Attitudes, Aptitudes, and Aspirations of American Youth Implications for Military Recruitment (2003) / Chapter Skim
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6. Youth Values, Attitudes, Perceptions, and Influencers
6. Youth Values, Attitudes, Perceptions, and Influencers
Pages 149-189
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From page 149... ...
Young people are also increasingly cohabiting prior to marriage or as an alternative to marriage. This extended period of youth or postadolescence is filled with experimentation, suggesting that linking career preparation to military service might be attractive to a wider age range of youth than among traditionally targeted 17-18-year-olds who are just leaving high school (especially extending to youth in their early and mid-20s)
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From page 150... ...
The data we draw on to address these questions come from three large national survey databases supplemented by a locally based longitudinal study, several cross-sectional studies, and small observational studies as available.] The three national databases are · Monitoring the Future, a nationwide study of youth attitudes and behaviors covering drug use plus a wide range of other subjects, conducted annually by the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan (Bachman et al., 2001b; Johnston et al., 2001; see also |
From page 151... ...
TRENDS IN YOUTH VALUES Although a primary source of data for this section is the Monitoring the Future survey, we rely more particularly on a report examining these data concerning high school seniors' and young adults' views about work and military service (Bachman et al., 2000a)
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From page 152... ...
Important Goals in Life What are the life goals of youth, how have they changed over time, and what are the implications for military enlistment? Table 6-1 shows percentages of high school seniors in the Monitoring the Future (MTF)
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From page 153... ...
It was expected that propensity and actual enlistment would be below average among those who placed high priority on living close to parents and relatives, but above average among those who considered it important to "get away from this area of the country." These expectations were correct with respect to the latter dimension, but the findings with respect to living close to parents and relatives were more complex. Specifically, young men who entered military service had been lower on this dimension when they were high school seniors, but after enlistment the importance of this dimension increased significantly, and they no longer were
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From page 154... ...
Furthermore, recent studies at the National Opinion Research Center suggest that middle school and high school students (grades 6, 8, 10, and 12) are the most bored and the least engaged when they are attending history classes (Schneider, 2001; Csikszentmihalyi and Schneider, 2000:152~.
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From page 155... ...
The voting age population for 1972-2000 covers persons 18 years old and over in all states. Those who are more politically active among today's youth often do not champion causes or goals that could be considered national in focus; instead they tend to direct their energies toward the resolution of global problems or to issues that might be more aptly described as promoting the welfare of humanity at large.
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From page 156... ...
From 1990 to 2000 the proportion of high school seniors who participated in community affairs or did volunteer work at least a few times a year rose gradually from about 65 to about 75 percent, and the proportion who did so at least once or twice a month also rose by about 10 percentage points from just over 20 to more than 30 percent. Furthermore, the proportions of MTF seniors who considered it quite or extremely important to be a leader in the community increased from 21 percent in 1976 to 36 percent in 1990 and to 39 percent in 2000.
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From page 157... ...
, predict later political participation. Studies of social movement activists likewise support the conclusion that civic participation during adolescence and young adulthood encourages responsibility in youth, as well as more responsible and active political participation in adulthood (e.g., McAdam, 1988; Fendrich, 1993~.
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From page 158... ...
As Figure 6-2 shows, fewer than 30 percent of MTF high school seniors in the late 1970s expected "definitely" to complete college, but by the mid- to late l990s about 60 percent of female seniors and about 50 percent of male seniors expected to do so. If those "probably" expecting to complete college are included, the shift is from about 50 percent in the late 1970s to about 80 percent among women and 75 percent among men in the late l990s.
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From page 159... ...
It is important to note that the proportions expecting to complete college in the MTF reached a peak in 1996 and after that changed little through the latest available data (2001~. It may be that in a booming economy, some high school seniors feel less certain that college is the only route to high-quality employment.
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From page 160... ...
. Class Year males -- -females FIGURE 6-3 Trends in expectation for kind of job at age 30 among high school seniors, by gender, 1976-2001 (percentage "professional with doctoral degrees.
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From page 161... ...
a J Participants in the 1999 Youth Attitude Tracking Study (YATS) also gave high marks to "interesting job" 82 percent of the men and 85 percent of the women thought that this feature of work was extremely or very important (figures for the MTF respondents for a job "which is interesting to do" were highly comparable: aggregating data for 1994 to 1998, they were 82 percent for men and 87 percent for women)
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From page 162... ...
162 ATTITUDES, APTITUDES, AND ASPIRATIONS OF AMERICAN YOUTH TABLE 6-3 Preferences Regarding lob Characteristics: Comparison of Rank Orders Rank % Very Important Males Males Males 1976-1980 1994-1998 Change How important is having a job 1 Which is interesting to do?
