Social Class and Expectations of Rural Adolescents: The Role of Parental Expectations

This study investigated mechanisms involved in the intergenerational transmission of social class, specifically addressing the prediction of career expectations. The results indicated that among rural high school students (N= 200) in Grades 10-12, there was no direct effect of socioeconomic status (SES; as measured by parent education and occupation) on career expectations. However, there was a direct effect of educational expectations on occupational expectations. Building on the importance of educational expectations in the prediction of occupational expectations, the results suggested that perceived parental expectations explain variance in educational expectations. Overall, it seems that the effect of SES on occupational expectations was mediated by educational expectations; therefore, individuals of lower SES who have increased educational expectations are more likely to have occupational expectations similar to those of their higher SES peers. Moreover, increased parental expectations were positively associated with educational expectations among individuals of various SES levels.When asked what they want to be when they grow up, many times children and adolescents mention careers similar to those of their parents. Even when the occupations differ, individuals tend to select jobs that will allow them to maintain the same level of socioeconomic status (SES) in which they were raised, thus indicating that social class, also referred to as SES, is transmitted from generation to generation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the intergenerational transmission of social class among rural adolescents.Classical attainment theory, as put forward by Blau and Duncan ( 1967), suggests a causal model explaining how social class is transmitted directly from parents' occupations to the occupation of the child. In contrast to direct transmission, indirect transmission occurs when the effects of parents' occupations on the child's selected occupation are mediated by educational level, as indicated by results obtained from a cross-sectional sample (Blau & Duncan, 1967). Thus, education is thought to play an essential role in social mobility. Arbona (2000) suggested that without "educational attainment the range of career choices individuals have is very constrained" (p. 270). Recent findings have supported the indirect transmission of social class (de Graaf & Kalmijn, 2001; Hill et al., 2004). Although the intergenerational transmission of social class has been established, there is a need to understand the process in which this takes place as adolescents transition into adulthood. Investigating occupational/career expectations, which are predictive of occupational attainment (Schoon, 2001; Schoon & Parsons, 2002), as well as addressing educational expectations, which precede educational attainment (Andres, Adamuti-Trache, Yoon, Pidgeon, & Thomsen, 2007; Dubow, Boxer, & Huesmann, 2009; Hill et al., 2004; Jacobs, Karen, & McClelland, 1991; Ou & Reynolds, 2008; Rojewski & Kim, 2003), allows for researchers to gain insight into the mechanism in which social class is transmitted. With the exception of Sewell, Haller, and Portes (1969), whose original Wisconsin Model of Status Attainment was based on sons of farmers growing up in Wisconsin, few studies have examined the intergenerational transmission of social class among adolescents living in nonurban communities.Social status is a significant predictor of occupational aspirations (Mau & Bikos, 2000; Rojewski & Yang, 1997; Schoon & Parsons, 2002) and expectations (Mello, 2009). Moreover, it has been proposed that SES is related to educational expectations (Haller & Virkler, 1993; Hill et al., 2004; Rojewski & Kim, 2003). Recognizing the relationship between SES and educational expectations provides a foundation for studying students from rural communities who have been found to have lower educational expectations. …