You are on page 1of 23

Parental Influences on Children's Values and Aspirations: Bridging Two Theories of Social

Class and Socialization


Author(s): Steven Hitlin
Source: Sociological Perspectives, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Spring, 2006), pp. 25-46
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4138741
Accessed: 13/02/2010 02:22

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucal.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Sociological Perspectives.

http://www.jstor.org
PARENTAL INFLUENCES ON CHILDREN'S VALUES
AND ASPIRATIONS: BRIDGING TWO THEORIES
OF SOCIAL CLASS AND SOCIALIZATION
STEVENHITLIN*
University of Iowa

ABSTRACT: The author establishesa frameworkfor tying together two


influential approacheslinking family socioeconomicstatus (SES) to chil-
dren's social psychological outcomes. Families shape children's occupa-
tional aspirations and values; however, these two phenomena have been
studied in isolation. This article bridges these two literaturesby suggesting
that occupationalaspirations stem, in part, from adolescents'value struc-
tures. The framework employs a wider range of values than previously
studied so as to get a broaderunderstandingof this relationship.This anal-
ysis finds qualifiedsupportfor both the SES-valuesand the SES-aspirations
literatures,and illustrates the potential of values as an additional explana-
tory mechanismfor understandingfamily influences on adolescents'orien-
tations during their transition to adulthood.

This article posits that values offer additional explanatory power for predicting
adolescents' occupational aspirations, thereby bridging two influential approaches
to examining parental social status and children's social psychological outcomes.
Oddly enough, the literature linking family socioeconomic status (SES) to children's
occupational aspirations is rarely discussed concurrently with that body of work
exploring the influence of family SES on children's values. Children's career aspi-
rations are influenced, I suggest, by their personal value structures. Presented
herein is a model illustrating that family SES influences children's career aspirations
both directly and indirectly, as mediated by children's value orientations. These
analyses have the strength of incorporating a wider range of values-phenomena
rarely measured well within stratification research-pointing toward a more nuanced
conception of young adults' social psychological orientations.
Focusing on values and aspirations is important from a life course perspective,
tapping into what Shanahan (2000:675) describes as reflecting "interest in how
people formulate and pursue their life goals." We know less about late adolescents'
achievement goals, values, and aspirations than we do about their demographic

*Direct all correspondence to: Steven Hitlin, Department of Sociology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52246; e-mail:
steven-hitlin@uiowa.edu.

Sociological Perspectives, Vol. 49, Issue 1, pp. 25-46, ISSN 0731-1214, electronic ISSN 1533-8673.
? 2006 by Pacific Sociological Association. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photo-
copy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Rights and Permissions website, at
http://www.ucpress.edu/journals/rights.htm.
26 SOCIOLOGICAL
PERSPECTIVESVolume49, Number 1, 2006

profiles (Johnson 2002). Adding this level of detail allows us to begin to qualify the
received wisdom about the SES-values and SES-aspirations relationships, with
an orientation toward specifying mechanisms that underlie these relationships.
Though this was once common in sociology under the Social Structure and Per-
sonality perspective, such research has trailed off (see Mcleod and Lively 2003).
The literature dealing with intergenerational influences on social stratification
has focused primarily on men. Sociology has highlighted the importance of social
stratification for the transmission of values and the shaping of children's career
aspirations, and both constructs set the stage for continued social stratification along
class lines. By focusing on values, however, we can incorporate gender within these
processes-potentially important, given evidence for diverging value systems among
adolescent boys and girls (Beutel and Johnson 2004; Ryckman and Houston 2003).
Adolescents orient themselves to future careers on the basis of a variety of social
influences, including family, peers, educational institutions, and gender. Values
are important, empirically underemployed factors for developing these orienta-
tions, and the lack of values-related research is especially curious given the exten-
sively researched links with socioeconomic status. By offering a model for bridg-
ing these two distinct approaches to understanding adolescent socialization, we
can address recent calls for a greater focus on the mechanisms that underlie social
stratification processes (e.g., Reskin 2003).

BACKGROUND
Stratification and Social Psychological Outcomes at
the End-of-College Transition
This study focuses on individuals at the end of their college careers, on the verge
of making what Pallas (2003) refers to as the transitionfrom dependenceto indepen-
dence. This group is certainly a specialized sample, given that only a minority of
American adolescents graduate from college. That said, it is a population that allows
us to understand the middle-class life course with respect to those most likely to
occupy higher positions in the social structure. At this point in the life course,
college-educated young adults typically have a sense-if not fully informed-of
their future career plans. These aspirations capture the options that they feel they
can realistically-and agentically-pursue across the life course (Elder, Johnson,
and Crosnoe 2003). Current life course work studying the transition to adulthood
focuses on adolescents' active efforts to shape their lives and the socially chan-
neled development that guides those efforts (Shanahan 2000). Values and aspira-
tions, though socially shaped and channeled, represent the emotional and cogni-
tive orientations of agentic individuals and shape occupational decisions. People
select career paths, when they have structural opportunities to do so, that "feel
right" and are realistic, given their training and capabilities.
Recent advances in the study of values (see Hitlin and Piliavin 2004 for an over-
view) offer the opportunity to refine our understanding of the influences of SES
on child development. Values are "evaluative beliefs that synthesize affective and
cognitive elements to orient people to the world in which they live" (Marini 2000:
ValuesandAspirations
ParentalInfluenceson Children's 27

2828). They are abstract, distal constructs that influence attitudes (feelings of affect
for or against particular objects), which in turn have a more proximal influence on
behavior.
The most commonly studied values with respect to the influence of socioeco-
nomic status reflect the dimension of autonomy versus conformity (e.g., Kohn 1969;
Kohn and Schooler 1983; Xiao 2000; but see Xiao 1999). Though important, such a
dimension involves only one portion of the potential values influential in people's
self-understandings. This article draws on the Schwartz (1992, 1994) conception of
values, an empirically derived schematic representation of the structure of human
values. Schwartz details ten values recognized in approximately 70 cultures around
the world.' The theory represents "conceptually convenient decisions about where
one fuzzy set ends and another begins" (Schwartz 1994:25) and has overwhelming
cross-cultural support (Schwartz 2004).
Research on aspirations, on the other hand, forms the core of much SES-adoles-
cent outcomes research. Aspirations mediate family SES and individuals' later occu-
pational and educational outcomes (Featherman and Hauser 1978; Johnson 2002;
Sewell and Hauser 1980). Social class has been an independent predictor of chil-
dren's educational and occupational aspirations tracing back to the emergence of
this perspective (Sewell, Hauser, and Wolf 1980; Sewell and Shah 1968). Aspira-
tions reflect people's internalization of their experience with educational institu-
tions and their expectations of the future on the basis of those experiences (see
Gamoran 1996 for an overview). Families are closely linked with children's edu-
cational and occupational aspirations (Teachman and Paasch 1998), though there
is significant within-family variation. These individual-level factors are potentially
more important in an American context, one relatively unstructured with respect
to the timing and course of transitions and careers (Kerckhoff 2003).

