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Q: A problem ! ( Answered,   1 Comment )
Question  
Subject: A problem !
Category: Family and Home
Asked by: seely2seely-ga
List Price: $200.00
Posted: 20 Jul 2005 04:27 PDT
Expires: 19 Aug 2005 04:27 PDT
Question ID: 545695
Do Parents and children often have different ideas about careers? How
are their ideas different?
Why is it sometimes difficult for people who move to another country
to keep doing the same work ?
Answer  
Subject: Re: A problem !
Answered By: politicalguru-ga on 20 Jul 2005 06:15 PDT
 
Dear Seely2Seely, 

You've asked two completely different questions, though they might be
connected, and I shall explain shortly what I mean.

It is not uncommon that there is a gap between the aspirations, or the
ideas, that some parents hold regarding the suitable career for their
children, and what the children see as their best prospects.

This has several reasons. First, because of generational differences.
What was perceived as "good" career for the parents might not seem so
attractive to the children. In addition, new professions and
occupations keep developing, while others die slowly (or not so
slowly).

Second, differences in personal preferences also play a role. The fact
that two people are related, does not necessarily imply that they'd be
interested in the same topics or career opportunities.

Another reason might be the nature of relationships between the
parents and the children. Some parents would have liked their children
to pursue a certain career, but the emotional or intellectual
relations between them and their children make their case and argument
look weak: "Since the mid-fifties, research has suggested that family
interaction is linked to occupational behavior. It is even believed
that possibly the notion of family interaction or
functioning?incorporating parenting style (authoritarian or passive),
level of support, guidance, and responsiveness?may have more influence
on career development than demographics, including educational
aspirations of parents." (SOURCE: Jeffrey Taylor, Marcia B. Harris,
and Susan Taylor, 2004. "Parents Have Their Say?About Their
College-Age Children's Career Decisions",
<http://www.jobweb.com/resources/library/Parents/Parents_Have_Their_242_01.htm>).
This is also related to Banura's theory regarding Self-Efficacy: when
parents would not provide the right developmental tools to the
children, right from infancy, the children might not be able to
develop self-efficacy (See: Albert Bandura, "Self-Efficacy",
<http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/BanEncy.html>).

Moreover, "When students become curious about pursuing a particular
field of study or career plan, parents who feel that they should not
interfere may appear aloof to their children, causing miscommunication
between the two parties. This passivity may result from a lack of
knowledge about careers, a desire to instill independence in their
children, or a fear of becoming dictatorial (particularly if a child
is not content with the parents? choice)." (SOURCES: Jeffrey Taylor,
Marcia B. Harris, and Susan Taylor, 2004. "Parents Have Their
Say?About Their College-Age Children's Career Decisions",
<http://www.jobweb.com/resources/library/Parents/Parents_Have_Their_242_01.htm>).

Here, it is not only tenstions per-se, but also parenting styles that
matter: "Although authoritarian parenting is associated with school
success, pressures to conform and fulfill parents' expectations
regarding education and careers can cause a poor fit between the
individual and the chosen career, as well as estranged family
relationships and poor mental health (Way and Rossmann 1996a).
Families with uninvolved (or inactive) parents "seem unable to
function well either because they cannot set guidelines, or because
they do not pursue interests that involve places and persons outside
the family" (ibid., p. 3). This makes it more difficult for children
to develop self-knowledge and differentiate their own career goals
from their parents' goals. " (SOURCE:  Kerka, Sandra 2001. "Parenting
and Career Development." ERIC Digest.,
<http://www.ericdigests.org/2001-1/career.html>).

