the level of neighborhood influence (Case and Katz 1991; Crane 1991; Ellen and Turner 1997; Elliot et al.
1996; Jencks and Mayer 1990; Leventhal and Brooks-Gunn 2000).
The context of one’s neighborhood can affect various aspects of youths’ ambitions, including
educational, occupational, and family expectations and outcomes. For teenage females, living in high poverty
neighborhoods increases the risk of adolescent and non-marital childbearing (Brooks-Gunn et al. 1993;
Crane 1991; Jencks and Mayer 1990; Massey, Gross and Eggers 1991). Neighborhood effects on non-marital
childbearing may be especially influential for black females living in inner-cities (Crane 1991). Thus,
individual family formation outcomes are not simply the result of individual expectations but are influenced
by neighborhood level factors as well. Youths’ educational and occupational ambitions and outcomes
intersect with these family decisions. Teenagers who have lower educational aspirations are at greater risk
for early sexuality, and not succeeding in school may reduce one’s motivation to avoid pregnancy (Hofferth
1987). Research suggests that youths who begin families early, those with teen-age or young adult births, for
instance, are less likely to graduate from high school, and attend college (Hofferth 1987; Hofferth and Moore
1979). Youths who form families early may find themselves in careers that are lower-paying, and may be
more likely to experience spells of unemployment and dependence on welfare (Hofferth 1987).
Because we use qualitative interviews to explore whether and how youths’ educational,
occupational, and family expectations align, and their perceptions of obstacles to the realizations of their
plans, our intention is not to parse out the causal relationships among factors that may account for the
matching of respondents’ educational, occupational, and family aspirations and expectations. Instead, we
provide description of how our respondents perceive that their parents and families, peers, schools, and
neighborhoods influence the process of shaping and aligning their educational, occupational, and family
plans. We ask: How do the Gautreaux youths form plans to pursue their educational, occupational, and
family goals? Do their plans reflect competing ideologies of success? What factors do youths perceive to
influence this process? What do they perceive are obstacles in aligning and realizing their educational,
occupational, and family plans?
Data and Methods
5
Convention