Gender, Socioeconomic Status, and the Development


of Values and Aspirations
The family has been considered the primary socialization agent tracing back to
Cooley (1902) and is the context whereby individuals develop aspirations for their
future across the transition to adulthood. There is evidence that both interper-
sonal and structural forces influence parent-child attitude similarities across the
life course (Glass et al. 1986). Intergenerational influences are influenced by devel-
opmental age, life course period effects, and direct socialization (Miller and Glass
1989). Work values, in particular, develop in patterned ways as a result of parents'
positions in the occupational structure (Johnson 2002). Recently, however, addi-
tional attention has been paid to the role that peers play in adolescent develop-
ment (see Eder and Nenga 2003 for an overview). Previous research on intergen-
erational stratification has focused primarily on the family in isolation from peer
group influences.
Adolescents are not unreflective, passive receptors of family and peer influences.
Individuals make choices shaped by perceptions of possible (though bounded)
possibilities. Individuals exercise agency in constructing their lives (see Heinz 2003
on work; Kerckhoff 2003 on school-to-work transitions). We do not have an adequate
28 PERSPECTIVESVolume49, Number 1, 2006
SOCIOLOGICAL

conceptualization, however, of how individual social psychological characteristics


influence individuals' shaping of their lives (Elder 1998). We know that families are
influential (e.g., Caspi et al. 1998), and sociology has developed extensive litera-
tures on how two different sets of social psychological outcomes-values and
aspirations-are related to family social standing. The relationship among these phe-
nomena, however, is relatively unexplored.

Family Socioeconomic Status and Values


Families are an important context for value socialization (Roberts and Bengtson
1999), but we do not know enough about how gender influences the transmission
of values within the family. Parents are more likely to attribute values similar to
their own to daughters than to sons (Whitbeck and Gecas 1988). There is evidence
that mothers' attitudes influence daughters more than sons with respect to sexual
behavior (Thornton and Camburn 1987) and cohabitation behavior (Axinn and
Thornton 1993), potentially demonstrating patterns of value-adoption within the
family. In discussing parents' values and children's values, it is important to note
that perceived similarity is greater than actual similarity (Whitbeck and Gecas
1988); there are rather weak relationships between parents' actual values and chil-
dren's values (Rohan and Zanna 1996). It appears that though both parents'
involvement in parenting is important for understanding children's outcomes,
fathers' involvement is a function of mothers' values and beliefs (Simons et al. 1990).
Thornton and Young-DeMarco (2001) find persistent long-term trends in families
toward values endorsing gender equality. However, little is known about the rela-
tive influences of the gender of parents or children in this process.
Much work follows the approach developed by Melvin Kohn (1969, 1976, 1977;
Kohn and Schooler 1982, 1983; Kohn et al. 1990; Pearlin and Kohn 1966; Slom-
czynski, Miller, and Kohn 1981) and focuses on the relationship between family
SES and two particular values: conformity and self-direction. One's position in the
class structure influences the adoption of these values by offering (or blocking)
opportunities to experience self-direction within one's occupation. These relation-
ships appear to hold for both men and women (Kohn 1981; Miller et al. 1979).
Parents' values of conformity versus self-direction are shaped by the substan-
tive complexity of their occupational context and are transmitted within families
(Kohn and Schoenbach 1993; see also Johnson 2002). The relative influence of par-
ents can differ by culture (see, e.g., Kohn et al. 1986; Xiao 2000b). These relation-
ships exist most strongly in situations wherein parents are not overwhelmed by
work and family demands (Parcel and Menaghan 1994). Occupational context
appears more important than education for developing these values (Alwin 1989;
Morgan et al. 1979).2 We do not know about SES influences on a wider array of
values.
It is not family SES alone that predicts children's values. The emotional tenor of
the family likely has influences on the receptivity of children to their parents' values
(Taylor et al. 2004). Cultures (e.g., Asian) that foster connectedness demonstrate
greater value transmission from parents to children (Asakawa and Csikszentmihalyi
2000). Emotional tenor is notoriously difficult to measure, so included here is a
ParentalInfluenceson Children'sValuesand Aspirations 29

measure of "perceived family support" to get a sense of the importance of emo-


tional closeness in the development of values and aspirations.

Family Socioeconomic Status and Aspirations


Much less work has examined the development of adolescents' career aspira-
tions within a stratification framework. Most flows from pioneering work by
Sewell and colleagues with the Wisconsin Longitudinal Survey (WLS; Sewell et al.
1969; Sewell and Hauser 1980), describing the importance of individuals' aspirations
in the relationship between SES background and occupational attainment. With
respect to the WLS cohort, however, gender-limited opportunities led women
toward less prestigious jobs even though they began with slightly higher occupa-
tional aspirations (Sewell et al. 1980). Work on stratification and children's out-
comes has typically, until recently, focused on fathers and sons; the influence of
mothers' occupation on children's outcomes has undergone important changes
over the last half-century (Kalmijn 1994). Women report higher optimism for find-
ing a job, but that may simply reflect lower career aspirations based on gendered
expectations for labor market potential (Rudd and Evans 1998).

Gender
The relationship of values, aspirations, and gender has only been hinted at within
the literature. Links between gender, values, and social structure are surprisingly
understudied (Xiao 2000a). Until recently, most stratification studies have relied on
father's characteristics and less on the relative contribution of both parents (Kalmijn
1994), leaving much unknown about maternal SES influences on children's social
psychological outcomes. Intergenerational occupational inheritance, with respect to
parents and sons' outcomes, is strongest when the mother is present and weakest
when the mother is absent (Biblarz, Raftery, and Bucur 1997). With respect to
daughters, there is support for the place of maternal attitudes influencing daugh-
ters' career choices, mediated by mothers' gender role ideology (Steele and Barling
1996). Research suggests that parents' attitudes about religiosity and politics predict
children's attitudes more than do their views of gender ideology (Glass et al. 1986)
What we do know about these relationships is limited to only certain values.
Evidence is mixed even to the basic question of gender differences in value ori-
entations. Some research supports gender differences in values (e.g., Beutel and
Marini 1995; Dio et al. 1996; Halaby 2003; Marini et al. 1996; Xiao 1999, 2000a).
Rosenberg (1965:254) finds, in contrast, "a good deal of similarity between the
value systems of boys and girls," though, as most researchers do, he goes on to
focus only on the slight differences. Others (Florentine 1988; Prince-Gibson and
Schwartz 1998; Struch et al. 2002) also find convergence between the values reported
by male and female samples. Recent work suggests that boys and girls have simi-
lar values in early adolescence but that values diverge as adolescents age (Beutel
and Johnson 2004). Adolescent girls report prosocial values as being more important
than boys do, though race mediates this finding; white boys report prosocial values
as less important than do boys in other groups (Beutel and Johnson 2004).
30 SOCIOLOGICAL
PERSPECTIVESVolume 49, Number 1, 2006

