Aspirations Of Young People Research Articles

Transition and social networks of young people with learning disabilities

School leavers with learning disabilities are often lost within service structures as part of the transition process. Many young people lose their social networks at the point of transition to adulthood. This paper provides an insight into the views and aspirations of young people, and highlights the importance of social networks in promoting the psychological well‐being of young people with learning disabilities.

Psychological Injury and Law: Editorial on the Young and the Tested

In this editorial about our dynamic new journal and association, I describe how young professionals and students in both the mental health field and the legal profession can play a role in the association and how they can benefit from it and the journal. The association and journal are meant to serve the education and career aspirations of young people and, at the same time, we look forward to their contributions.

Coming of age in changing times: Occupational aspirations of American youth, 1966–1980

Young people in the United States are driven by an ideology of high achievement and hold ambitious occupational aspirations, yet little is known about the process by which they negotiate social conditions to come to terms with life's limitations. We use a life-course perspective to examine change in prestige, education, earning potential, and sex type dimensions in occupational aspirations in the U.S., using longitudinal data on cohorts of young people ages 14–29 during the period between 1966 and 1980. After their initial formation in childhood and adolescence, occupational aspirations are regulated by experiences in the educational system, the labor market, and for women, the adult family. The Civil Rights and the Women's Movements contributed to age-, cohort-, and period-related increases in women and black men's occupational aspirations. The economic downturn after 1973 also played a role, reducing young men's occupational aspirations and reverting black men's aspirations to the same level as that prior to the 1970s, negating the positive influences of the Civil Rights Movement. There is no evidence that the Vietnam War produced a net change in young people's aspirations. These findings show that after their initial formation under ascriptive influences, occupational aspirations continue to evolve as new life experiences associated with changed societal values and opportunity structure provide impetus for change. Despite these perturbations, socioeconomic background, race, and gender retain a pervasive impact on the regulation of young people's aspirations in adolescent and young adulthood in the United States.

Conceituando o capital social em relação a crianças e jovens: é diferente para meninas?

Este artigo descreve um projeto de pesquisa que explorou a relevância da definição de Putnam (1993) de capital social (como algo que consiste de redes sociais, normas de confiança, reciprocidade, engajamento cívico e participação em comunidades) com crianças e jovens de áreas socialmente desfavorecidas. O artigo também apresenta dados de um estudo sociológico empírico que buscou explorar o significado e a relevância de diferentes aspectos do "capital social" para jovens de 12 a 15 anos que vivem em duas áreas carentes de uma cidade no sudeste da Inglaterra. Baseia-se em descrições que os jovens fazem de seu dia-a-dia e concentra-se em quatro elementos: relatos sobre os pais e a centralidade das mães, diferenças de gênero em relatos sobre o significado e a natureza da amizade, diferenças de gênero em experiências de espaços do bairro e recursos locais e diferenças de gênero nas aspirações dos jovens para o futuro.

Youth Language, Gaul Sociability, and the New Indonesian Middle Class

This article examines the linguistic form and social functions of bahasa gaul, the informal Indonesian "language of sociability," as it is used among Indonesian university students and in various publications aimed at middle‐class Indonesian youth. Bahasa gaul registers youth modernity in both its positive and more contested aspects. It expresses not only young people's aspirations for social and economic mobility, but also an increasingly cosmopolitan, national youth culture. Perhaps most significantly, bahasa gaul articulates the desire of Indonesian youth for new types of social belonging through the formulation of relationships that are more egalitarian and interactionally fluid as well as more personally expressive and psychologically individualized.

Transitions from school to work in Europe: Destandardization and policy trends

This chapter deals with a fundamental change in young people's transitions to work. Flexible labor markets have led to a diversification of transition patterns, but policy measures are unresponsive to the needs and aspirations of young people. New risks and challenges emerge that are addressed differently in the different European societies.

