ABSTRACT
It seems likely that a growing awareness of social class and occupational status in¯uences the kinds of occupations that children see as appropriate for themselves. For the most part, they learn to reject occupations that offer a much lower status and standard of living than that of their parents, but little is known about the relationship between children's developing understanding of social class and occupational groupings and their occupational aspirations. What is known is that children talk about choosing an occupation, and most children explain their preferences in terms of how attractive they ®nd the job rather than how suited they are to the job in terms of their background and abilities. For instance, Dickinson (1986) found that social class predicted the occupational aspirations of adolescent boys, but almost all the boys explained their choices in terms of the intrinsic interest of the jobs. However, Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, and Pastorelli (2001) have recently reported evidence that career preferences in early adolescence are also in¯uenced by the beliefs young people have about their ef®cacy with respect to different kinds of work.