ANALYTIC MODEL
This article posits that values offer additional explanatory power for predicting
occupational aspirations. Values serve as primary orienting factors for individuals
and act as a partial intermediary between family SES and later work aspirations.
Put differently, we aspire to jobs that reflect our core values: jobs that violate our
values will not be appealing.
The literature leads us to expect that fathers' occupational attainment is an
important direct predictor of children's career aspirations, and an indirect predic-
tor through influencing the development of certain values. Mothers have been much
less studied, but we expect them to have direct influences on children's values
and both direct and indirect influences on children's occupational aspirations.
The models presented here draw on the Schwartz model of values (Prince-Gibson
and Schwartz 1998; Schwartz 1992), an improved measure capturing a wider range
of value orientations than those employed in previous sociological research. I de-
velop two second-order value orientations for use in the models presented here. A
gendered approach to value socialization would suggest that mothers will con-
tribute the development of altruistic-institutional (stereotypically feminine) values
and fathers would be more influential for self-oriented values. These values are
not simply two ends of a continuum; Ryckman and Houston (2003) find that male
and female students do not differ much on individualistic values but that women
place more importance on collectivistic (other-oriented) values.
The measurement of family SES is quite complicated, as occupations can be
coded along many different dimensions, such as occupational prestige, wages,
and education. The three models presented here each use a different measure of
parental SES. The first incorporates mothers' and fathers' education, the second
uses occupational prestige scores, and the third uses the gender-appropriate socio-
economic index score (Hauser and Warren 1997). Taken together, these models
support the contention that SES influences aspirations both directly, and through
its influence on children's values.
Little research has engaged nonoccupational influences in adolescents' career aspi-
rations. The data in this study cannot address the wide range of influences, but a few
theoretically important measures are included to control for some nonoccupation-
related complexity. I include perceived family support as a proxy for the emo-
tional tenor of the family, a measure of perceived peer social support to proxy
adolescents' embededness in peer networks. Additionally, I include a measure of
parental job nurturance, a dummy variable signifying whether an occupation
involves acting benevolently toward others. Such a measure, though imperfect,
captures an emotional dimension of parental occupation that theoretically could
be linked with personal outlooks and children's subsequent value development.3

DATA AND MEASURES


Sample
The data come from the third wave of a three-wave longitudinal study initially
designed to examine the self-conceptions during the first year at a large midwestern
ParentalInfluenceson Children's
ValuesandAspirations 31

university (Lee 1997). Students were chosen on the basis of their first-year resi-
dence and were surveyed before enrolling at college and at the end of their first
year.4 During this cohort's fourth year of college, these data were followed up
with an Internet survey based on the sampling frame comprising all the original
students enrolled at the end of the first year. Six hundred sixty-three students
received e-mail invitations at the third survey wave; the remainder of the original
sampling frame were no longer registered at the university. Unfortunately, we do
not know why attrition occurred, nor whether each respondent invited during the
third wave refused to answer or simply did not receive any of the invitations to
complete the survey. Three hundred fourteen students (47.4% of those invited,
35.6% of the original sampling frame) completed the Internet survey instrument.
The sample was overwhelmingly white, and the ratio of women to men was
approximately 2 to 1. This sample was not drawn randomly.
This sample has the advantage of incorporating social psychological measures
stronger than those typically found in stratification studies. Another strength
involves its homogeneity; given that education itself is found to be the mediating
factor between parental status and occupational achievement (Kalmijn 1994;
Sewell and Hauser 1980), this sample allows us to isolate factors that influence
this process net of educational measures. Obviously, conclusions will be limited
only to those who have reached the fourth year of college. Though we hypothe-
size that the values-centered analyses presented here would reasonably extend to
non-college students (though possibly privileging different value orientations),
such claims should be addressed empirically. Attrition within college is also a
problem that likely influences specific results. In a real sense, however, the limita-
tions of this sample reflect a conservative estimate of the processes under explora-
tion. Less variation would be expected in many of the measures with such a
homogeneous sample.

Dependent Variables
The measures of values include 30 items drawn from the Schwartz Value Sur-
vey (Prince-Gibson and Schwartz 1998; Schwartz 1992). The survey asks respon-
dents to rate a list of values from on a 9-point scale from -1 (against my prin-
ciples) to 7 (a guiding principle in my life). The Schwartz theoretical model is a
referent for the construction of these values measures. I use a principal compo-
nents factor analysis to guide the construction of value types so that they are con-
sistent with the patterns found in this sample. To construct the values shown in
Table 1, I averaged the students' responses to the items that loaded onto each fac-
tor. The measures thus take a value ranging from -1 to 7. The seven factors that
emerge overlap greatly with the Schwartz model. Differences between these con-
structs and Schwartz's measures are likely due to the sample.
A second-order factor analysis arrives at two dimensions that map on the
underlying dimensions in the Schwartz model. Scores on the appropriate first-
order values are averaged to create the two second-order constructs: self-focused
and altruistic-institutional values. The self-focused measure consists of the values
achievement, power, and openness to change (alpha = .65). It incorporates the
TABLE 1
Constructed Values with Items and Factor Loadings
Altruistic-Institutional Values Self-
Openness
Conservation to Change
(Tradition,Security, (Hedonism,
Universalism Conformity) Benevolence Spirituality Stimulation)

Equality .76 Politeness .61 True .58 Spiritual Pleasure .73 Suc
Creativity .58 .68
National security friendship life .76 Exciting life .64 Am
World at peace .64 Tradition .62 Honesty .68 Meaning Enjoying life .81 Ind
World of beauty .58 Self-discipline .50 Forgiveness .68 in life .64
Social justice .70 Honoring parents .64 Helpfulness .44
Broad-mindedness .70 Obedience .71
Protecting Family security .59
environment .66 Devoutness .53
Note: Numerical values represent standardized factor loadings.
ParentalInfluenceson Children's
ValuesandAspirations 33

self-enhancement quadrant of Schwartz's scheme along, with hedonism and stim-


ulation. The other dimension involves Schwartz's self-transcendence and conservation
quadrants and is composed of spirituality, benevolence, universalism, and conser-
vation (alpha = .71). I call it altruistic-institutional to capture both the "other-
focused" nature of these values and Turner's notion (1976) of an institutional self-
anchorage as one based in concern for tradition and acceptance of social struc-
tures. These two broad constructs capture individuals' general value orientations.
Aspirations are drawn from the students' open-ended reports of the careers
they plan to pursue. Given the respondents' location in the life course, this cap-
tures a more informed decision than do other measures asked earlier in students'
lives (Jencks, Crouse, and Mueser 1983) regarding what occupation they would
most like to have. These responses are coded using the TSEI measure of occupa-
tional socioeconomic status, discussed in detail below.

Independent Variables
Occupations tell us a great deal about social standing, can be coded reliably, are
willingly and accurately disclosed by respondents (Hauser and Warren 1997) and,
in this case, their children. There is no definitive approach to measuring occupa-
tional characteristics and SES. Accordingly, the model of the SES-values-aspirations
relationship proposed here uses three different measures of parental SES: parental
education, occupational prestige score, and gender-appropriate SEI measures.
The model measures parents' education on a 9-point scale from 1 (high school)
to 9 (completed advanced degree). The first wave of data collection for these stu-
dents yielded this information three years before the rest of the variables in the
model. There is no reason to suspect that parental education meaningfully changed
over these three years.
The analysis employs two different measures of parental occupational status.
The first is the Nakeo-Treas Prestige Score (Nakeo and Treas 1994), based on pres-
tige ratings developed from a 1989 national survey of 1980 census occupational
categories. The ratings range from 19.1 (news vendors) to 86 (physicians), with
the average occupation having a prestige score of 47.5 (standard deviation is 15.8).
My second model uses alternative measures of SES (Hauser and Warren 1997),
a composite score combining occupational wages, occupational education, and a
wage-occupation-prestige index (TSEI). Different scales can skew gender differ-
ences in occupational status (Hauser and Warren 1997; Warren et al. 1998), so
Hauser and Warren develop three different composite SEI scales: one for males
(MSEI), one for females (FSEI), and one for the total population (TSEI). All three
scores were transformed to range between 0 and 100. The gender-appropriate SEI
scale is used for parents. For adolescents, actual differences in career trajectories
are unlikely to have been shaped by gender discrimination, so the TSEI measure
more accurately retains comparability across adolescents.5
After the Nakeo-Treas prestige ratings, a value of 51 is assigned to the home-
maker role for the few mothers not employed outside the home. Though some
argue against assigning prestige scores to homemakers (e.g., Tyree and Hicks 1988),
it makes no sense to a priori leave homemakers out of the sample. Empirical anal-
34 SOCIOLOGICAL
PERSPECTIVESVolume49, Number 1, 2006

