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Socio‐Economic Status and Changing Work Attitudes in High School Students
Author(s) -
Winefield Anthony H.,
Tiggemann Marika,
Winefield Helen R.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
australian journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.417
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1839-4655
pISSN - 0157-6321
DOI - 10.1002/j.1839-4655.1989.tb00871.x
Subject(s) - optimism , unemployment , work (physics) , project commissioning , publishing , unemployment rate , psychology , demographic economics , sociology , political science , economic growth , social psychology , economics , engineering , law , mechanical engineering
Two samples of South Australian high school students were surveyed, one in 1980 and one in 1986. The 1986 students displayed greater optimism about their prospects of obtaining satisfactory employment despite the fact that official statistics show that the rate of youth unemployment did not decline between 1980 and 1986. The increased optimism, along with a greater willingness to stay longer at secondary school, to undertake tertiary study and to upgrade qualifications was apparent mainly in the students of low socio‐economic status and represented a shift in their work attitudes towards those displayed by the students of higher socio‐economic status. It is suggested that the students of low socio‐economic status had become aware of the importance of qualifications in securing satisfactory employment and their increased optimism was realistically based on a determination to acquire those qualifications.