mixed ambitions for the most part aspire to or expect to delay family formation until after their teen years.
However, some youths plan families in relation to their other goals, while others have less to say about how
families fit into their other adult plans. For example, Tim is a 15 year old male who says that he wants to
wait to have a baby until he is 20 or 30 years old. Thus, he plans to delay having children until after his teen
years, but does not link his family plans to his educational or career plans.
Family and peers
Some youths choose careers that they associate with family members. Thirteen year old Brandi
wants to be a nurse like her grandmother. She volunteers at a hospital with her grandmother and has gained
rudimentary experience in the field that way. However, her aspirations remain mixed as she also says that
she wants to be a clothing designer.
Other youths discuss the role their parents play in encouraging them to stay in school. Felicia talks
about how her neighborhood affects her as well as her parents’ influence on remaining in school. Her family
moved through Gautreaux from Rogers Park to Streamwood, then moved to Hanover Park, another
opportunity area. She says:
Because even though we struggle a lot of time, they still keep their heads up. Most people, if you’re
living out here and if you can’t keep up with bills and stuff, in a situation like that, they’ll give up
and move back to Chicago, and go back to the violence. But they’re trying to keep a better
environment around us even though sometimes they can’t handle it. But they try to handle it and
manage to handle it. And we get through all the hard times. And they teach us how to get through
hard times and that times ain’t going to always be how we want them to be. And that we have to stay
in school if we don’t want to have hard times with money and stuff. That we got to go to school and
get a good job. And the only way to get a good job is school. So that’s what my mom and dad always
teach us and tell us.
These youths’ “college for all” approach to school may result from the high value that family place on a
college education, but these youths lack specific ways to connect that value to their occupational and other
adult goals.
School
School can play an important role both in shaping student’s aspirations as well as assisting students
in the process of actualizing their expectations. Few youth talked about significant help they got from their
schools in this regard, which reflects the fact that the majority of these youths were in under resourced inner-
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Convention