The Dynamic between Work Values and Part-Time Work Experiences across the High School Years.

Work values regulate and evaluate thoughts, behavior, and events associated with work and they are thought to be organized into a system (Brown & Crace, 1996; Porfeli & Vondracek, in press). A work value system is composed of some number of work values. The structure of the system is defined by the relationships between the constituent work values. Much work has been done to identify the essential work values within the work value system and how the system is structured (Pryor, 1982; Super, 1995; Super & Hendrix, 1968). Over the past century several models depicting the composition of the value system have emerged (Allport & Vernon, 1931; Kluckhohn, 1951; Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987; Super, 1962; Super & Sverko, 1995). A great deal of work has been conducted to establish the existence and assess the impact of the value system on human functioning (Feather, 1990; Kilby, 1993; Kluckhohn, 1951; Rokeach, 1973; Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987) and particularly work behavior (Brown, 1995, 1996; Brown & Crace, 1996; Johnson, 2000, 2001a, 2001b, 2002; Mortimer & Lorence, 1979; Super, 1957, 1990, 1992, 1995) and to affirm that human development is partly defined in terms of value system development (Kluckhohn, 1951; Rokeach, 1973). This literature suggests that values and behavior mutually influence one another, yet little work has been conducted to determine how the value system develops over time. Recent research has begun to hypothesize and test patterns of value stability and change reflective of a dynamic system regulating and evaluating thoughts, behavior, and events pertaining to work and career (Porfeli, 2007). This research suggests that adolescents exhibit predicted processes of change and stability that are presumably governed by a dissonance mechanism, which ultimately serves to promote value system development and maintain harmony within the value system (Porfeli, 2007). The present study extends this previous work by testing whether a dissonance mechanism, consisting of these processes of cohesion and discrepancy reduction, govern the relationships between work values and part-time work experiences during the adolescent years. Part-time work is a ubiquitous experience of adolescents in the US and research suggests that it may be an important context for vocational development and the formation of work values. While one body of research suggests that part-time work during adolescence is associated with dysfunctional behaviors (e.g., Bachman & Schulenberg, 1993; Mortimer, Finch, Shanahan, & Ryu, 1992a; Paschall, Ringwalt, & Flewelling, 2002; Steinberg & Avenevoli, 1998; Wu, Schlenger, & Galvin, 2003), other research points to functional outcomes like the formation of work values associated with central work tasks (Skorikov & Vondracek, 1997), personal responsibility, and the development of social skills (Kablaoui & Pautler, 1991). Part-time work may even serve as a “steeling” context that prepares adolescents for the normative work distress experienced during young adulthood (Mortimer & Staff, 2004). Part-time work appears to have a meaningful impact on adolescent outcomes and the present study will add to this literature by examining the relationships between part-time work experiences and related value system development during the high school years.