ROLE OF THE FAMILY IN READINESS FOR SCHOOL-TO-WORK TRANSITION: AN ADOLESCENT LEARNER MODEL

• Methodology
• Results and Discussion

The first part of the research focused on experiences of adolescent learners. These students were seniors in high school, three to eight months away from graduation.

Methodology

Conceptual Model and Instrumentation

Individual Characteristics

Family Characteristics

A ten-item scale, adapted from existing instruments (Mortimer, Lorence, & Kunka, 1986), assessed family work values related to extrinsic and intrinsic work orientation and work autonomy. Items included family modeling and expectations about educational and career outcomes.

Another ten-item scale, based on qualitative research by Young and Friesen (1992), was developed to assess parents' intentional career-related interactions with children in the family. Intentional action is defined as acting to bring about a desired outcome (Chapman, 1984). A key characteristic of parental action is the notion of personal influence, usually either in outcomes or process (Brandtstadter, 1984; Young, Friesen, & Dillabough, 1991; Young, 1994). Using an intentional action perspective allows for a view of the reciprocal relationship parents have constructed with their children (Maccoby, 1992). Types of intentional parental career-related interactions addressed in the study included skill acquisition, facilitation of human relationships, increasing independent thinking and action, development of personal responsibility, enhancing self-image, and decreasing sex-role stereotyping.

Information on parent participation in schooling was collected using a 4-item scale developed for the study. The scale reflected a variety of typical types of parental involvement such as assistance with homework, attendance at school events, and discussion with school personnel about student progress (Epstein, 1987).

Learning Processes

Readiness for Transition from School-to-Work

Data Collection

Data collection began in late fall of 1993 and continued through March of 1994. A total of 1,409 questionnaires were received during the data collection period. Of these, 1,266 (90%) contained complete datasets which were used to test the proposed model of family influence on school-to-work transition readiness.

Although four states were selected for data collection, most of the respondents in the final sample represented three of the four states. A total of 715 (56.5%) were from Georgia, 197 (15.6%) were from Arizona, 308 (24.3%) were from Minnesota, and 43 (3.4%) were from Pennsylvania. In 1992, the latest year for which figures are available, actual public elementary and secondary school enrollments in the south did comprise a larger percentage of the total school enrollments than other regions, though not as large as that for respondents in this study; 35.5% of actual U.S. total enrollments are now in the southern states region compared to 17.6% in the northeast, 24.1% in the midwest, and 22.5% in the west (Smith, Rogers, Alsalam, Perie, Mahoney, & Martin, 1994).

Somewhat more of the respondents were from metropolitan areas (35.9% suburban, 12.4% urban, and 8.7% midsize cities) than rural areas or small towns (42.8%). Currently, about 75% of U.S. elementary and secondary school students are enrolled in metropolitan areas (Bruno & Adams, 1994). Most of the respondents were aged 17 and above (85.0%); 12.2% were age 15 or 16. There were more female respondents (58.7%) than male (39.7%).

The final sample represented the U.S. secondary school population well, in terms of race and family background. Of the usable returns, 69.9% were from students who identified themselves as white; the rest were self-identified as members of minority groups. According to the latest available statistics, 69.6% of U.S. elementary and secondary school students are white, and the rest (30.4%) are minorities. Students in single-parent families comprised 23.3% of the respondents. Of the public U.S. elementary and secondary school population, 24.7% live in a single-parent family (Digest of Education Statistics-1993, 1994).

To determine whether the overrepresented numbers of respondents from southern and rural/small town regions and underrepresented numbers from the northeast region would bias study results, a series of one-way analyses of variance was conducted to determine if differences emerged in key dependent and independent study variables according to the location of respondents. No troublesome differences were found. For example, no systematic differences (p < .05) were found in the career maturity measures or work effectiveness skills mean scores according to respondents' city or state size. The only systematic difference in family functioning (p < .05) according to city or state size appeared in just one of the 15 family functioning scales, that dealing with religious orientation. Respondents from Georgia reported greater degrees of religiosity than those in each of the other states.

Instrument Reliability

As shown, estimates for the measures of career maturity, work effectiveness skills, parental-intentional interactions, family work values, school integration, and learning strategies scales were at or above acceptable levels (Borg & Gall, 1989). Several of the individual family functioning scale reliabilities were lower than desirable, which may be partially explained by the small number of items in these scales. Individual scales were grouped using factor analysis for subsequent testing of relationships in the hypothesized structural model. The derived factor structures are provided in Table 2.

Factor Structures for Study Constructs

The 15 scales of the family functioning pattern instrument loaded on three factors, which were labeled "proactive functioning," "dominating functioning," and "inactive functioning" (Table 2). These summary patterns of family-wide functioning are similar, though not identical, to the widely accepted Baumrind (1967) concept of differentiated parenting styles characterized as autocratic, or authoritarian; indifferent, or uninvolved; and authoritative, or warm and active, yet firm. Factor scores based on these three dimensions of family functioning were used in subsequent analyses.

