Four important variables in this theoretical formulation are alternatives, limits, plans and concepts about time. We can start with any one of these variables to explore the system as a whole. If we start with alternatives, we might seek information about the ways in which a limited number of possibilities become differentiated from the vast matrix of biologically possible lines of development. It would be interesting to know what the effects are-on immediate behavior and on long-range development-of generating different numbers of alternatives from which choices must be made. If we start with questions about limits, we might wish to compare the effects-on immediate behavior and on long-range development-of external as compared with internal limiting factors. If we choose to ask questions about plans, we might compare the effects of detailed and specific plans for one's future with the effects of vague and undifferentiated plans. If we focus our research on time concepts, we might compare the developmental effects of short time perspectives with those of long time perspectives, or seek to find out how the development of highly "time-conscious" individuals differs from that of persons who pay little or no attention to the flight of time.
The results of longitudinal studies, continued through several decades in some instances, have thrown some light on questions like the foregoing, but mainly for middle class subjects. The crystallization of the alternative courses of action from which career choices and other important life choices are made seems to come about as a child masters the organized bodies of knowledge presented to him in school, and as he practices in his out-of-school hours those skills upon which his family and his age-mates place a high value-athletic, musical, mechanical, and many others. At the same time, probably mainly through identification with adults or peers who are important to him, he develops complex and subtle concepts about what life should or should not include, concepts that guide him in his choices and rejections among the available alternatives.
Whether or not this same process typically occurs in the children of the poor is a debatable (and researchable) question. It seems likely that the alternative courses of action available to a middle class adolescent are often not available to a slum youth because he has not mastered the knowledge presented to him in school and has not participated in out-of-school activities through which the skills valued by society are developed. It seems likely also that his concept of the nature of the good life may be much less clear than that of the middle class youth, or quite different in its outlines. Thus the life choices he makes and the plans based on such choices are likely to be very different from those of persons from wealthier families.
The fundamental nature of the limits that mark the channels within which development can occur also seems to be different for poor and for affluent families. For the poor youth the limiting factors are mainly external. He must take whatever job he can get rather than one that he wants. He must live where he can afford to rather than where he wishes to. For the reasonably wealthy youth, on the other hand, the limiting factors are mainly internal. It is required of him that he makes conscious choices of what he will do, whether he wishes to choose or not. As suggested in the paragraph above, the value concepts he has internalized offer some guidelines for such choices. But often they do not suffice to narrow the range of alternatives sufficiently so that choices can be made easily or automatically. Any college counselor who has tried to help a talented student decide whether to major in law or architecture for example, knows how demanding this requirement that a person impose his own limits and definitely close out further development in certain directions can be. Research comparing the long-range effects of externally imposed limits and self-chosen limits would be of great interest and utility.
Preliminary research efforts suggest that time concepts of poor persons may be markedly different from those of middle class persons. The habit of looking far into the future and making plans for years to come seems to be much less common in poor than in affluent groups. This difference is of course related to all the other kinds of difference we have been considering. Whether a short time perspective is the cause or the effect of a lack of clearly delineated alternatives, vagueness in concepts about the good life, or externally imposed limits on choices, is probably less important than are questions about whether and how short time perspectives can be lengthened, and what the consequences of such modifications are. The important practical challenge research faces is to determine which of the variables in this interrelated system it is most feasible to change in order to bring about changes in the others. We have agreed that the kind of development that typically occurs in slum children does not lead to a desirable adaptation to the kind of world in which their adult lives must be lived. But we are by no means clear what should be done to change the course of this development.
It is to be hoped that through our efforts to modify the process of vocational development in children from poor families we shall be able to learn something about general developmental processes. Thinking about these efforts in terms of the theoretical concepts just presented, two overall comments about such attempts would seem to be in order. In the first place, we should aim for the optimum rather than the maximum level of the variables with which we are dealing. Much of the current discussion of human potentialities suggests that it would be desirable for each individual to actualize all of his potential. A proper appraisal of the finiteness of the time at an individual's disposal leads to a re-definition of this purpose. Nobody, regardless of how gifted or how successful he is, actualizes all of his potential. Limits are essential to development. To actualize some potentialities we must rule out any hope of actualizing others. While it may be better for a person to have several tentative courses of action than to be limited to a single one, to have too many alternatives may be as crippling a handicap as to have too few. Thus not all of the constriction in outlook that tends to characterize the lives of the poor is necessarily disadvantageous in the making of choices and plans, if enough room for freedom of movement is still present in the area that does remain open to the individual.
The other general thought it would be well to keep in mind, in all the anti-poverty efforts, is that advances in techniques of education and behavior modification now make it feasible to produce alternative courses of action if no reasonably attractive ones have been generated in the natural course of an individual's development. Because of new technological developments, the concept of a vocational counselor as in part a coordinator of available services makes more sense that it often has in the past. A counselor helps his client choose and plan, but one of the things that may be chosen and planned for is a learning experience that will open up one or more new alternative paths. When, for example, an illiterate slum dweller achieves literacy, several jobs may be open to him and he is now in a position to choose. Similarly, when a bright but rebellious dropout masters enough of the high school curriculum to pass an equivalency test for a high school diploma, he greatly enlarges the scope of his alternatives.
In order to learn as much as possible from the war on poverty, well-designed evaluation studies must be conducted. They need not be elaborate or complex, but they should be provided for at the time a program begins. It is not just a matter of "What works?" or "What does not work?" but also a matter of what happens? What changes occur in certain kinds of people under certain circumstances? Many of the programs now in progress or planned for the future constitute natural experiments, potentially far more rewarding than any we might set up in a laboratory.
