Father identification, achievement, and occupational behavior of rural youth: 5-Year follow-up

Abstract

Rural economically deprived adolescent males, who had previously been surveyed as high school seniors and again 1 year after graduation concerning their post-high school plans, were surveyed again 5 years after graduation concerning their occupational status and aspirations, their educational achievements, their satisfaction with their present status, their evaluation of their high school preparation in regard to their present jobs, and their optimism about the future. The subjects had been divided in an earlier study into two groups, low identification males (LIM) and high identification males (HIM) based on independent evaluators' judgments of the adequacy of their fathers as identification models. Each group's responses to the survey were compared. The results indicate that there are no statistically significant differences between the two groups on the variables of satisfaction with present status or evaluation of their high schools' preparation of them for their current occupation. There are statistically significant differences on the variables of occupational status, occupational aspirations, educational achievements, and optimism about the future.