For other youth, family members provide examples of careers they want to pursue and are also
sources of information about these careers. Carla wants to do hair like her mom does, and she plans to go to
hair school to pursue this. She observes her mom’s hair business and her mom provides encouragement
about pursuing a similar career. Fifteen year-old Keisha wants to be a nurse like her mom, who has her high
school diploma and CNA training. Keisha’s mom helps her realize the education she needs to pursue this
career:
Me and my sister… We gonna do it. We gonna go to college. We gonna do [it]. ‘Cause we wanna,
our mother’s a nurse so we wanna be a nurse. My mom was tellin’ me, ‘She like Keisha, you told me
about you wanna be a nurse, do you know that you have to go to school?’ I was like ‘I’ll go to school
for that because if I want, in order for me to have a job, I mean in order for me to have an apartment
of my own, a car and all that, that’s what I gotta do. I’ll do it.’
Terrence, who plans to go to college for business, is an example of a youth whose peer relationships
influence his career and educational expectations. He attends a business seminar in real estate training to help
him prepare for his chosen major in college, and his friend Jamal goes to this seminar with him. Jamal is also
going to college and is enrolled in a school in the Chicago area. The two of them talk about college together,
make plans together, and are pursuing this training together to help them prepare for college.
Unaligned Aspirations
“College for all”
Some of the career goals of the youths in this category include professional athlete, rapper, model,
etc., and, for these goals, a college degree is not necessarily required. However, many of these youth still say
they want to go to college even though a degree is not required for their desired career, reflecting a “college
for all” ideology (Rosenbaum 2001). Many youths whose career aspirations do not require a degree do not
draw explicit connections between their education and career, but still expect to go to college. According to
Schneider and Stevenson (1999), these youths are at risk for being disappointed that their career goals are not
being met, and becoming discouraged about their education.
For example, Marcus is a 13 year-old male who wants to own his own clothing line, a common
career aspiration among these youths. He also wants to go to college, but does not know what he would study
and does not relate this to his career. He says:
It really don’t matter [how far I go in school]. Just, at least get me through college…
10
Convention