I Don't Think It Affects Me Directly: Neighborhood Influences on Urban Adolescents' Career Plans

Introduction: The existence of racial and socioeconomic disparities in youths’ perceptions of their future as well as future success (i.e., college graduation rate, employment rate) highlights the importance of understanding contextual determinants of career plans.  While both individual and environmental determinants have been hypothesized, the majority of work has focused on understanding and intervening upon individual factors. This qualitative study seeks to understand the trajectories of urban youth’s career plans as well as neighborhood-level influences. 

Methods: Eighteen youths (aged 16-21) were recruited from a pediatric clinic in a mid-sized, disadvantaged, urban area.  The youths participated in 45-60 minute-long semi-structured in-depth interviews. The interview guide was developed using social cognitive theory and a life history calendar was created using a life course perspective. Interview items included “Tell me about your thoughts regarding the future,” and “What kind of jobs do your neighbors have?” Interviews were transcribed by an outside source and coded and analyzed using ATLAS.ti using an iterative process between two coders.

 

Results: Most youths interviewed expressed a negative change in prestige of desired occupation over their adolescence. This change did not necessarily correspond with negative changes in social or behavioral trajectory, indicating that even “good” kids (kids who, for example, reported academic engagement and abstained from substance use) experience a decline in occupational prestige over time. While the majority of youth did not articulate a direct influence of their neighborhoods on their thoughts about the future, most expressed a desire to “get out of it”, primarily due to the level of violence present.  There was also a general lack of knowledge about gainful employment of their neighbors. 

 

Discussion: One possible explanation for our findings of negative change in prestige of desired occupation is the concept of “false futures.” False futures are unrealistic goals and ideas about the future often held by children and young adolescents.  However, understanding which careers are “false futures” is difficult, potentially even more so for urban youth with limited resources to support their futures.  Programs to improve employment in these communities might be one way of giving youth access to a diversity of potential careers and reducing neighborhood level stressors (e.g., violence).