Homemakers' Value Orientations to Education and Job

Abstract

This study focused upon factors influencing education and job value orientations of homemakers living in low‐income areas. Four dimensions of value orientation to educa tion and job were included: abstractness‐concreteness, control‐fatalism, equalitarianism authoritarianism, and integration‐alienation. Data collected from 12 states were grouped according to whether samples represented urban or rural populations, except for two states, Texas and Vermont, which were analyzed separately. Interpretations were based on a least‐ squares analysis of variance. Respondents generally reported a concrete, controlling, inte grative value orientation toward education and an abstract, controlling, authoritarian, and integrative orientation toward their jobs. Texans deviated from this pattern with a job value orientation which was more fatalistic, more alienated, and more equalitarian. Noneconomic factors were significant in explaining variance of the value orientation scales. Of 28 analyses for seven scales and four areas, parental permissiveness appeared in 24, family cohesion in 9, and marital satisfaction in 7 as contributing significantly to varia tion in the value orientation scales. Respondent's age and education were significant in24 of 49 analyses in the least‐squares analysis of variance.