yses were not substantively different when these researchers included a home-
maker dummy variable, so they ultimately dropped it. This is an obvious avenue
for future research with a nationally representative sample.
Job nurturance is a dummy variable based on the updated coding scheme in
England et al. (2002; see Appendix). Parents' occupation is coded with a 1 if it meets
the definition of caring labor: face-to-face service that increases the capabilities of
the recipient.
The two perceived family-peer support measures are composite scales adding
8 items, each with a 4-point scale from 1 (very true) to 4 (not at all true). Items
cover different aspects of social support, such as listens to me when I am troubled
about something, gives me concrete help to do things I need to get done, shows
approval when I do something well, makes my life difficult (reversed), and acts in
ways that show they dislike me (reversed). The alpha for perceived support of
family is .774, and for perceived support of friends, .726. These measures allow for
exploring the perception of closeness as it relates to the intergenerational trans-
mission of values. Though imperfect, these measures point to the emotional tenor
of important relationships of these students' social networks.

RESULTS
The three models presented here are consistent with the hypothesis that family
SES influences aspirations directly and indirectly through their influences on ado-
lescents' values. Because family SES has multiple dimensions and no uniform agree-
ment on measurement, each model uses a different measure of family SES. Table 2
presents means and standard deviations for the variables used in the path analyses.

TABLE 2
Descriptive Statisticsfor VariablesIncluded in Models 1-3
Mean StandardDeviation

Gender .38 .49


Perceived support of family 27.42 3.60
Perceived support of friends 26.41 3.47
Mother'sjob:nurture(dummy) .53 .50
Father'sjob:nurture(dummy) .14 .34
Mother'seducation 5.94 2.20
Father'seducation 6.42 2.12
Mother'sjob (prestige score) 53.17 1.11
Father'sjob (prestige score) 56.49 2.90
Mother'sjob (FSEI) 47.43 4.45
Father'sjob (MSEI) 50.43 14.29
Careeraspiration(TSEI) 55.94 14.57
Self-orientedvalues 4.29 1.09
Altruistic-institutionalvalues 4.71 .90
ParentalInfluenceson Children'sValuesand Aspirations 35

Mother's Job
Father's Job
-Education
-Prestige
-SEI

Altruistic-
Gender: Institutional Values
Male

Care r
Aspirations
Perceived
Support Self-Oriented
-Family Values
-Pe rs

Job Nurture:
-Mother's
-Father's

Figure 1
TheoreticalModel of Aspirations-Values-Socioeconomic
Status Relationships

Figure 1 shows the theoretical paths underlying the analyses presented in Table 3
and outlines the hypothesized relationships among family SES background, per-
ceived social support, gender, values, and young-adult career aspirations. In line
with the theoretical orientation of this article, values are considered central orga-
nizing aspects of the person who in turn influence young-adult career aspirations.
Both values and aspirations are influenced, of course, by myriad social factors.
Table 3 presents unstandardized path estimates for the three models, analyzing
the hypothesized relationships among family socioeconomic status variables (along
with gender and social support proxies) on values and aspirations.

Model 1: Parental Education Measures


Model 1 demonstrates the importance of having understandings of individuals'
value aspirations broader than those found in the stratification values literature.
Parental education measures have significant effects on altruistic-institutional
values. The more educated fathers are, the more their children report privileging
altruistic-institutional values. Conversely, more-highly educated mothers are neg-
atively associated with their children's altruistic-institutional values. Considering
that these values are associated with traditional female gender orientations, this
finding suggests that mothers who "violate" traditional expectations transmit
their value orientations to their children. Neither SES measure has a direct effect
on children's aspirations; the effects operate indirectly, through altruistic values.
TABLE 3
Estimates of Effects of Values, Socioeconomic Status, and Social Support
in Path Models of Young-Adult Career Aspirations
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Unstandardized Unstandardized Unstandardized
Path B (SE) B (SE) B (SE)

Gender: male Altruistic values -.33** (.14) -.29** (.13) -.30** (.13)
Self-oriented values .26* (.15)
Aspirations -4.76* (2.69) -4.57** (2.21) -4.76** (2.41)
Family support Altruistic values .05** (.02) .05***(.02) .04** (.02)
Self-oriented values
Aspirations
Peer support Altruistic values .06***(.02) .05** (.02) .05** (.02)
Self-oriented values .05** (.02)
Aspirations
Mother's job: nurture Altruistic values
Self-oriented values
Aspirations
Father's job: nurture Altruistic Values .32* (.19)
Self-oriented values -.59*** (.21) -.53** (.21) -.49** (.22)
Aspirations 6.92* (3.76)
Altruistic values Aspirations -3.64** (1.59) -4.20*** (1.31) -4.01*** (1.43)
Self-oriented values Apirations
Mother's education Altruistic values -.10** (.04)
Self-oriented values
Aspirations
Father's education Altruistic values .08** (.04)
Self-oriented values
Aspirations
Mother's prestige Altruistic values
Self-oriented values -.01* (.01)
Aspirations
Father's prestige Altruistic values
Self-oriented values
Aspirations .18** (.09)
Mother's FSEI Altruistic values
Self-oriented values -.01* (.01)
Aspirations
Father's MSEI Altruistic values
Self-oriented values
Aspirations .16* (.09)
N 144 184 170
R2 .091 .110 .104
Notes: Only significant paths presented. SE, standard error.
*P <.1; **p < .05; ***p < .01.
ParentalInfluenceson Children's
ValuesandAspirations 37

Perceived family support is also a predictor of the development of altruistic


values, as is perceived peer support. Feeling supported by significant others appears
related to the development of an other-oriented personal value system. Interest-
ingly, self-oriented values are predicted only by perceived peer support and are
not significantly influenced by any of the family SES measures.
The simple measure of father's job nurturance demonstrates significant relation-
ships with both values and aspirations. Fathers with nurturing jobs seem to lower
the importance of self-oriented values in their children. These fathers have posi-
tive influences on the aspirations of their children, though the effects are weaker
than other relationships in the model. This may be an artifact of the specific SES
distribution of this sample; most occupations coded with nurturance involve teach-
ing or the field of medicine.
Finally, being male is associated with lower altruistic values and with holding
lower career aspirations. Though possibly counter-intuitive, this finding is consis-
tent with recent research suggesting that collegiate women have higher achieve-
ment motivation (Ryckman and Houston 2003). The finding may also be an arti-
fact of this sample, or it may reflect that young adult females may have unrealistic
senses of potential career opportunities at this stage in the life course (e.g., Rudd
and Evans 1998).

