Abstract
This qualitative study examined urban adolescents’ beliefs about how their backgrounds—“where they come from”—might influence
their chances for success in the world of work. Participants were 27 adolescents participating in a school-to-work program
or otherwise employed. To elicit their more experience-near ideas about the relationship between background and success, we
attempted to thwart the adolescents’ tendency to voice the dominant ideology of individualism and achievement by asking not
if but how background might matter. Four ways of viewing the relationship between background and success emerged from our inductive
analysis. Results are discussed in terms of the adolescents’ abilities to hold multidimensional beliefs about success and
economic status.
their chances for success in the world of work. Participants were 27 adolescents participating in a school-to-work program
or otherwise employed. To elicit their more experience-near ideas about the relationship between background and success, we
attempted to thwart the adolescents’ tendency to voice the dominant ideology of individualism and achievement by asking not
if but how background might matter. Four ways of viewing the relationship between background and success emerged from our inductive
analysis. Results are discussed in terms of the adolescents’ abilities to hold multidimensional beliefs about success and
economic status.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Pages 1-14
- DOI 10.1007/s10560-012-0270-4
- Authors
- Anne E. Noonan, Department of Psychology, Salem State University, 542 Lafayette Street, Salem, MA 01970, USA
- Renée Spencer, School of Social Work, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
- Deborah Belle, Department of Psychology, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
- Amber Hewitt, Counseling Psychology, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
- Journal Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal
- Online ISSN 1573-2797
- Print ISSN 0738-0151