Proactive (authoritative) parenting has been associated with several positive indicators of psychosocial development among adolescents, such as greater degrees of psychological autonomy, self-esteem, mental health, self-reliance, academic and social competence, impulse control, and social responsibility (Maccoby & Martin, 1983). An indifferent parenting style is known to place adolescents at greater risk of problem behaviors such as drug and alcohol use and delinquency. Those raised in authoritarian households typically fall between those in the other two types of households on measures of social competence, self-reliance, self-esteem, and other measures of psychosocial development (Steinberg, 1990). It is believed that the consequences of parenting style hold up across race and socioeconomic groups, as well as through varying family forms (Dornbusch et al., 1985; Dornbusch, Ritter, Liederman, Roberts, & Fraleigh, 1987; Steinberg, 1990).

The derived factor structure developed for indicators of readiness for transition from school-to-work (two measures of career maturity, work effectiveness skills, and the single item post-high school plans) showed that the post-high school plans item did not load well with the others (Table 2). Thus, the post-high schools plans measure was excluded from the school-to-work transition readiness construct for the initial analysis of the hypothesized model and was examined in a separate analysis.

Analysis

Results and Discussion

Mean scores and standard deviations for each of the observed variables in the model of adolescent transition readiness are provided in Table 3. The intercorrelations among the constructs in the hypothesized model of adolescent experiences are provided in Table 4.

Respondent Characteristics

Overall Effects in the Model

Total Effects

The total effects findings are consistent with a good deal of literature which suggests both females and whites possess greater degrees of career maturity in terms of vocational identity and career indecision than males and members of minority groups (Herr & Cramer, 1992; Neely, 1980; Westbrook, Cutts, Madison, & Arcia, 1980). The findings are also consistent with the literature describing the power of warm and actively managed family functioning over functioning which is domineering or authoritarian, or lacking in control (Steinberg, 1990). What is noteworthy about these findings is that they suggest that a relational model of development, which acknowledges reciprocal transactions between family members, rather than simply unidirectional influences, may be appropriate for understanding and nurturing the development of adolescents' readiness for school-to-work transition.

Direct Effects

Family Functioning Style

Students' Integration in School

Sex

The finding of greater perceived inactive family functioning among male adolescents is consistent with other literature suggesting that parent-child interactions occurring in adolescence are different for girls and boys (Mann, 1994). A specific example is that mothers have been found to exert more power over daughters after puberty than before, while boys are known to assert themselves more as puberty progresses (Brooks-Gunn & Reiter, 1990). Gender differences in terms of family and friends, power, achievement, and division of labor at home and at work have been previously well-documented (Lips, 1988).

Race

Socioeconomic Status

There are a number of reasons students' family experiences may be enhanced by higher socioeconomic status. Greater family economic resources may permit more ready access to at least some resources supportive of intellectual, cultural, and recreational activities. Economic resources may also permit family members to more easily achieve physical and psychological distance from one another, serving to reduce conflict and enhance cohesion and sociability. Greater degrees of education may serve to provide broader awareness of growth opportunities and perhaps enhance comfort in interacting with educational partners outside of the family.

Family Form

Indirect Effects

Family Functioning

Family Work Values, Parental Intentional Interactions, and Parent Participation in School

Socioeconomic Status

The results of the present study suggest that for adolescents, socioeconomic status does not exert all of its effects on preparation for work roles directly, and that, in fact, the effect is exerted only indirectly, through the character of functioning within the family. In this study, socioeconomic status exerted no significant total effect or direct effect on adolescents' readiness for transition from school to work, but there was a significant indirect effect of socioeconomic status on transition readiness. Thus, high socioeconomic status does not appear to provide a guarantee of transition readiness, nor does lower socioeconomic status appear certain to prevent it; the effect is mediated by the nature of transactions in the family.

The fact that there were significant indirect effects of socioeconomic status on adolescent transition readiness, but not significant direct or total effects, indicates that in the final analysis, what happens in the family may well be more important to transition readiness than socioeconomic status per se.

Family Form

Family Functioning Style and Family Work Values

Predictors of Adolescent Post-High School Plans

¹ Plans = 1,100 (86.9%), No Plans = 166 (13.1%); Model X² = 78.64, p = .000

² The exponentiation of the regression coefficient (B) or odds effect = e^B. This value, which is always positive because of the nature of exponentiation, represents the multiplicative impact of the predictor variable on the odds. Odds effects greater than 1.0 reflect increases in odds per unit change in the predictor variable; odds effects less than 1.0 reflect reductions in odds (Norusis, 1990).

The contrasting results between the two models may be explained by examining the differences associated with making plans for a particular post-high school work or education pursuit versus having a real sense of readiness to make and enact career choices. A controlling family style, for instance, may be effective in getting a child to college. Merely arriving at college, however, is no guarantee that the individual will have a vocational identity which is adequate to set a personally meaningful, satisfying, and effective career course. Similarly, feeling comfortable in school environments may contribute to the likelihood that individuals will seek out further education, but again, such comfort may not, in itself, guarantee readiness for transition from that school environment to meaningful work.

[1] Data gathering instruments contained copyrighted materials. Copyright permissions do not permit further publication beyond the data gathering period.