Publisher's Synopsis
The Educational and Occupational Attainment Process established a variation of the 1969 Wisconsin model to address the nature of attainment, and to satisfactorily answer whether the process of attainment is the same for women as men, and whether socioeconomic status plays a similar role for women in the process when examined from the same sociological perspectives as men. A sample was drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. The author used path analysis to estimate the direct and indirect effects implied by the proposed model, and the effects of personal background characteristics were hypothesized to be manifested indirectly, mediated by high school academic performance and significant others' (parents, teachers, and peers) influence. This study revealed that the attainment process is basically the same for men and women and that privilege of social origins is just as important for women as men. Like the Wisconsin model estimation, the author shows that the key to occupational attainment is educational attainment, indicating a strong link between educational and occupational attainment in modern American society. Her results punctuate the paradox of women's superior high school performance, yet lower levels of educational and occupational aspirations, and educational attainment than men. This provides considerable evidence that the development and the maintenance of 'educational ambitions' in high school experiences exert a pronounced influence on an individual's success chances in the adult and occupational world.
