Adolescents' Perceptions of Military Service as a Vehicle for Social Mobility: A Racial Comparison of Rural Youth.

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Historical Change in Occupational Frames of Reference of Black and White Southern Youth: 1966-1972.

Experiment Station. Cooperative State Research Service

ing only those aspects of reported findings or data bearing directly on occupational status orientations (aspirations and expectations). Obviously, such a selective focus requires a guiding framework that directs attention, and gives importance, to particular elLments. At this point it would be useful to briefly describe the conceptual tools we used in this regard and to explicitly define the key terminology involved. In orienting themselves to potential or probable future roles, people visualize themselves as filling locational positions in a number of status areas. These projections we are labeling status orientations.10 Status orientations obviously can be differentiated on the hack of the status area involved-occupation, residence, education, etc. Those directed toward holding particular jobs at some time in the future are termed occupational status orientations. 11 It should be pointed out that the term status, as used here, refers to a locational position and not to social rank or occupational prestige. Occupational status orientations are composed of two major analytical elements that can vary independently of each other--the status element and the orientation element, i.e., the nature of the orientation toward the status projected. 12 Two major types of occupational status orientations can be differentiated on the basis of the nature of orientation involved.13 If the orientation consists of a desire 10 The term status orientation represents an idea developed by the senior author of this report in a previous paper. "The SocioPsychological Dimensions of Occupational Mobility." Paper presented at the National Vocational-Technical Education Seminar on Occupational Mobility and Migration, North Carolina State University at Raleigh, April, 1966. 11 Preferences that do not directly relate to particular locational positions in the occupational structure are not considered status orientations. Examples of these are "working with people," "working outdoors," and "have a chance to travel." We prefer to refer to these orientations as "job preferences" to draw a clear distinction between them and the idea of status orientation. It should be noted that these phenomena have also been labeled "job values" in the literature. 12For a thorough discussion of this topic see William P. Kuvlesky and Robert C. Beeler, "A Clarification of the Concept 'Occupational Choice,'" Rural Sociology, 31 (September, 1966), pp. 265-276. 13Ibid. , p. 270.

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John Pelham

Papers

Occupational status orientations of rural youth--structured annotations and evaluations of the research literature.