Adolescent Career Aspirations and Expectations: Evaluation of Two Contrary Stratification Hypotheses

“You can’t always get what you want”: Prevalence, magnitude, and predictors of the aspiration–attainment gap after the school-to-work transition

“…With regard to occupational aspirations, we used students' realistic aspirations measured in ninth grade, that is, before the transition to VET after completion of tenth grade (Wave 2; i.e., 2011). Realistic occupational aspirations (also called expectations; e.g., Ashby & Schoon, 2012;Rehberg, 1967;Reynolds & Pemberton, 2001) refer to the specific occupations that students expect to attain in the future, taking into account their perceived opportunity structure, including individual resources and external constraints (Rehberg, 1967). NEPS assessed these aspirations with the open-ended question "Considering everything you know right now: What will probably be your occupation in the future?"…”

“…If the students' expectations matched their actual chances on the training market, there should be no major gap between their aspirations and what they attained. Realistic aspirations should not be mistaken for idealistic aspirations (also simply called aspirations; e.g.,Ashby & Schoon, 2012;Rehberg, 1967;Reynolds & Pemberton, 2001) that represent wishes and dreams about what one desires ideally. In the latter case, an AAG would be expected.…”

A Model of Student College Choice

“…For example, SES is positively related to educational aspirations and expectations [24] and GPA [1], both of which are related to college choice.…”

“You Can’t Always Get What You Want”: Prevalence and Predictors of the Aspiration–Attainment Gap After the School-to-Work Transition

“…With regard to occupational aspirations, we used students' realistic aspirations measured in ninth grade, that is, before the transition to VET after completion of tenth grade (Wave 2). Realistic occupational aspirations (also called expectations; e.g., Ashby & Schoon, 2012;Rehberg, 1967;Reynolds & Pemberton, 2001) refer to the specific occupations that students expect to attain in the future, taking into account their perceived opportunity structure, including individual resources and external constraints (Rehberg, 1967). These aspirations were assessed with the open-ended question:…”

“…2 If the students' expectations matched their actual chances on the training market, there should be no major gap between their aspirations and what they attained. Realistic aspirations should not be mistaken for idealistic aspirations (also simply called aspirations; e.g.,Ashby & Schoon, 2012;Rehberg, 1967;Reynolds & Pemberton, 2001) that represent wishes and dreams about what one desires ideally. In the latter case, an AAG would be expected.…”