Model 2: Parental Occupation Prestige Scores


Model 2 follows Model 1, but with different family SES measures. Occupational
prestige replaces parental education. Fathers' prestige scores are positive, direct
predictors of children's career aspirations, in line with the classic findings in the
stratification literature. This effect is not significantly mediated by children's values.
Mothers' prestige scores are negatively related with self-oriented values. Per-
haps this finding is another side of the relationship in Model 1 suggesting that
employed mothers' education negatively influences children's altruistic values. Self-
oriented values do not significantly influence aspirations, but altruistic-institutional
values have significant, negative effects on aspirations. When measured with pres-
tige scores, they afford limited support for the idea that family SES indirectly influ-
ences aspirations.
Gender has the same effects as in Model 1, as do peer and family support mea-
sures, with respect to their influences on altruistic-institutional values. Similarly,
fathers with nurturing jobs continue to reduce the importance of self-oriented
values for their children.

Model 3: Parental SEI Measures


Model 3 presents gender-appropriate SEI scores for parental occupation. These
composite measures attempt to capture the totality of what is meant by occupa-
tional SES (occupational wages, education, and prestige). Measured this way,
there is limited support only for the contention that values are intermediate forces
in the SES-aspirations link. Mother's FSEI scores are negatively predictive of chil-
dren's self-oriented values, as is the nurturance of the father's occupation. How-
38 SOCIOLOGICAL
PERSPECTIVESVolume 49, Number 1, 2006

ever, this constellation is not a significantly strong predictor of children's aspira-


tions, though altruistic-institutional values are again significant, negative predictors.
Father's SEI, however, is again a significant, direct predictor of children's aspira-
tions. Being male operates in a fashion similar to that in the other models, as do
peer and family support.

DISCUSSION
This article offers a conceptualization of how young adult's aspirations develop
within socioeconomic contexts and are influenced by values shaped within those
contexts. Though the family carries only a portion of the explanatory power for
understanding individual orientations, "one has a better understanding of the
determinants of life course trajectories if one has information regarding preceding
family contexts" (Uhlenberg and Mueller 2003:142). We are aware that the orienta-
tions measured here are only a snapshot from these individuals' life trajectories.
However, "orientations at any given time are part of a larger trajectory reflecting
continuity and change over the years" (Johnson 2002:1335). By examining orienta-
tions at the beginning of the adult life course, this study offers a theoretical bridge
between two literatures that deal with family SES influences on children's social
psychological orientations.
The different measures of family SES offer a mixed picture of their relationship
to children's values and career aspirations as young adults. We see evidence, pre-
viously suggested in the literature, of direct effects of fathers' jobs on children's
career aspirations. There is partial evidence of parental measures influencing chil-
dren's values, with altruistic-institutional values being consistently significant, neg-
ative predictors of young adults' career aspirations. However, support for the
contention that values mediate the family SES-children's aspirations relationship
is imperfect.
The SES-values relationship differs on the basis of a constellation of individual
values being discussed. The use of two global dimensions reveals that value ori-
entations are influenced differentially by family SES, depending on the measure.
For self-oriented values, only limited evidence exists for the importance of paren-
tal SES on values in looking at parental education, but mother's occupation is a
negative predictor. Fathers with nurturing jobs have children who are less likely
to report a concern with self-oriented values across all three models. Self-oriented
values, as measured with the Schwartz scheme, subsume the value of self-direc-
tion that lies at the core of the Kohn thesis. We cannot draw direct comparisons,
but this correspondence suggests avenues for future inquiry by looking at a range
of values wider than that explored in Kohn's body of work. Kohn's thesis, how-
ever, provides a plausible mechanism for intergenerational transmission of values
(Kohn 1969, 1981). Occupational experience, particularly the opportunity for self-
direction, leads to environments that shape the values of all members of the fam-
ily (Kohn et al. 1986). Kasser et al. (1995) hypothesize, in line with Kohn's work,
that lower SES leads to more-restrictive parenting styles. Those restrictive styles
are the mechanism whereby Kohn's thesis is actualized within the family.
Altruistic-institutional values are partial mediators of family effects on young
ParentalInfluenceson Children's
ValuesandAspirations 39

adults' career aspirations, but the story is complicated. Parental education mea-
sures are important, significant predictors but in opposite fashion, based on par-
ents' gender. More-highly educated mothers negatively influence the adoption of
these "other-related" values, whereas more-highly educated fathers foster their
development. Perhaps educated mothers help to create a climate that systemati-
cally decreases daughters' valuing of traditionally feminine concerns with others-
before-self. Previous work has focused primarily on fathers and explored only a
limited set of values; future research should attempt to tease out specific predic-
tors and mechanisms surrounding these relationships. Placing a higher priority
on other-oriented values is a negative predictor of one's career aspirations. Higher
status careers, as measured by the SEI, perhaps possess characteristics that render
them unappealing to other-oriented young adults. The family shapes the develop-
ment of these values, and agentic choices on the part of young adults reflect these
core guiding principles.
Being male has negative predictive effects for altruistic values, along the lines of
a gender-socialization hypothesis. This could explain some of the observed varia-
tion in male occupational aspirations (and eventual attainment). Men who value
altruistic-institutional values (benevolence and universalism) may develop occupa-
tional careers similar to those of the modal female paths or select career paths that
are not as financially rewarded as careers reflecting self-orientations. This is not to
say, of course, that differences are all-or even greatly-attributable to values;
many other factors are involved in gender differences in employment outcomes
(Padavic and Reskin 2002).
Though not the direct focus of this research, perceived social support from both
family and friends is an important factor in understanding the development of value
orientations and thus indirectly of career aspirations. Adolescent females perceive
more teacher and peer support than do males and perceive greater opportunity
and have greater aspirations for both education and careers (Wall, Covell, and
Macintyre 1999). Perhaps this tendency contributes to findings that women at this
stage in the life course have higher occupational aspirations (Sewell et al. 1980).
This preference may be due to the higher academic success of women within school-
ing environments. These differences may be due not only to gender, per se, but
also to the more psychologically proximal phenomena of values. Adolescents select
friendship networks that fit with-and over time, reinforce-their own values. Such
values, in turn, influence the career aspirations of young adults.
Family influences are but one of a variety of social forces shaping individuals.
Both childhood socialization and one's own achievement matter for later life atti-
tudes and ideology (Moen et al. 1997). The homogeneity of the sample in this
study allows exploration of some "uncluttered" relationships without potentially
complicating variation in education, but drastically limits generalization. Many of
these processes are likely to depend on SES. Women with lower-status, repetitive
jobs must make constrained choices that can shape the environments that their chil-
dren experience (Parcel and Menaghan 1994). Similarly, Crosnoe et al. (2002) find
that disadvantaged parents are less likely to engage in activities that promote edu-
cational achievement. Though variation exists among the parents in this sample, a
college-based population represents a truncated portion of the national distribution.
40 PERSPECTIVESVolume49, Number 1, 2006
SOCIOLOGICAL

The largest limitations of this study revolve around the sample. Though the
homogeneity provides a conservative estimate of the magnitude of these relation-
ships suitable for an exploratory study, future work should assess the generaliz-
ability and variations in these processes. Though this study contains more-detailed
social psychological measures--especially of values-than typically found in strati-
fication research, larger representative samples would allow exploration of racial/
ethnic differences, and introduce more variation in family SES. Potentially, we
could find samples with more variation in children's career aspirations that would
provide more statistical opportunities to discern relationships.
This article cannot address issues about changes over time or compare its
cohort to previous cohorts. Future work should focus both on temporality of ado-
lescents' upbringing and the temporal orientations of individuals (see Lutfey and
Mortimer 2003). The lack of temporal context also obscures questions about
values' stability across the life course, an issue that has been only partly explored
(Alwin et al. 1991; Konty and Dunham 1997).
This study only hints at the nature of the parent-child bond with its proxies for
a variety of actual emotional processes and relationships. Social science lacks ade-
quate theory and measurement tools to understand the complexity of family life
properly (Shanahan, Sulloway, and Hofer 2000), weaknesses not rectified in this
article. As Conley (2004) demonstrates, within-family variation can be as great as
between-family variation, quite possibly muddying the relationships in this (or
any) cross-sectional, single-sibling studies of intergenerational influences. Future
work should also explore varying family structures.
This article is meant to suggest, not define, open lines of inquiry and to suggest
bridges between two literatures relating family SES and children's social psycho-
logical orientations. Family SES is an important predictor for children's values
and career aspirations, but these phenomena need not be studied separately.
There is more nuance within these relationships than previously studied, in part
because there is a wider diversity of values to examine. Occupational aspirations
are less directly influenced by family SES than the literature might suggest, with
the relationship mediated by children's development of altruistic-institutional
values. The careers to which young adults aspire are in part shaped by their core
values, especially at a stage in the life course before entering full-time employment.