Naturally, there is also a material aspect. Parents may adjust their
expectations to their material opportunities. In the United States,
for example, it is difficult for people who grew in underprivileged
environment to envision or to achieve other environmental status.
Bandura's self-efficacy theory plays a role here again: when the
environment is not able to provide children with tools to develop:
"Strategic interventions are required to keep young people who are
disadvantaged because of poverty, cultural obstacles, or linguistic
barriers from dropping out of school. Recent studies showing a
relationship between a student's belief structure and behavior suggest
that self-efficacy beliefs may be an important focus for
intervention." (SOURCE: Bettina Lankard Brown, 1999. "Self-Efficacy
Beliefs and Career Development", ERIC Digest,
<http://www.cete.org/acve/docgen.asp?tbl=digests&ID=89>).

Parents with low social capital, that is those from lower-class
families, having  lesser educational or langauge skills, are often
unable to advocate emotional support to their children, thereby
creating a situation where children cannot rely on the parents in
making career choices (and sometimes, therefore, the ideas are in
conflict): "Parents who are not proficient in English, and are
unfamiliar with the schooling system, for example, find it hard to
provide support when their children face problems in school.
Oftentimes adolescents who experience such discontinuity between home
and school do not approach their parents and family members for help
with school related problems because they are aware of their parents?
difficulty in communicating with school personnel (Delgado-Gaitan,
1988; Phelan, Davidson, & Cao, 1994). Consequently, these students may
not receive the emotional support from their parents that would
encourage confidence in school. Parents vary both in how they approach
family-school interactions and in the skills they bring to such
interactions. Many working class and minority parents lack a sense of
efficacy when dealing with teachers (Lareau, 1996). They sense a
separation between home and school and turn over the task of educating
their children to teachers, maintaining minimal involvement with
school and their children?s schoolwork. Thus, parents? feelings of
inefficacy can inhibit them from providing needed emotional support to
their children. Higginbotham and Weber (1992) found that middle class
parents, whether African American or European American, provide more
financial and emotional support for their adolescents than working
class parents. Along a similar vein, middle class girls receive more
encouragement and emotional support to reach their academic goals than
girls raised in a working class environment (Hill, 1997)." (SOURCE:
Revathy Kumar & Ludmila Z. Hruda, "?What do I want to be when I grow
up??: Role of parent and teacher support in enhancing students?
academic confidence and educational expectations",
<http://www.umich.edu/~pals/Kumar_Hruda2001.pdf>).

Furthermore (and this is related to your second question) immigrant
families encounter two additional problems regarding career choices.
The first, is that many immigrants are well-motivated (which has
driven them to immigrate in the first place), while their children may
be not so motivated and hard-driven. The second, is a cultural gap
between their expectations of the career prospects of a child
(according to the values they have brought with them from their home
country) and the child's own expectations (according to the new
country's values). Women, for example, are not expected to work in
many traditional cultures, and certainly not to seek professional
careers. Children in general, are expected to continue their parents
business, if such a business exist, and not pursue another career.

Having said all of that, even if there are differences, parents still
play a decisive role in their children's career choice: "Families,
parents and guardians in particular, play a significant role in the
occupational aspirations and career goal development of their
children. Without parental approval or support, students and young
adults are often reluctant to pursue?or even explore?diverse career
possibilities. Although parents acknowledge their role and attempt to
support the career development of their children, parental messages
contain an underlying message of ?don?t make the same mistakes that I
did.? These interactions may influence adolescents and young adults to
select specific collegiate majors or pursue particular occupations.
Numerous studies (Knowles, 1998; Marjoribanks, 1997; Mau and Bikos,
2000; Smith, 1991; Wilson and Wilson, 1992) have found that college
students and young adults cite parents as an important influence on
their choice of career. Yet parents may be unaware of the influence
they have on the career development and vocational choice of their
children." [...] " One consistent finding in research suggests that
adolescents? own aspirations are influenced by their parents?
aspirations or expectations for them. When adolescents perceive their
parents to have high educational expectations for them, adolescents
are likely to have higher aspirations for themselves. A 1998 Sylvan
Learning Center report indicates that parents? and childrens? views
about career aspirations are more compatible than incompatible.
Parents are influential figures with whom, whether intentionally or
unintentionally, children become aware of and get exposed to
occupations or career opportunities and implied expectations."
(SOURCE: Jeffrey Taylor, Marcia B. Harris, and Susan Taylor, 2004.
"Parents Have Their Say?About Their College-Age Children's Career
Decisions", <http://www.jobweb.com/resources/library/Parents/Parents_Have_Their_242_01.htm>).

