How aspiration of child are determined?
for 5th standarded
Answers
Answer:
Using data from a large UK cohort (n = 11,656), we investigated the determinants of 7‐year‐old children's aspirations, and the role of these aspirations in emotional and behavioural problems, as reported by both parents and teachers. Aspirations were classified to reflect their occupational status, masculinity/femininity and intrinsic/extrinsic motivation. Children's aspirations had significant antecedents in social disadvantage, parental involvement in learning, parental values and cognitive ability. Children with low occupational aspirations had more emotional problems as reported by both parents and teachers, and more teacher‐reported peer problems. In the teacher report, masculine aspirations were also related to hyperactivity. Gender differences in the association between aspirations and emotional and behavioural problems were few and weak. Intrinsic aspirations were related to peer problems, especially in boys. The inverse relation between feminine aspirations and hyperactivity and peer problems was relatively stronger in girls, as was the association between low aspirations and emotional problems.
Introduction
There is much literature on adolescents’ educational and occupational aspirations (Schoon & Parsons, 2002; Mello, 2008; Beal & Crockett, 2010). Adolescence is seen as a key stage in the development of aspirations, as teenagers become more focused on their desires for the future and show increased selectivity in goal‐directed behaviour (Cantor, 1990). However, younger children also have dreams or ambitions for the future (Looft, 1971). These dreams may be less constrained by societal norms, realistic opportunities and ability than those of adolescents (Eccles, 2009). There is little empirical evidence relating aspirations to emotional and behavioural problems, particularly in primary school children. This paper explores the pathways of influence from parents’ social standing, well‐being, values and involvement in learning to young children's cognitive ability and aspirations. It then models the role of young children's aspirations in four types of emotional and behavioural problems as reported by both parents and teachers.
Aspirations
The Oxford English Dictionary defines aspiration as ‘hope or ambition of achieving something’. Aspirations have been described as ‘personal goals’ (Nurmi, 2004) and ‘possible selves’ (Markus & Nurius, 1986). Distinct from expectations, they reflect what someone would like to achieve rather than what they think they will achieve. Aspirations have been linked to self‐efficacy (Bandura, 2001), locus of control (Rotter, 1966), value‐expectancy beliefs (Eccles et al ., 1983), and helplessness (Seligman, 1980). Research with adolescents has focussed on educational or career aspirations (Bandura et al ., 2001; Hill et al ., 2004; Schoon et al ., 2007), but there is evidence that occupational aspirations may be salient for younger children, too. For example, in surveys asking general open‐ended questions about aspirations, most children, like adolescents, respond by stating the type of occupation they would like to have rather than general future life states they would hope to achieve (Croll et al ., 2010). Even for most primary school children, therefore, occupational aspirations seem to be key (Looft, 1971). However, in such young children, they tend to be fantastical. Croll et al . (2010) noted that a substantial proportion (one in six) of 11–12 year‐olds in Britain had ‘fantasy’ or ‘quasi‐fantasy’ aspirations such as ‘professional footballer’, ‘singer’, ‘actor’ or ‘model’. Only one in 10 children had these types of occupational aspirations by the age of 15 years in the British Household Panel Survey (Croll, 2008), suggesting that, as they get older, children tend to discard these types of aspirations for more realistic alternatives (Cook et al ., 1996; Croll et al ., 2010). But even these later, more realistic, aspirations tend to be high. Most large‐scale studies of adolescent aspirations in the UK have identified aspirations as generally higher than parental achievements or than what the labour market might allow (Croll, 2008; Kintrea et al ., 2011), and many maintain that high aspirations result in positive outcomes (Cook et al ., 1996; Schoon & Parsons, 2002). However, there is some debate regarding the difficulties of misalignment. In particular, children from less advantaged backgrounds may have high occupational and educational aspirations but not the resources to achieve them (St Clair & Benjamin, 2011; Gorard et al ., 2012).