Education and Employability: School leavers' attitudes to the prospect of non-standard work

The increasing importance of work-life flexibility and lifelong learning to employment requires flexible approaches to career and education choices, starting at school-leaving age. Little is known, however, about the ways in which labour market change affects the employment and education-related expectations and aspirations of young people. The lack of empirical research in this area represents a general lack of academic and political consideration about young people's attitudes towards their prospects in the modern labour market. This article presents the findings of a survey conducted into the perceptions and attitudes of final year school pupils towards participating in employment and post-16 education or training in the context of flexible employment prospects. Despite their acknowledging a growth of employment flexibility, the findings revealed the sample to hold a general commitment to a traditional ideal of standard employment, especially as a return for personal investment in human capital. Interesting distinctions emerged between groups of school leavers, which may have implications for the employability of different groups of young people in a more flexible working future. It is argued that careers education needs to more coherently address flexible employment prospects for young people and pay particular attention to groups who are shown to face employability problems when they leave school.

Mind the gap: The creative conundrum

Senior politicians, including the Prime Minister, argue that it is vital to promote creativity and innovation throughout education. This was a theme of Tony Blair's electioneering speeches in the run up to the 1997 landslide. He made it one of the central messages of his Romanes lecture on education in 1999. Yet if the government were to design an education system to inhibit creativity, it could hardly do better. This was true of the last government though they had less to say about creativity in the first place. Governments throughout the world emphasise the importance of creativity, but often what they do in education suppresses it. Why is it that politicians argue for creativity but seem to act against it? This question goes to the heart of the debate about what it is to be educated in the twenty-first century. There is a good deal of creative teaching and learning going on in the UK and elsewhere. But this is mostly despite the dominant policies rather than because of them. There are two widely acknowledged reasons for promoting creativity and innovation, both of them economic. First, technological developments are transforming the global economies. Keeping pace with international competition requires a constant flow of new ideas and the capacity to implement them. Second, business needs people who can adapt quickly to new challenges and changing circumstances. This much is standard political rhetoric. But these issues are more than rhetorical. They must be taken to the heart of government. In my view, they are taken seriously, but the implications are not being faced, at least not on the evidence of current policies. Education has to do more than prepare people for the world of work. The British education system has always been tempered with broader social purposes, and rightly so. There have been times when philosophers of education and others have argued that education should never be seen in instrumental terms at all: that the aims of education are entirely intrinsic to it and should not be related to economic interests. However plausible these arguments may be within philosophy seminars, they run against the grain of parental expectations, the aspirations of young people and common sense. In my experience, most people assume that being educated will have some bearing on being employable and economically independent. The issue is not whether education should relate to economic development, but how, and how its economic roles should be balanced with other priorities. In the new economies, the nature of work and the balance of the workforce are changing beyond recognition. The technological changes that are now taking place bear serious comparison with the Industrial Revolution. In the last twenty years, and with increasing speed, there have been radical changes in the nature and the distribution of work. There have been fundamental changes in how business is done and who does it. The revolution in banking and financial services is just one example of many. The indications are that we have seen nothing yet. The accelerating rate of technological change suggests that we are still at the ham radio stage of global information systems. Revolutionary research in nanotechnology is leading to the extreme miniaturisation of computer components. But this is not all. Rapid developments in the cognitive sciences are generating new insights about the workings of the brain. Genetics is opening up new horizons in the nature of life itself. These three scientific frontiers are beginning to merge. It is now feasible to anticipate the convergence of information systems and human intelligence; the development of computer-enhanced intelligence and of conscious machines. These are not ideas from science fiction but realistic projections based on current knowledge and rates of research and innovation. If this is not creating a social, economic and cultural revolution, it's hard to know what would. Education is meant to be the process by which we enable people to engage with social and economic change. …

