Achievement Orientations and Career Patterns of Rural Youth

Abstract

Recent teohnological advance8 in Amerioan agrioulture are correlated with two trXends which have significant implication8 for the careers of rural farm youth; the number of opportunities to enter farming is decreasing and the skill level requited to farm successfully is increasing. Since the educational requisite8 for high statu8 non-agricultural job8 have also inoreased, education beyond high 8ohool is8ertain to be much more important as a determinant of the life chance8 of rural youth than it has in the past. At present, however, we find that rural youth are much less likely to be enrolled in college and are more likely to drop out of high school than youth from urban areas. Three sets of factor8 are proposed as accounting in part for the rural-urban differential in educational achievement; educational opportunities, values and goal-orientation8, and achievement potential. The distribution of these factors between urban and rural youth and their effects on educational achievement and occupational mobility are assessed by reviewing relevant studies. Compared to urban youth, rural adole8cents are more likely to be disadvantaged in opportunities to aohieve, eaxposure to aohievement value8 and goals, achievement motivation, and in personalty orientations. A comparative eawamination of tJhe acadeemic progress of rural and urban youth in a large land grant institution indioated that the former are le-8 adequately prepared for college.