Educational Opportunities and Occupational Aspirations: A Two-Dimensional Approach

Abstract

This article proposes that the study of early career formation has failed to notice that inequalities in educational opportunities may generate alternative patterns of occupational aspirations. In particular, standard scales of aspirations cannot identify the economically ambitious who aim at occupations that generate high income but require low education. This type of ambition is likely when schooling cannot function as an effective means of mobility. To examine this proposition, the authors constructed a scale that captures this dimension and used it, together with the standard scale, to study the occupational aspirations of high school students in Israel. The results show that the aspiration levels for the two dimensions are affected by individual (gender) and institutional (tracking) factors.