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A longitudinal study of school leavers' employment experiences, time structuring and self‐attributions as a function of local opportunity structure
Author(s) -
Honess T. M.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1989.tb02303.x
Subject(s) - disadvantaged , psychology , longitudinal study , attribution , worry , sample (material) , social psychology , context (archaeology) , developmental psychology , coping (psychology) , demographic economics , anxiety , clinical psychology , economics , paleontology , statistics , chemistry , mathematics , chromatography , psychiatry , biology , economic growth
A three‐year longitudinal study of young people drawn from a sample of 150 15‐year‐olds who were interviewed shortly before their planned school leaving date is reported. The schools are situated in two different labour markets, which vary in the extent to which they offer employment opportunities. Individual interviews were employed to allow a more context‐sensitive and less pre‐emptive analysis than would have been possible using reactive questionnaires. It is established that there are different cultures of expectation with regard to employment, and that these engender clear differences in coping response and self‐description which are largely interpretable as appropriate accommodations to these different expectations. For example, within the relatively strong labour market, ‘worry about employment’ implicated greater effort; such young people also planned their time to a considerably greater extent, and generally talked about themselves in a more self‐reflective way. Nevertheless, there are some effects that transcend cultural differences, at least as contrasted in this study. For example, a ‘commodity’ view of time and positive self‐esteem are shown to be unambiguous predictors of success in employment placements. Finally, it is clear that some patterns are culture sensitive: the availability of good supportive relationships was a strong indicator of employment placement for the young people from the relatively disadvantaged community only.