Working with young people - towards an agenda for sexual health

In this paper we outline key elements of a human rights-based framework for sexual health promotion that takes account of young people's needs and interests. This framework is located against the backdrop of a critique of the way in which negative definitions of 'sexual health' and of 'adolescence', as well as restrictions on open and appropriate sex education in schools, undermine the likelihood that young people will achieve optimal benefit from existing services and strategies in countries such as England and Scotland. Central to our analysis is an affirming and positive definition of sexual health-that focuses on the attainment of sexual pleasure and which links sexuality to an expression of individual and collective needs and broader human rights and responsibilities. We point to ways in which such a framework might inform the provision of appropriate information about positive sexual health, and of more accessible and integrated sexual health services. We also highlight the need for measures to improve young people's confidence and aspirations, and to increase youth participation in decision making in matters relating not only to their sexual health, but also to the wider social and community environments within which young people's sexuality is negotiated.

The educational and occupational aspirations of young people in Scotland and Finland

In this paper we examine subjective aspects of social reproduction in two countries: Finland and Scotland. Our aims are twofold. The first is to examine the extent to which individual actors are able to meaningfully negotiate opportunity structures through contrasting the future orientations of young people in two different societies. The central question here relates to the extent to which individual subjectivities are conditioned by social locations rather than being shaped through a process of exploration and negotiation. Second, as the two countries have different systems of education, vocational training and careers counselling, we wanted to determine the extent to which institutional arrangements shape subjective orientations. In America, the widely tested Wisconsin model of status attainment (which is used to measure social mobility and includes indicators of socio-economic background and educational attainment as well as aspirations) has highlighted the significance of the relationship between subjective processes and labour market outcomes (Sewell and Hauser, 1993), but we have little knowledge of the ways in which subjective orientations are affected by institutional arrangements and models of careers counselling. Sinisalo (1993), however, has argued that across different cultures there are strong similarities in vocational interests. If institutional structures and models of careers counselling are significant, then given the differences in the educational systems of Finland and Scotland, we would expect to find strong variations in the aspirations of young people. If, on the other hand, the aspirations of young people in the two countries are very similar, this would suggest that these arrangements are of little significance.

E-mail Exchanges: Teaching Language, Culture, and Technology for the 21st Century

How can e-mail be integrated into a college preparatory ESL curriculum? Classroom e-mail exchanges between the University College of the Cariboo in Kamloops, BC and the University of Wisconsin, the University of Northeastern fllinois, and Carleton University demonstrate that e-mail can be effective in teaching intercultural awareness, creating a more positive affective climate by providing greater privacy and intimacy, and in making the EAP curriculum more relevant to the needs and aspirations of young people looking ahead to the 21st century.

Educational and Occupational Aspirations of High School Seniors with Learning Disabilities

Using the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, this study investigated the educational and occupational aspirations of high school seniors with and without learning disabilities. Effect sizes showed practical differences between the aspirations of young people with learning disabilities and their peers without disabilities, with the latter holding higher aspirations—-for both educational and occupational outcomes. No practical differences were found for female versus male adolescents with learning disabilities. Adolescents with learning disabilities who aspired to a high school diploma or less, and those who aspired to an advanced college degree, espoused lower occupational aspirations than did their peers without disabilities.

Town-Village Contrasts in Alaskan Youth Aspirations

Recent surveys of high school students in Alaska's Northwest Arctic and Bristol Bay regions reflect the social changes taking place in rural Native communities. Significant differences exist between the aspirations of young people in small villages and those in the larger towns that constitute regional hubs (Kotzebue and Dillingham). Town students, who attend more complete and varied high schools, express greater confidence in their educations and more interest in attending college. Jobs at Red Dog Mine, recently opened in the Northwest Arctic, appeal particularly to young males with strong ties to village life. This labor pool presents special challenges for the mine's goal of 100% Native employment, however. A majority of town students and about half of the village students expect to migrate permanently away from their home region. The likelihood of expecting migration increases curvilinearly with community size. Young women and college- aspiring students disproportionately expect outmigration. Differential migration affects the acculturation and life prospects of individuals and shapes the demographic profile of Alaskan villages, towns, and cities.

