A Study of Occupational Attitudes

Abstract

Since the publication of Counts1 quantitative ranking of occupations according to social status, numerous studies have been made of occupational attitudes of youth. Two of these studies motivated the writer to make a similar study concerned with comparing the occupational attitudes of a college freshman group with those of their teachers. Anderson2 made a study of occupational attitudes of men students in North Carolina State College which led him to conclude that these college students had acquired from the rural environment in which they lived very definite toward the occupational world and that these remain fairly fixed through their college career. Anderson3 further concluded that: Seniors show little difference in their ranking from freshmen. So that added experience, school training, and the passage of time do not seem to influence these mental sets acquired from the social milieu. The question may be asked here: Is the college atmosphere conducive to a change in attitudes on the part of the students or is the college atmosphere just a reflection of attitudes possessed by the college faculty? Maryon Welch,' after surveying 500