The career development of Mexican American adolescent women: A test of social cognitive career theory.

Abstract

This study tested R. W. Lent, S. D. Brown, and G. Hackett's (1994) model of career choice with 364 Mexican American adolescent women. Path analyses were run to determine the influence of contextual and social cognitive variables on career aspiration, career choice prestige, and traditionality. Partial support for the model was evidenced as nontraditional career self-efficacy, parental support, barriers, acculturation, and feminist attitudes predicted career choice prestige. Acculturation, feminist attitudes, and nontraditional career self-efficacy predicted career choice traditionality. Feminist attitudes and parental support predicted career aspiration. The paths between nontraditional career interests and the 3 outcome variables were not supported. Finally, none of the background contextual variables in this study predicted nontraditional career self-efficacy. Implications of the results and suggestions for future research are discussed.