number of these students were taking calculus and other advanced
math courses during their senior year.
Encouraging students to hold high aspirations may have an important function.
One parent of a low-achieving student encouraged her daughter’s high aspirations
as a way of maintaining commitment to school. Although her daughter was doing
poorly in school, the mother of a girl attending Metropolitan School talked to us
about how she encouraged her daughter’s occupational aspirations:
I told her she got to go to school, finish the
eighth grade and go to high
school. She got to finish high school. I told her don’t be like your mother who
dropped out. She tells me when she gets old she wants to be a doctor or a
lawyer. I say you got to go for it. If that’s what you want, you gonna have
to stay in school. You have to go to high school and you have to go to college.
I want her to have a college degree. I don’t want her having babies.
Some of the educators we interviewed pointed to an acute need for career guid-
ance for students who do not plan to go to college or who do not have special
talents. In their opinion, schools need to provide
more career guidance than is
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currently available to address the issue of individual differences. The principal of
South Central, for example, argued that the low-achieving students at his school
need to learn the value of regular occupations, so that they can learn to hold real-
istic aspirations:
I know of a bus driver who sent five kids to college. He worked and was care-
ful about spending his money. Most of the kids here think that driving buses
is not where the money is at. They think of all the glitz and glamour.
The stories we heard illustrate
how Americans value optimism, choice, and oppor-
tunity. This was manifested in the school setting in various ways, most notably
in the area of college and career counseling. In the context of career guidance,
this means that many Americans encourage aspirations for highly competitive
occupations and are uncomfortable with programs that limit educational and occu-
pational opportunities based on the economic background,
achievement level, or
the ability and talent of students. Many parents, as well as teachers, did indeed
encourage high occupational aspirations in their children and minimized the role
of individual differences in ability as an impediment to achieving these aspirations.
Others, however, seemed to suggest that more realistic preparation for low-profile
careers might serve the needs of some students better.
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