Acknowledgments: The author thanks Shelley Correll, John DeLamater, Myra


Marx Ferree, and Jane Piliavin for suggestions and comments on earlier drafts of
this article. Support was provided by the National Institute of Child Health and
Human Development (Grant 2-T32-HD007376, Human Development: Interdisci-
plinary Research Training) at the Center for Developmental Science, University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
ParentalInfluenceson Children'sValuesand Aspirations 41

APPENDIX
Census Occupations Involving Care Work,
Used in This Study to Create Occupational Nurture Scores
1980 1980
Census Census
Code Code
Doctors Primary education
Physicians 084 Prekindergarten and
Dentists 085 kindergarten teachers 155
Optometrists 087 Elementary school teachers 156
Podiatrists 088 Secondary education
Other medical Secondary school teachers 157
Registered nurses 095 Child care
Health diagnosing practitioners, Child care workers,
not elsewhere classified 089 private household 406
Inhalation therapists 098 Child care workers,
Occupational therapists 099 except private household 468
Physical therapists 103 Other caring labor
Speech therapists 104 Special education teachers 158
Therapists, Teachers, not elsewhere classified 159
not elsewhere classified 105 Educational and
Physicians' assistants 106 vocational counselors 163
Dental hygienists 204 Teachers' aides 387
Licensed practical nurses 207 Librarians 164
Dental assistants 445 Social workers 174
Health aides, except nursing 446 Recreation workers 175
Higher education Clergy 176
Professors (separate codes Religious workers,
for various fields) 113-149 not elsewhere classified 177
Teachers, postsecondary, n.e.c. 153
Postsecondary teachers,
subject not specified 154
Source: Taken from England, Budig, and Folbre (2002).

NOTES
1. Schwartz's empirically derived, cross-cultural values are:
Hedonism: self-centered sensual gratification
Power: status and prestige, control people and resources
Achievement: competitive personal success
Stimulation: encourage risk taking and adventure
Self-direction: autonomous thought and action
Universalism: tolerance and concern for welfare of all others
Benevolence: preserve and enhance welfare of close personal others
Conformity: self-restraint to the expectations of others
Tradition: traditional and religious activities
Security: stability, safety, and harmony of society, relationships, and self
42 SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES Volume 49, Number 1, 2006

One other value, which he terms spirituality,is discriminated in some, but not all, samples.
These values are arrayed along two higher-order dimensions: openness to change versus
conservation and self-enhancement versus self-transcendence (Schwartz 1992, 1994).
2. Kohn's operationalization of the self-direction versus conformity dimension is problem-
atic with respect to a careful understanding of values anchored in Schwartz's approach.
I question the extent to which Kohn's self-directionactually fulfils the criterion of being a
value, an abstract representation of the desirable. Particular items in Kohn's construct
("not being fatalistic" and "trustful of others") might more accurately be conceived of as
personality orientations rather than abstract concepts guiding action. Kohn taps, how-
ever, something related to Schwartz's value of self-direction (composed of the items cre-
ativity, freedom, and independence) and is quite successful in demonstrating both social
class and social stratification links between occupational complexity and this construct.
Because of substantive differences between the Schwartz measure and Kohn's concep-
tion of self-direction, it is difficult to situate this work directly within Kohn's framework.
Juggling incommensurate measures is not a new problem in the literature on values.
3. Additional analyses, not presented here, included controls for both the authority inher-
ent in the parents' job and a dummy variable representing "homemaker." Neither vari-
able added much to the models and were excluded from the final analyses.
4. The dormitories were selected to be representative of three types of residence halls: a
large mid-campus dorm, a smaller, "quiet" dorm, and a residence hall designed for
"structured participation" in the college community. There were no patterns to survey
attrition based on original residence.
5. There are significant correlations between the SEI scales and Nakeo-Treas scores, with
educational attainment correlated more highly with prestige than with the wage rate.
Warren et al. (1998) argue that it is more desirable to employ the direct components of
the composite TSEI score in which the researcher is interested-occupational prestige,
occupational educational attainment, and occupational wages-than using the TSEI
composite, given the partially arbitrary weighting of the components in the composite
measure. Models were run using each of the components, but the results were not signif-
icantly different, so this study employs the TSEI measure to capture all three components.

REFERENCES
Alwin, Duane F. 1989. "Social Stratification, Conditions of Work, and Parental Socialization
Values." Pp. 327-46 in Socialand Moral ValuesIndividualand SocietalPerspectives,edited by
N. Eisenberg, J. Reykowski, and E. Staub. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Alwin, Duane F.,Ronald L. Cohen, and Theodore M. Newcomb. 1991. PoliticalAttitudesOver the
LifeSpan:TheBenningtonWomenafterFifty Years.Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Asakawa, Kiyoshi and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. 2000. "Feelings of Connectedness and
Internalization of Values in Asian American Adolescents." Journalof Youthand Adoles-
cence 29(2):121-45.
Axinn, William G. and Arland Thornton. 1993. "Mothers, Children, and Cohabitation: The
Intergenerational Effects of Attitudes and Behavior." American Sociological Review
58:233-46.
Beutel, Ann M. and Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson. 2004. "Gender and Prosocial Values Dur-
ing Adolescence: A Research Note." Sociological Quarterly 45(2):379-93.
Beutel, Ann M. and Margaret M. Marini. 1995. "Gender and Values." American Sociological
Review 60(3):436-48.
Biblarz, Timothy J., Adrian E. Raftery, and Alexander Bucur. 1997. "Family Structure and
Social Mobility." Social Forces75(4):1319-41.
ParentalInfluenceson Children'sValuesand Aspirations 43