So, the determining factors for the existence of differences between
children and parents regarding career choices are:
(1) Difference in values
(2) Stressful relationships in the family; parenting style
(3) Low social capital of the parents

If so, the conflict is even further stressed among immigrants, of the
reasons mentioned above. Differences in values exist in
inter-generational immigrations; just as it is likely that immigrants
would have relatively low social capital. Tensions in the family could
exist because of the difference in values and parenting style might
not adhere to the local culture. You can read more about it (for
example), at:
St George Lebanese Joint Committee Inc (1995) Arabic Speaking Youth in
St George Area: Proceedings of a Conference "Arabic Speaking Youth" (I
read the conclusions at: Increasing the Participation of NESB Young
People in Apprenticeships and Traineeships,
<https://www.det.nsw.edu.au/industryprograms/research/nesbyoun/>).
De Santis Lydia "Potential for intergenerational conflict in Cuban and
Haitian immigrant families."  Archives of Psychiatric Nursing,
9(6):354-64 Dec 1995

All of these factors lead us to a second important issue, which you've
raised, and it is the difficulty of immigrants to maintain the same
occupation. There are several reasons here, and they are related to
the problems of career choice.  For example, in Israel, "only some 40%
of immigrants in these fields worked in their profession abroad or a
similar profession though many went through a  downgrading process
(e.g. engineers working as junior engineers or technicians, physicians
working as nurses etc.)." (SOURCE: Shmuel Adler, "Training and
Retraining Programs in Israel",
<http://www.international.metropolis.net/events/croatia/Dubrov5-02.doc>).
It should be mentioned, that most countries do not serve immigrants
the same level of assistance in integration in the work-market like in
Israel, as described in Adler's paper.
 
The first problem, is again, relative lack of social capital. Here,
social capital has to do with language skills, with social networks,
and with knowing how the professional system works. Immigrants lack
all of this. Some occupations (teaching, legal work, social
professions, etc.) require very high language skills and sometimes
also acquintance with the local culture. In Israel, for example, "The
immigrants from the FSU came from the Soviet economic system where
little emphasis was given to marketing and maximizing profits. Most
were placed in their jobs upon graduation by a Government authority
and consequently had no first hand knowledge or training in finding a
job. Israel is basically a free market economy. One is expected to go
look for a job on his own. " (SOURCE: Shmuel Adler, "Training and
Retraining Programs in Israel",
<http://www.international.metropolis.net/events/croatia/Dubrov5-02.doc>).

In addition, in some occupational settings, homologation of the
professional experience might not be so easy to achieve; and degrees
or professions are sometimes not fully recognised by the state.

Even if the degrees are recognised and the occupation homologated,
there is always the problem of achieving status in the free market:
employers would always prefer those with familiar background and
experience. In Canada "Some work experience is usually required for a
job in management, so that new entrants to the labour force (and
immigrants) are unlikely to be offered jobs in Management occupations
without some (Canadian) experience." (SOURCE: "An Index of the
Employment Opportunities for New Immigrants, Based on Skills
Transferability and Occupational Barriers - January 2003",
<http://www11.hrsdc.gc.ca/en/cs/sp/hrsdc/lmp/publications/2003-002626/page06.shtml>).

Many Iranian immigrants in the US reported that "they changed their
original occupation or profession once they came to the U.S. Asked
about the reasons, most saw the lack of English, the lack of a license
or credential, and the lack of information about requirements as the
most important reasons for working in a different area. One tenth of
the respondents thought that they were discriminated against and that
this was the reason they had to change their occupation. Only 13% of
the respondents said that their current job was better than the job(s)
they had in their homeland." (SOURCE: Knowledge of Immigrant
Nationalities, <http://www.immigrantinfo.org/kin/iran.htm>).


