The capacity to aspire for young people is significant, as they cannot choose to be what they cannot experience or imagine becoming. Student exchange programmes that expand experiences of STEM may increase opportunities, interests, and participation for rural young people in the STEM subject field. This paper creates a cartography with data…

Aspirations predict students' trajectories, and knowledge of how youth develop and achieve goals is crucial to supporting success. However, rural students may encounter constraining conditions that can curtail their aspirations, and students of color often face institutional barriers that impact their postsecondary pathways. Guided by theories…

Digital storytelling was used in a high school classroom in the Midwestern USA as a part of the curriculum for "non-university-bound" rural youth. Though described as "unengaged", in this paper we illustrate the way this digital storytelling project redefined the teacher-student power relationship, and students responded by…

Purpose is a concept receiving increasing attention in the developmental sciences. Making sense of your place in the world and finding meaning--a process fundamental to purpose--support positive development in adolescence and beyond. Using traditional ethnographic strategies, this article examines the development of purpose among a small group of…

Questionnaires to determine political influence aspirations were distributed to 292 members of a rural Wisconsin high school junior class. Results indicated that a large proportion of these youth neither wished to nor believed that they could be politically influential at age 25 or even at age 45. (DS)

THE EDUCATIONAL AND OCCUPATIONAL ASPIRATIONS OF RURAL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS WERE STUDIED IN RELATION TO SOCIAL, CULTURAL, AND ECONOMIC FACTORS. QUESTIONNAIRES WERE ADMINISTERED TO AND COMPLETED BY 3,535 RURAL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS. SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION WAS GATHERED BY PERSONAL INTERVIEWS WITH 992 STUDENTS. COUNSELORS, ADMINISTRATORS, AND…

Changes in marriage and procreation aspirations of South Carolina high school students between 1966 and 1973 are examined. Data were collected as part of a regional project in several Southern states. During the 1966-67 school year, all 10th grade students were interviewed in 42 randomly-selected high schools stratified by students' racial…

The status projections of high school sophomores residing in rural East Texas were surveyed in spring of 1972. Focus was on their aspirations and expectations for status attainment in occupation, education, income, and type of place of residence. In each area, four elements of status projections were examined: aspiration level, expectation level,…

The 66 annotations given in this bibliography are from status projection literature resulting from U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Regional Research Project S-61 "Development of Human Resource Potentials and Mobility in the Rural South" completed by the summer of 1971. Most of the studies reported conform to the following…

The scope of this paper covered preliminary analyses and findings on historical change in occupational aspirations, occupational expectations, and intensity and aspiration of black and white Southern youths from an East Texas rural high school. Comparisons were made by race and sex only to illuminate historical changes. Surveys of approximately…

Studies regarding status aspirations among Mexican-American youth have presumed that life goals are integrated and congruent. An alternative line of inquiry is suggested which questions these assumptions and specifies types of conflicts that may arise among occupational, educational, and familial orientations. (Author)

Recent studies have applied causal models to the formation of educational and occupational attitudes. Although some were conceived and conducted for purposes other than the analysis of status attainment processes, a powerful synthesizing perspective would be to treat them as studies of components of incomplete general attainment models. This study…

The paper served as a report on research in progress that attempted to evaluate the effects of group disparity on the occupational choice of southern high school students. It focused specifically on the aspiration choices of 8,802 tenth grade students in 4 southern states: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina. The relative effects of…

Examines educational expectations, aspirations, and anticipatory goal deflections of 73 high school sophomores and seniors with a variety of racial-ethnic backgrounds from 3 isolated rural Alaska schools. Reports significant differences between groups and schools; rural Alaskan Natives showed much lower expectations and aspirations than any other…

THIS PAPER PRESENTED AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE SOUTHWESTERN SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION WAS CONCERNED WITH THE EVALUATION OF A CONCEPTUAL SCHEME DESIGNED TO STUDY SCHOOL ORIENTATION OF YOUTH AND PARTICULARLY RACIAL DIFFERENCES IN SCHOOL ORIENTATION OF RURAL YOUTH. HIGH SCHOOL SOPHOMORES RESIDING IN SELECTED LOW INCOME COUNTIES OF TEXAS WERE…