Caspi, Avshalom, Bradley R. E. Wright, Terrie E. Moffitt, and Phil A. Silva. 1998. "Early
Failure in the Labor Market: Childhood and Adolescent Predictors of Unemploy-
ment in the Transition to Adulthood." American SociologicalReview 63(3):424-51.
Conley, Dalton. 2004. The Pecking Order: Which Siblings Succeed and Why. New York: Pan-
theon Books.
Cooley, Charles H. 1902. Human Nature and the Social Order.New York: Scribner.
Crosnoe, Robert, Rashmita S. Mistry, and G. H. Elder, Jr. 2002. "Economic Disadvantage,
Family Dynamics, and Adolescent Enrollment in Higher Education." Journal of Mar-
riage and Family 64:690-702.
Dio, Lina D., Carina Saragovi, Richard Koestner, and Jennifer Aube. 1996. "Linking Per-
sonal Values to Gender." Sex Roles 34(9 / 10):621-35.
Eder, Donna and Sandi Kawecka Nenga. 2003. "Socialization in Adolescence." Pp. 157-82
in Handbookof Social Psychology,edited by J. Delamater. New York: Kluwer.
Elder, Glen H., Jr. 1998. "The Life Course and Human Development." Pp. 939-91 in Hand-
bookof Child Psychology:Vol. 1. TheoreticalModels of Human Development,edited by R. M.
Lerner and W. Damon. New York: Wiley.
Elder, Glen H., Jr., Monica K. Johnson, and Robert Crosnoe. 2003. "The Emergence and
Development of Life Course Theory." Pp. 3-19 in Handbookof the Life Course, edited
by J. T. Mortimer and M. J. Shanahan. New York: Kluwer.
England, Paula, Michelle Budig, and Nancy Folbre. 2002. "Wages of Virtue: The Relative
Pay of Care Work." Social Problems49(4):455-73.
Featherman, David L. and Robert M. Hauser. 1978. Opportunity and Change. New York:
Academic Press.
Florentine, Robert. 1988. "Increasing Similarity in the Values and Life Plans of Male and
Female College Students? Evidence and Implications." Sex Roles 18:143-58.
Gamoran, Adam. 1996. "Educational Stratification and Individual Careers." Pp. 59-74 in
Generating Social Stratification:Towarda New ResearchAgenda, edited by A. C. Kerck-
hoff. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Glass, Jennifer, Vern L. Bengston, and Charlotte Chorn Dunham. 1986. "Attitude Similarity
in Three-Generation Families: Socialization, Status Inheritance, or Reciprocal Influ-
ence." American SociologicalReview 51(5):685-98.
Halaby, Charles N. 2003. "Where Job Values Come From: Family and Schooling Back-
ground, Cognitive Ability, and Gender." American SociologicalReview 68:251-78.
Hauser, Robert M. and John R. Warren. 1997. "Socioeconomic Indexes for Occupations: A
Review, Update and Critique." SociologicalMethodology27:177-298.
Heinz, Walter R. 2003. "From Work Trajectories to Negotiated Careers: The Contingent
Work Life Course." Pp. 185-204 in Handbook of the Life Course, edited by J. T. Mor-
timer and M. J. Shanahan. New York: Kluwer.
Hitlin, Steven and Jane A. Piliavin. 2004. "Values: Reviving a Dormant Concept." Annual
Review of Sociology 30:359-93.
Jencks, Christopher, James Crouse, and Peter Mueser. 1983. "The Wisconsin Model of Sta-
tus Attainment: A National Replication wWith Improved Measures of Ability and
Aspiration." Sociology of Education56(1):3-19.
Johnson, Monica K. 2002. "Social Origins, Adolescent Experiences, and Work Value Trajec-
tories During the Transition to Adulthood." Social Forces 80(4):1307-41.
Kalmijn, Matthijs. 1994. "Mother's Occupational Status and Children's Schooling." Ameri-
can SociologicalReview 59(2):257-75.
Kasser, Tim, Richard M. Ryan, Melvin Zax, and Arnold J. Sameroff. 1995. "The Relations of
Maternal and Social Environments to Late Adolescents' Materialistic and Prosocial
Values." DevelopmentalPsychology 31(6):907-14.
44 SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES Volume 49, Number 1, 2006

Kerckoff, Alan C. 2003. "From Student to Worker." Pp. 251-69 in Handbookof the Life Course,
edited by J. T. Mortimer and M. J. Shanahan. New York: Kluwer.
Kohn, Melvin L. 1969. Class and Conformity.Homewood, IL: Dorsey.
. 1976. "Social Class and Parental Values: Another Confirmation of the Relation-
ship." American SociologicalReview 41(3):538-45.
. 1977. Class and Conformitya Study in Values, with a Reassessment, 2nd ed. Chicago:
-
University of Chicago Press.
-. 1981. "Personality, Occupation, and Social Stratification: A Frame of Reference."
Pp. 267-97 in Researchin Social Stratificationand Mobility,vol. 1, edited by D. J. Treiman
and R. V. Robinson. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Kohn, Melvin L., Atsushi Naoi, Carrie Schoenbach, Carmi Schooler, and Kazimierz M.
Slomczynski. 1990. "Position in the Class Structure and Psychological Functioning
in the United States, Japan, and Poland." AmericanJournalof Sociology95(4):964-1008.
Kohn, Melvin L. and Carrie Schoenbach. 1993. "Social Stratification, Parents' Values and
Children's Values." Pp. 118-51 in New Directions in Attitude Measurement, edited by
D. Krebs and P. Schmidt. New York: Walter de Gruyter.
Kohn, Melvin L. and Carmi Schooler. 1982. "Job Conditions and Personality: A Longitudinal
Assessment of Their Reciprocal Effects." AmericanJournalof Sociology 87(6):1257-86.
. 1983. Work and Personality: An Inquiry into the Impact of Social Stratification. Nor-
wood, NJ: Ablex.
Kohn, Melvin L., Kazimierz M. Slomczynski, and Carrie Schoenbach. 1986. "Social Stratifi-
cation and the Transmission of Values in the Family: A Cross-National Assessment."
SociologicalForum 1:73-102.
Konty, Mark A. and Charlotte C. Dunham. 1997. "Differences in Value and Attitude
Change Over the Life Course." SociologicalSpectrum 17(2):177-97.
Lee, Lichang. 1997. "Change of Self-Concept in the First Year of College Life: The Effect of
Gender and Community Involvement." Doctoral dissertation, Department of Soci-
ology, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Lutfey, Karen and Jeylan T. Mortimer. 2003. "Development and Socialization through the
Adult Life Course." Pp. 183-202 in Handbookof Social Psychology, edited by J. Dela-
mater. New York: Kluwer.
Marini, Margaret M. 2000. "Social Values and Norms." Pp. 2828-40 in Encyclopedia of
Sociology, revised ed., edited by E. F. Borgatta and R. J. V. Montgomery. New York:
Macmillan.
Marini, Margaret M., Pi-Ling Fan, Erica Finley, and Ann M. Beutel. 1996. "Gender and Job
Values." Sociology of Education26:49-65.
McLeod, Jane D. and Kathryn J. Lively. 2003. "Social Structure and Personality." Pp. 77-102
in Handbookof Social Psychology,edited by J. Delamater. New York: Kluwer.
Miller, Joanne, Carmi Schooler, Melvin L. Kohn, and Karen A. Miller. 1979. "Women and
Work: The Psychological Effects of Occupational Conditions." American Journal of
Sociology 85:66-94.
Miller, Richard B. and Jennifer Glass. 1989. "Parent-Child Attitude Similarity across the
Life Course." Journalof Marriage and the Family 51:991-97.
Moen, Phyllis, Mary A. Erickson, and Donna Dempster-McClain. 1997. "Their Mother's
Daughters? The Intergenerational Transmission of Gender Attitudes in a World of
Changing Roles." Journalof Marriage and Family 59(2):281-93.
Morgan, William R., Duane F. Alwin, and Larry J. Griffin. 1979. "Social Origins, Parental
Values, and the Transmission of Inequality." AmericanJournalof Sociology 85(1):156-66.
Nakeo, Keiko and Judith Treas. 1994. "Updating Occupational Prestige and Socioeconomic
Scores: How the New Measures Measure Up." SociologicalMethodology 24:1-72.
ParentalInfluences on Children'sValuesand Aspirations 45