Soldier Recruitment to the British Army: A Spatial and Social Methodology for Analysis and Monitoring

This article reports on the findings of a study undertaken for the Army Eastern District into applications and recruitment in the county of Essex. The data were for one year, 4 January 1988-3 January 1989, and were taken from the 951 DAR1 forms of young people who applied to join the Army. The data were entered and manipulated using INGRES and SPSS-X and the mapping, based on POSTCODE/Grid Referencing, used the GIMMS 5.1 computer mapping package. The study established the feasibility of creating applications/recruitment databases for monitoring the recruitment process. It also demonstrated the value of social and spatial analysis in gaining an understanding of where applicants and recruits come from and their relationship to the local pool of young people (data available from the National Census). This type of information is essential for the development of management information systems to ensure cost effective targeting of recruitment resources. The report recommends the extension of the methodology in a full-scale study and also highlights the need for a greater understanding of young people's aspirations and attitudes to both civilian and armed forces jobs.

‘The Quest for a Truly Representative Scottish Native Drama’: The Scottish National Players

The Scottish National Players were the most interesting and important group in Scottish theatre in the 1920s, and the ‘national drama’ which they produced defined Scottish theatre for almost two decades. The SNP, as they were known, became the focus for the aspirations of young people wanting to progress to a professional career within theatre and were responsible for training a whole generation of Scottish actors. Later theatre groups, such as the Curtain and the Gateway, were greatly influenced by the Scottish National Players, who also made a major contribution to the early years of broadcasting in Scotland. Though mainly an amateur group, the SNP recognized the necessity for a national theatre company to tour as widely as possible, and in doing so helped to fire the enthusiasm for amateur drama which swept Scotland in the thirties. Many of the problems and debates which confronted them in their attempt to provide Scotland with a national theatre, such as the vexed question of whether production should be restricted to Scottish plays, irrespective of quality in the hope of better things to come, are still relevant issues.

The Social Image of Urban Housing—Dreams and Realities: The Case of Poland

: For decades there were no links in Poland between the standard of urban housing and its costs. The growing housing aspirations of young people do not take realities into consideration. Housing construction, however, carries low priority in the national economy. The government does not take account of the social expectations of its younger citizens and the tensions and frustrations created by urban housing shortages. These issues are discussed in this article in the context of changing demographic, economic, and political realities.

The Easterlin Hypothesis: Another Aspect of the Echo to Consider

The basis of the Easterlin concept of relative economic status which is 1 of the most provocative aspects of his theory regardig long-term swings in economic growth and fertility is his belief that consumption aspirations of young people are formed during adolescence in their parents households. It is argued that it is important to incorporate several additional considerations within the framework relative to the U.S. in the post-World-War-2 period. 1) It would be desirable to distinguish between and clarify the economic roles of husbands and wives in order to understand exactly what kinds of changes in the relative economic status of younger or older families have been occurring. 2) It would be of value to look at relative economic deprivation at 1 moment in time as well as over time and also to look at the way relative economic status affects families at the early and later stages (i.e. before children and during their adolescence) of the family cycle. The difficulties of the 2nd life cycle squeeze have been intensified in the U.S. by the coming to expensive adolescence of the baby boom cohorts. This was offset in the 1960s by rapid increases in the earnings of older men and by development of other sources of income generally working wives. Thus older couples drew somewhat ahead and some increases in relative economic deprivation were probably occuring for young men after all. 3) It should be kept in mind that changes in womens economic roles will help perpetuate low fertility and will probably prevent baby booms of the World War 2 variety in the future. Increased employment rates of older women have put an extra squeeze on younger families in the early life cycle stage trying to live on the husbands income along. If young wives begin to work to compensate the behavior pattern will tend to perpetuate itself.(Authors modified)