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EFECTS OF APPALACHIAN CULTURE ON CAREER CHOICE
| Title: | EFECTS OF APPALACHIAN CULTURE ON CAREER CHOICE |
| Author: | RUSS, KATHRYN ALIDA |
| Description: | This study explores the career development of people of Appalachian culture, legally defined as inhabitants of the Appalachian Regional Development area. The culture applies to them, as well as their recent descendents who have migrated outside the legal geographic boundaries. Research found Appalachians to have restricted career choice with a disproportionately large number in blue collar occupations and low participation in white collar sales and management positions (Seufert & Carrozza, 2004), to be stereotyped, and to mistrust people outside the culture. This study was undertaken to investigate some of the possible Appalachian cultural factors contributing to career choice, using Social Cognitive Career Theory (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994) as a research framework. Factors investigated were family background, trust levels, occupational interests, career self-efficacy and career choice. It was hypothesized that career choice was influenced by the other factors with career self-efficacy acting as a mediating variable between career choice and the other variables, with differing influences for Appalachians and non-Appalachians. Two groups of high school sophomores (Appalachian and non-Appalachian) were recruited for the study. Instruments used were the Career Decision (Making) Self-Efficacy Scale – Short Form (CDMSE-SF, Betz & Taylor, 2001), Kuder Interests Assessment with Person Match®, demographic and Trust questionnaires. Students provided their current occupational choices, which were converted to Holland codes (Gottfredson et al, 1982) and to Total Socioeconomic Index (TSEI) prestige codes (Hauser & Warren, 1996) as an outcome variable. A Structured Equation Modeling (SEM) path analysis was used to describe the relationship among predicting variables and the outcome variable (TSEI measure). Results were mixed, but the hypotheses were generally supported by the model results. Students were influenced by family background, trust levels, occupational interests and self-efficacy in choosing careers, but at different levels and in different paths for the two groups, depending on career interests. Self-efficacy was a mediating variable for Appalachians between the predicting variables and career choice. Statistically, self-efficacy and trust levels between the two groups were found insignificant. Although SES was comparable for the groups, occupational interests were different, indicating cultural influences. Implications for counseling with Appalachians are discussed. |
| Permanent Link: |
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1148499240
http://hdl.handle.net/2374.OX/10041 |
| Date: | 2006 |
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