| Sumario: | A study was conducted to examine the development of occupational aspirations and expectations among inner-city boys. Results reveal that the boys tend to become more realistic about occupational aspirations and occupations the older they are, that their occupational expectations mirror existing race and class differences in adult job holdings from second grade onward, that the gap between aspirations and expectations is greater for ghetto boys than for the middle-income boys and remains roughly constant in size across the grades examined, and that the lower occupational expectations of the inner-city boys were strongly related to their lower educational expectations, with the latter also being related to a lower likelihood of having a biological father at home and with more of these boys seeing obstacles to success in the local social setting. However, the lower occupational expectations of the ghetto boys are not a result of having fewer positive role models or believing that schooling will not pay off for them in the future as it does for others.
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