The effects of parental expectations and parental attachment on the career aspirations and decisions of Beijing high school students

Paying more attention to "build the career path" is one of the Chinese cultural traditions, so, going to school and job seeking have been the most concern for students and their parents. With the enforcement of "Only Child Policy" in PRC, parents have to place their high hopes on their children. This research examined how parental expectations, parental attachment affect career aspiration and career decision-making of middle-school students who are now at the turning point of life.;With the research tool of occupational list, this thesis, which is based on Gottfredson's theory of development career, investigated students' career aspiration and their parents' expectation. Holland type, prestige and sex-type were three dimensions of analysis. The results indicated that parents mostly hope children to do investigative job, which was also the highest frequent job students chose. Gender difference also affects job selection. Orderly, high frequent jobs which male students choose were investigative, enterprising and artistic (IEA), while for female students, were artistic, enterprising and investigative. (AEI).;There was no gender or grade difference for the upper boundary of students' career aspiration. For male students, the average level of social prestige of their career aspiration is higher than that of female students, so is the lower boundary, though the range of social prestige is lower than that of female students. With higher grade, for female students, the lower boundary of social prestige rises, while for male students, it decreases.;Male students have more interests in those jobs that are mostly fit for males, while female students tend to those ones that are mostly for females. Also, with higher grade, for male students, the average level and lower boundary of gender type deceases, and the range becomes larger; On the contrary, for female students, the average level and lower boundary of gender type rises, and the range becomes smaller. Moreover, with higher grade, the difference between male and female students becomes less and less. As for other factors, say school type, whether or not parents once have received any higher education, do not have any effects on the upper prestige boundaries of students' aspiration, but do affect the average level, the lower boundary and the range.;Though parents' education level does not affect the upper prestige boundary of their expectation for children, for those parents from key-schools, the upper prestige boundaries of expectation is still higher than that of parents from common schools. Gender, school type, and parents' education level do have effects on the average level, the lower boundary and the range of prestige of parental expectations. Relative to students, the upper and lower boundaries of prestige of parental expectations are higher and the range is smaller. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).