2-042 - Adolescent Future Expectations and Aspirations, Adult Outcomes, and the Influence of Gender and Sociocultural Context

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

In adolescence, youth begin to form expectations and goals for their future. Adolescents’ expectations for their future influence their adult outcomes, including the timing and success of young adult role transitions. Future aspirations and expectations influence and are influenced by youths’ interactions with contexts like school, family, and community and by socio-demographic characteristics like gender. While gender has been demonstrated to impact adolescent expectations and adult attainment, less is known about how gender interacts with adolescents’ future orientation and adult outcomes. Paper 1 uses longitudinal data from economically-vulnerable rural youth to identify profiles of 12th graders’ aspirations and expectations about their future education and jobs, explore how gender, socioeconomic and high school experiences relate to those profiles, and investigate associations between profiles and early adult school and work status. Paper 2 examines gender as a moderator of the relations between latent profiles of adolescents’ expectations for adult life and subsequent adult outcomes. Paper 3 examines how adolescents’ occupational expectations are associated with substance use and sexual risk behaviors, and whether gender moderate these relationships. Strengths of this symposium include: interdisciplinary scholars, ethnically and socio-culturally diverse samples, diverse measures of future orientation, person- and variable-centered analytic strategies, and a range of outcomes studied. Our discussant, an expert on gender, academic achievement, and motivation, will provide a meaningful synthesis of the papers and lead a conversation about gender and future orientation within the context of educational settings and the transition to adult roles.

Sub Unit

• Sex, Gender

Chair

• Erin Hiley Sharp, University of New Hampshire

Discussant

• Sandy Simpkins, University of California, Irvine

Individual Presentations

• High School Future Aspirations and Expectations: Sociocultural Context and Early Adult Education and Work Status - Presenting Author: Erin Hiley Sharp, University of New Hampshire; Non-Presenting Author: Jayson O Seaman, University of New Hampshire; Non-Presenting Author: Corinna Tucker, UNH; Non-Presenting Author: Karen Van Gundy, University of New Hampshire; Non-Presenting Author: Rebellon Cesar, University of New Hampshire

• Life after High School: Gender Differences in the Influence of Expectations for Adulthood - Presenting Author: Sarah J Beal, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center; Non-Presenting Author: Lisa Crockett, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Non-Presenting Author: Chelsie Temmen, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

• Risky Business and Behaviors: Adolescents’ Occupational Expectations, Substance Use, and Anticipated Sexual Transmitted Infection - Presenting Author: Zena R. Mello, San Francisco State University; Non-Presenting Author: Laura J Finan, Illinois State University; Non-Presenting Author: Laura Y Alcaraz, San Francisco State University; Non-Presenting Author: Daishea R Poole, California Baptist University; Non-Presenting Author: Julie Chandler, San Francisco State University