Further Reading
===============
Boatwright, M. A., Ching, M., and Parr, A. (1992). ?Factors that
influence students? decisions to attend college.? Journal of
Instructional Psychology, 19, 79-86.

St George Lebanese Joint Committee Inc (1995) Arabic Speaking Youth in
St George Area: Proceedings of a Conference "Arabic Speaking Youth"

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Barbara Schneider, Becoming Adult: How
Teenagers Prepare for the World of Work

Evans Hairston, Jewel. "HOW PARENTS INFLUENCE AFRICAN AMERICAN
STUDENTS? DECISIONS TO PREPARE FOR VOCATIONAL TEACHING CAREERS"
<http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JCTE/v16n2/pdf/hairston.pdf>

Guerra, A. L. and Braungart-Rieker, J. M. (1999, March). ?Predicting
career indecision in college students: The roles of identity formation
and parental relationship factors.? The Career Development Quarterly,
47.

Hossler, D. and Stage, F. K. (1992). ?Family and high school
experience influences on the postsecondary educational plans of
ninth-grade students.? American Educational Research Journal, 29,
425-451.

Kerka, Sandra 2001. "Parenting and Career Development." ERIC Digest.,
<http://www.ericdigests.org/2001-1/career.html>

Knowles, S. (1998). ?Effects of the components of parent involvement
on children?s educational and occupational aspirations.? Unpublished
doctoral dissertation, Alfred University, Alfred, New York.

Kracke, B. (1997, June). ?Parental behaviors and adolescents? career
exploration.? The Career Development Quarterly, 45, 341.

Kumar, Revathy & Ludmila Z. Hruda, "?What do I want to be when I grow
up??: Role of parent and teacher support in enhancing students?
academic confidence and educational expectations",
<http://www.umich.edu/~pals/Kumar_Hruda2001.pdf>

Marjoribanks, K. (1988). ?Perceptions of family environments,
educational and occupational outcomes: Social-status differences.?
Perceptual and Motor Skills, 66, 3-9.

Mau, W. C., Hitchcock, R., and Calvert, C. (1998, December). ?High
school students? career plans: The influence of others? expectations.?
Professional School Counseling, 2, 161-166.

Smith, T. E. (1991). ?Agreement of adolescent educational expectations
with perceived maternal and paternal educational goals.? Youth and
Society, 23, 155-174.

Haya Stier and Varda Levanon, "Finding an Adequate Job: Employment and
Income of Recent Immigrants to Israel", International Migration,
Volume 41 Issue 2 Page 81  - July 2003 (only an abstract is available
online, at <http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-2435.00236?cookieSet=1>).

Taylor, Jeffrey Marcia B. Harris, and Susan Taylor, 2004. "Parents
Have Their Say?About Their College-Age Children's Career Decisions",
<http://www.jobweb.com/resources/library/Parents/Parents_Have_Their_242_01.htm>

Teachman, J. D. and Paasch, K. (1998, August). ?The family and
educational aspirations.? Journal of Marriage and the Family, 60,
704-714

Young, R. A. (1994). ?Helping adolescents with career development: The
active role of parents.? The Career Development Quarterly, 42,
195-203.

I hope this answers your two questions. Please contact me if you need
any clarification on this answer before you rate it. My search terms
were (on Google, Google Scholar and some academic databases):
immigrants different work "original occupation", immigrants "different
work" "original occupation", immigrants "different work" occupation,
immigrants "different work" occupation", Conference Proceedings, St
George Lebanese Joint Committee Inc, 1995, "differences in career
expectations" parents, "differences in career expectations" between
parents and their children, differences in career expectations between
parents and their children, parents "career expectations" children
conflict, parents "career expectations" children disagreement, parents
children career disagreement, parents children career different,
Comments  
Subject: Re: A problem !
From: translector-ga on 28 Jul 2005 05:00 PDT
 
Wow, what an answer!

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