Resiliency
This study sought to explore future orientation as an indicator of resiliency. The results of this research suggest that future orientation is positively related to academic achievement and negatively to SES. The data suggest that future orientation significantly predicts academic achievement even after accounting for major demographic variables including grade, gender, and SES. The findings indicate that the extent to which African American adolescents are engaged in thinking about their future is related to their academic achievement.
Academic accomplishments are important for navigating the transition to gainful employment in adulthood. School policies and practices often inhibit efforts of minority students to prepare educationally for a successful school to work transition in adulthood. Systematic school-linked barriers facing minority youths, and particularly males, often result in repeated academic failure and discouragement regarding future occupational prospects (See Swanson & Spencer, 1999). Thus, investigating the future orientation and academic achievement of African American adolescents remains an important area of study.
Gender Differences
Gender differences in African American adolescents’ future orientation toward occupation were also observed. Females were more likely to be future oriented about their occupation than males. The gender differences identified may be related to issues including social and contextual influences and differential treatment by race and gender (Spencer et al, 1993). Wilson (1991) posits that the weak labor force attachment of some poor communities influences individuals’ self-efficacy and in turn the extent to which individuals think they can get ahead in life. Wilson’s (1997) ethnographic data also suggest that "in addition to the discrimination that African Americans face due to ethnic membership there are also discriminatory patterns based on gender, where employers have a clear preference for black females over black males" (p. 118). Thus, low-income African American adolescents may have a foreshortened future orientation about occupation due to the adversities of differential treatment (i.e., discrimination) and their social contexts (i.e., limited opportunities). A 19 year-old Hispanic male participating in Doucette-Gates’ (1999) research illustrates this point:
"I don’t have no time to think about the future, having all those pressures coming up, worry about somebody knocking you off or worrying about whether they come to rob your house or hurt your family" (p. 63).
Program Implications
The current research also has prevention and intervention implications. Program developers may wish to consider the mismatch between educational and occupational expectations of African American males and to focus on African American males as a particularly vulnerable group to racial discrimination, when designing or implementing a program. As Gibbs (1992) discusses, young African American males experience discrimination in multiple contexts including educational, judicial, mental health, and social welfare (p. 267).
Conversely and importantly, African American adolescent females must continue to be encouraged in their positive future orientation toward occupation. It is important to note that African American females and males did not differ in their future orientation about education and the self, although differences were found in the occupational domain. This suggests that there are important commonalities between females and males in how they see aspects of their future that may be drawn upon to lesson the disparities found within the occupational domain. Thus, the source of the disparities in African American females and males future orientation about occupation is an important area of further investigation.
There are prevention programs targeting aspects of future orientation that may be potentially useful for low-income adolescents. An example of one such program comes from Danish’s (1997) prevention program entitled, Going for the Goal. Two components of this program teach adolescents to identify positive life goals and to focus on the process, not the outcome, of goal attainment. The results of this prevention program have been very encouraging and include such findings as participants having better school attendance and the ability to achieve the goals they have set compared to non-participants. For males in particular, participants reported a decrease in violent and other problem behavior. Overall, prevention programs that include aspects of future orientation may be beneficial for adolescents in providing thoughtful and positive plans for their futures.
Summary
In conclusion, the present study suggests that future orientation is an important element in the lives of low-SES African American adolescents, particularly as they prepare for the transition into adulthood. The results of this research seeks to contribute to our knowledge of the positive strategies that some low-SES African American adolescents may have in overcoming the challenges associated with low-SES and may ultimately aid in the development of more effective intervention programs that will help the future lives of low-SES African American adolescents.
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