Basically, investigators have presented antithetical points of view on the aspirations of the Black youth. While some report that he has similar aspirations as white youth, others declare just the opposite (Antonovsky and Lerner, 1959; Dreger and Miller, 1968; Lott and Lott, 1963; Antonovsky, 1967; Rosen, 1959; and Veroff et al., 1960). Most authors agree, however, that the Black adolescent has a great deal of in-congruency of vocational aspirations and his occupational expectations.
Haberman (1966) explains the Black youth's in-congruency of vocational aspirations and expectations by noting: "Disadvantaged youngsters often overcompensate for feelings of inadequacy by assuming superficially high aspirations." Taking a somewhat different route, Sexton (1971) suggests that recent gains of Black people have contributed to soaring and unrealistically high ambitions.
Although research on lower and middle class Black youth has been scanty, it has generally supported much of that completed on Black and white subjects of these same socioeconomic backgrounds. Studies indicated that lower class Black youth are inclined to retreat from competition and that middle class Black youth are inclined to set very high levels of academic and occupational achievement-levels even higher than those of white youth of a comparable socioeconomic background (Mussen, 1953; Boyd, 1952; Rosen, 1959; Pettigrew, 1964). Middle class Black adolescents also evidence greater expectations of reaching their occupational goals (Henderson, 1967).
Littig (1968) examined the idea of achievement motivation in terms of Black freshmen college males' aspirations to traditionally closed or traditionally open occupations for members of their racial group. He established that those males who identified with the working class tended to have a strong achievement motivation and aspired to traditionally closed occupations and that those who identified with the middle class were inclined to evidence weak achievement motivation and aspired to traditionally closed occupations.
Sprey (1962) is one of the few authors who has focused on sex differences in occupational aspirations and expectations among Black adolescents. According to Sprey's findings, ninth grade Black male students expressed significantly lower aspirational levels than Black females and white students in both sex categories. Although both white and Black females had higher measured levels of occupational aspirations than males in their respective racial groups, the differences within the black group were significantly larger than those within the white one. Black males, particularly the sons of manual workers, reflected a high degree of uncertainty about their occupations.
The issue of vocational aspirations has been related to school desegregation. Analyzing the impact of school desegregation on the goals and work values of Black students who had participated in school desegregation in Texas, Hall and Wiant (1973) found that the degree and duration of school desegregation (1-5 years) had little measurable influence on the respondents' work values and occupational aspirations.
Contrary to Hall and Wiant's findings, Wilson (1967), in an earlier study demonstrated that when parents' occupation and education were held constant, black students' academic preferences and aspirations were highest when they went to middle class white schools. Crain's (1969) study of the effects of school desegregation in the North on the occupational achievement of Blacks (aged 21-45) also revealed findings different from Hall and Wiant's. According to Crain, Blacks who attended integrated public schools had better jobs and higher incomes throughout the next three decades of their lives. The author declared that differences in incomes could not be accounted for by the higher educational attainment of graduates of integrated schools or even by their higher socioeconomic backgrounds. Instead, the most significant effect of integrated schooling was not "educational" but rather that Blacks who attended integrated schools were inclined to have more contact with whites as adults, and, accordingly more trust in them than did Blacks from segregated schools. Crain surmised that this factor partially helped them to overcome a crucial barrier to equal opportunity-that is, access to information about employment opportunities that is normally spread by the informal social contacts to which few Blacks have access.
Ducette and Wolk (1972) studied the relationship between locus of control and levels of aspiration in Black and white children. The authors concluded that those Black students who seemingly evidenced the greatest degree of internal control also stated that they realistically expected to enter lower status occupations than those who subscribed to more external control factors.
In a similar study examining the motivation and aspirations of Southern Black college students, Gurin (1969) established that students believing in external control have higher aspirations than those who adhere to the Protestant Work Ethic. In short, both findings suggest that an external rather than an internal ideology goes along with greater expectations of accomplishing one's occupational goals.
