The influence of parents, places and poverty on educational attitudes and aspirations

by Keith Kintrea, Ralf St Clair and Muir Houston (University of Glasgow) published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in October 2011

This report aims to better understand the relationship between young people’s aspirations and how they are formed.

There is a high degree of interest among politicians and policy-makers in aspirations, driven by two concerns:

• raising the education and skills of the UK population, and 
• tackling social and economic inequality.

High aspirations are often seen as one way to address these concerns, but how aspirations contribute to strong work and educational outcomes is not well understood. Based on longitudinal research in three locations in the UK, the report investigates aspirations and contributes empirical evidence to the debate.

The report:

• examines the nature of aspirations;
• explores how parental circumstances and attitudes, school, and opportunity structures come together to shape aspirations in deprived urban areas; and
• argues that the approach to intervention should be reconsidered.

Hazel’s comment:
I came across this report in a secondary source and thought, “I’m sure I’ve already done this – I read all the jrf blog posts”. But I can’t find it so thought I’d better do it again on the understanding that twice is better than not at all.

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… parents’ career interests and the career interests of young adults

An exploratory study on the relationship between … parents’ career interests and the career interests of young adults

An article by Chi Sum Wong, Ping Man Wong and Kelly Z Peng published in the International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance (Volume 11 Number 1 (March 2011))

In this study, we attempt to investigate the potential effects of parents’ career interests on young adults’ career interests. Using a sample of 113 freshmen in Hong Kong, results indicated that after controlling for personality, gender, general mental abilities and emotional intelligence, some of the parents’ career interests were still related to the young adults’ respective career interests. For some types of interests, the extent of influences is found to be contingent on the gender of the respondents. Implications are discussed.

Hazel’s comment:

I don’t think that this abstract provides you with enough information to be moved to read the whole article but it is, believe me, worth reading. I probably wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t been in the full text version of the journal. As I glanced at the screen whilst scrolling through, not really reading the words, I noticed one or two pertinent points and slowed down.

It is really amazing to discover just how much influence parents’ ideas have on their offspring at an age when young people rebel against anything parents say!

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