Ethnicity, Family Environment and Adolescents’ Aspirations: A Follow-Up Study

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Abstract
The study was a follow-up investigation of research previously reported in this journal. In the original analysis" an examination was made of relations between the family environments and cognitive performance of 11 year old Australian children from different ethnic groups. Those data were used in the present study to examine correlates of the educational and occupational aspirations of the children when they were 16 years old. The adolescents also provided information on the perceptions they had of their parents’ aspirations for them, the encouragement they had received from their parents, and the interest they considered their parents had in their education. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that adolescents, aspirations were related strongly to a set of family environment measures, but that there were ethnic group differences in the relationships. The results suggested that if teachers are concerned about constructing school contexts that will assist in the formation of adolescents, aspirations, then they will need to take into account the strong parental influences on aspirations.