Padavic, Irene and Barbara Reskin. 2002. Women and Men at Work. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Pine Forge Press.
Pallas, Aaron M. 2003. "Educational Transitions, Trajectories, and Pathways." Pp. 165-84 in
Handbookof the Life Course, edited by J. T. Mortimer and M. J. Shanahan. New York:
Kluwer.
Parcel, Toby L. and Elizabeth G. Menaghan. 1994. Parents' Jobs and Children's Lives. New
York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Pearlin, Leonard I. and Melvin L. Kohn. 1966. "Social Class, Occupation, and Parental
Values: A Cross-National Study." American SociologicalReview 31(4):466-79.
Prince-Gibson, Eta and Shalom H. Schwartz. 1998. "Value Priorities and Gender." Social
Psychology Quarterly 61:49-67.
Reskin, Barbara F. 2003. "Including Mechanisms in Our Models of Ascriptive Inequality."
American SociologicalReview 68:1-21.
Roberts, Robert E. L. and Vern L. Bengtson. 1999. "The Social Psychology of Values: Effects
of Individual Development, Social Change, and Family Transmission Over the Life
Span." Pp. 453-82 in The Self and Society in Aging Processes, edited by C. D. Ryff and
V. W. Marshall. New York: Springer.
Rohan, Meg J. and Mark P. Zanna. 1996. "Value Transmission in Families." Pp. 253-76 in
The Ontario Symposium: The Psychology of Values, edited by C. Seligman, J. M. Olson,
and M. P. Zanna. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Rosenberg, Morris. 1965. Society and the Adolescent Self-Image.Princeton, NJ: Princeton Uni-
versity Press.
Rudd, Peter and Karen Evans. 1998. "Structure and Agency in Youth Transitions: Student
Experiences of Vocational Further Education." Journalof YouthStudies 1:39-62.
Ryckman, Richard M. and Diane M. Houston. 2003. "Value Priorities in American and Brit-
ish Female and Male University Students." Journalof Social Psychology 143(1):127-38.
Schwartz, Shalom H. 1992. "Universals in the Content and Structure of Values: Theoretical
Advances and Empirical Tests in 20 Countries." Pp. 1-65 in Advances in Experimental
Social Psychology,edited by M. P. Zanna. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
. 1994. "Are There Universal Aspects in the Structure and Content of Human
Values?" Journalof Social Issues 50:19-45.
2004. "Basic Human Values: Their Content and Structure across Cultures." Valorese
Trabalho[Values and Work],edited by A. Tamayo and J. Porto. Brasilia: Editora Univer-
sidade de Brasilia.
Sewell, William H., Archibald O. Haller, and Alejandro Portes. 1969. "The Educational and
Early Occupational Status Attainment Process." American Sociological Review 34:82-
92.
Sewell, William H. and Robert M. Hauser. 1980. "The Wisconsin Longitudinal Study of
Social and Psychological Factors in Aspirations and Achievements." Pp. 59-99 in
Research in Sociology of Education and Socialization, vol. 1, edited by A. C. Kerckhoff.
Greenwich, CT:JAI Press.
Sewell, William H., Robert M. Hauser, and Wendy C. Wolf. 1980. "Sex, Schooling, and
Occupational Status." AmericanJournalof Sociology 86(3):551-83.
Sewell, William H. and Vimal P. Shah. 1968. "Social Class, Parental Encouragement, and
Educational Aspirations." AmericanJournal of Sociology 73(5):559-72.
Shanahan, Michael J. 2000. "Pathways to Adulthood in Changing Societies: Variability and
Mechanisms in Life Course Perspective." Annual Review of Sociology 26:667-92.
Shanahan, Michael J., Frank J. Sulloway, and Scott M. Hofer. 2000. "Change and Constancy
in Developmental Contexts." InternationalJournal of BehavioralDevelopment24(4):421-
27.
46 SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES Volume 49, Number 1, 2006

Simons, Ronald L., Les B. Whitbeck, Rand D. Conger, and Janet N. Melby. 1990. "Husband
and Wife Differences in Determinants of Parenting: A Social Learning and Exchange
Model of Parental Behavior." Journalof Marriage and the Family 52(2):375-92.
Slomczynski, Kazimierz M., Joanne Miller, and Melvin L. Kohn 1981. "Stratification, Work
and Values: A Polish-United States Comparison." American SociologicalReview 46:720-
44.
Steele, Jennifer and Julian Barling. 1996. "Influence of Maternal Gender-Role Beliefs and
Role Satisfaction on Daughters' Vocational Interests." Sex Roles 34(9 / 10):637-48.
Struch, Naomi, Shalom H. Schwartz, and Willem A. van der Kloot. 2002. "Meanings of
Basic Values for Women and Men: A Cross-Cultural Analysis." Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin 28(1):16-28.
Taylor, Lorraine C., Jennifer D. Clayton, and Stephanie J. Rowley. 2004. "Academic Social-
ization: Understanding Parental Influences on Children's School-Related Develop-
ment in the Early Years." Review of GeneralPsychology 8(3):163-78.
Teachman, Jay D. and Kathleen Paasch. 1998. "The Family and Educational Aspirations."
Journalof Marriage and the Family 60(3):704-14.
Thornton, Arland and Donald Camburn. 1987. "The Influence of the Family on Premarital
Sexual Attitudes and Behavior." Demography24:323-40.
Thornton, Arland and Linda Young-DeMarco. 2001. "Four Decades of Trends in Attitudes
toward Family Issues in the United States: The 1960's through the 1990's." Journal of
Marriage and Family 63:1009-37.
Turner, Ralph H. 1976. "The Real Self: From Institution to Impulse." American Journal of
Sociology 84:1-23.
Tyree, Andrea and Rebecca Hicks. 1988. "Sex and the Second Moment of Prestige Distribu-
tions." Social Forces 66(4):1028-37.
Uhlenberg, Peter and Margaret Mueller. 2003. "Family Context and Individual Well-Being:
Patterns and Mechanisms in Life Course Perspective." Pp. 123-48 in Handbookof the
Life Course,edited by J. T. Mortimer and M. J. Shanahan. New York: Kluwer.
Wall, Julie, Katherine Covell, and Peter D. Macintyre. 1999. "Implications of Social Sup-
ports for Adolescents' Education and Career Aspirations." CanadianJournal of Behav-
ioral Science 31(2):63-71.
Warren, John R., Jennifer T. Sheridan, and Robert M. Hauser. 1998. "Choosing a Measure of
Occupational Standing: How Useful Are Composite Measures in Analyses of Gender
Inequality in Occupational Attainment?" SociologicalMethods & Research27(1):3-76.
Whitbeck, Les B. and Viktor Gecas. 1988. "Value Attributions and Value Transmission between
Parents and Children." Journalof Marriage and the Family 50:829-40.
Xiao, Hong. 1999. "Independence and Obedience: An Analysis of Child Socialization Values
in the United States and China." Journalof ComparativeFamily Studies 30(4):641-57.
. 2000a. "Class, Gender, and Parental Values in the 1990s." Gender& Society 14(6):785-
- 803.
. 2000b. "Structure of Child-Rearing Values in Urban China." SociologicalPerspectives
43(3):457-71.

You might also like