Influential factors in career orientation and career aspiration of early adolescent girls.

Abstract

Two models of the career development of early adolescent girls were investigated. For each model, endogenous variables were adolescents' gender role attitudes and the mother–daughter relationship (psychological separation and attachment); exogenous variables were adolescents' grade point averages, agentic characteristics, and a latent variable, maternal characteristics. Career orientation (Model 1) and career aspirations (Model 2) were the final outcome variables. A sample of 276 girls drawn from 7th and 8th graders in the rural area of a southeastern state and their mothers participated. In both models, adolescents' agentic characteristics and maternal variables contributed significantly to adolescents' gender role attitudes. In addition, in Model 2, adolescents' agentic characteristics and the mother–daughter relationship contributed to the girls' career aspirations.