As noted, the general findings pertinent to the black adolescent's aspirations are conflicting. Conversely, research seems to indicate few differences of opinions concerning the matter of vocational expectations. Not only do black youth tend to have lower expectations of reaching their occupational aspirations but also there exists a greater discrepancy between desired goals and expected obtained goals for black males than for black females.
The issue of desegregation and vocational aspirations, expectations, and occupational attainment is still in the debate stage. However, evidence does seem to be leading toward the idea that segregation of Black students, particularly those who are lower class, has a negative, homogenizing effect upon achievement and vocational aspirations of Black youth.
Vocational Interests and Choices
Studies on the vocational interests of Black individuals have been directed toward answering mainly two questions: (1) Are the vocational interests of Black individuals similar to or different from those of white people? and (2) Do present instruments measure accurately their vocational interests?
In an early study of the interests of Black and white youth, Witty, Garfield, and Brink (1941) concluded that the vocational interests of members of these two racial groups appeared to be between the extremes of the "thing" versus the "people" dimension. Whites seemed to prefer occupations which were largely "thing-oriented," and Blacks selected occupations which were more "people-oriented." The authors hypothesized that this polarity in interests and choices suggests that racial backgrounds and sub-cultural values may be in operation.
Examining the relationships between interests and aptitudes and race and interests, Chansky (1965) established that the vocational interests of Black and white ninth graders were significantly different. Whereas Black youth were interested in interpersonal, business, verbal, and long training occupations, white youth were more intrigued by occupations concerned with the prestige implications of a career rather than their true interests.
Clark (1967) examined the relationship between peer perceptions of Black and white occupational preferences. Clark's findings showed that Black males expressing a preference for professional careers were more likely to be cast in these roles by their peers than were white boys. He conjectured that the occupational image projected by Black males aspiring to professional status had a greater impact on their classmates than did the occupational image of professionally aspiring white boys.
Borgen and Harper (1973) investigated the predictive validity of the Strong Vocational Interest Inventory Blank for Black and white college men who were either winners of National Achievement or National Merit Scholarships. Three-year follow-up information involving career choices of subjects found that the Occupational and Basic scales of the Strong had a predictive accuracy for Blacks which equaled, if not surpassed that for whites. Borgen and Harper advised against generalizing the validity of the Strong Vocational Interest Blank to Blacks who come from disadvantaged economic and educational backgrounds.
The types of occupations minority individuals select have been explored by several authors (Hyte, 1936; Lawrence, 1950; Brazziel, 1961). Studying the process of vocational choice of Black students attending Virginia State College, Brazziel (1961) found that a number of students chose teaching as a career. When questioned about their choice, more than half of the total group stated that teaching was their second choice, and slightly less than half revealed that they planned to use it as a stepping-stone to another occupation. From Brazziel's work, it would appear that Black students were both aware of race and the restrictions it placed upon their occupational choices. This was most readily seen in their adoption of "second best" but realizable goals.
In reporting the recent trends of Black college freshmen, Bayer (1972) maintains that in the period from 1968-1971 conditions had not changed very much in the minority youth's occupational choices. He states that whereas black freshmen continued to choose majors in the social sciences, education, business, or health fields, non-Black freshmen continued to select majors in the physical sciences or engineering, the biological sciences, and agriculture. Differences in actual career choices followed the same pattern.
The research on interests of Black youth is marked by a great deal of lacunae. One significant finding, however, is that Black youths' interests are more geared toward people-oriented occupations than thing-oriented jobs. This fact may reflect their general dissatisfaction with the dehumanizing process which many of them have been forced to undergo.
In spite of the fact that interest inventories have proved equally as useful with Blacks as they are with whites when their education is at a high level, there still exists a question of their predictive validity with the Black population in general. The feeling seems to be that many Black children have not or probably will not have an opportunity to develop interests similar to those of whites in various populations as measured by current interest inventories.