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From page 163... ...
Rankings were assigned based on respondent ratings from the class years 1994 to 1998. Significance tests were calculated using t tests with pooled variance estimates based on percentages and adjusted for design effects, p < 0.05.
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From page 164... ...
(In general, work values tend to change in directions that make them more congruent with the rewards that are available Mortimer and Lorence, 1979; Mortimer et al., 1986; Johnson, 2001.) In any case, the rising importance of vacation time among high school seniors has some implications for military recruiting efforts: specifically, advertising may need to stress the vacation benefits of military service.
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From page 165... ...
Women YDS participants also considered opportunities to work with people rather than things and the opportunities to be useful to society more important than did men. Finally, according to MTF data, fewer women than men consider it very important to avoid supervision by others a dimension that correlates negatively with military propensity.
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From page 166... ...
Views About the Importance of Work High school seniors' views about the importance of work in their lives have been mostly stable, although a few modest changes are worth noting. Overwhelming majorities of MTF respondents agree or mostly agree that work will be a central part of their lives.
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From page 167... ...
Significance tests were calculated using t tests with pooled variance estimates based on percentages and adjusted for design effects, p < 0.05. SOURCE: Data from Monitoring the Future surveys.
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From page 168... ...
Specifically, the proportions of male high school seniors expecting "definitely" to serve in the armed forces varied somewhat from year to year during the last quarter of the 20th century, averaging about 10 percent throughout that period, but they have been slightly lower in recent years. Roughly equal or slightly higher proportions of young men expected "probably" to serve.
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From page 169... ...
Although that may seem a plausible hypothesis, it is not supported by the data. For example, when the classes of 1976-1983 were compared with the classes of 1992-1998, proportions of male seniors indicating "definitely won't" serve rose from 43 to 60 percent, whereas among the subsamples of male seniors not expecting to complete college (a category that shrank from nearly half of seniors in 1976-1983 to just over one-quarter in 1992-1998)
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From page 170... ...
More important, the figure shows consistently very low proportions of young women expecting "probably" or "definitely" to serve; moreover, follow-up data show that even among those women "definitely" expecting to serve, most did not (Bachman et al., 1998~. It is perhaps worth noting that when asked whether they would want to serve "supposing you could do just what you'd like and nothing stood in your way," the proportion of female seniors indicating such a preference for serving was consistently higher than the combined proportions "probably" or "definitely" expecting to serve; among males the reverse was the case (Segal et al., 1999~.
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From page 171... ...
NOTE: The spaces between the lines show the percentages in each of the three propensity categories. Figures 6-6 and 6-7 make use of MTF data available from 8th and 10th grade students, beginning in 1991, and show how those in lower grades compare with 12th graders.
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From page 172... ...
involved that level of support for shared sacrifice. One question included in most of the annual MTF surveys attempts to capture high school seniors' willingness to serve in a "necessary" war.
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From page 173... ...
Probably the most important trend shown by this item is that, among male seniors during the 1980s, substantially more thought they would volunteer than thought they would notwhereas in recent years that pattern was reversed. It is not clear whether this reflects a decline in patriotism, shifting perceptions of how many individuals would be needed in a modern "necessary" war, or some combination of these and perhaps other factors.
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From page 174... ...
o~~c~cp~~c? ~ ~~ ~~ct, Class Years ~ -- - % volunteer % not volunteer % no necessary war | FIGURE 6-9 Trends in high school seniors' willingness to volunteer to fight in a "necessary" war: Females, 1976-2001.
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From page 175... ...
Figure 6-11 shows a similar rise in the (generally smaller) proportions of seniors who perceive "great" or "very great" discrimination against blacks in the armed forces.
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From page 176... ...
We take advantage of recently completed analyses of MTF data that compared views of high school seniors with their views in a follow-up survey one or two years later, distinguishing between young men who had entered military service, those full-time in college, and those full-time in civilian employment (the numbers of women in the samples who entered military service were too small to permit reliable estimates, so this analysis was limited to males; see Bachman et al., 2000b, for details)
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From page 177... ...
First, those who entered military service were consistently more promilitary than those who did not; however, in most respects, these differences were not especially large. Second, the differences were evident before the end of high school, with generally little further change
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From page 178... ...
The question about adequacy of military spending showed roughly similar differences among high school seniors; however, after enlistment those in the armed forces showed distinct increases in the proportion who viewed current military spending as "too little." Overall preferences for military spending declined from one decade to the next, except among enlisters from the classes of 1986-1995, who enlisted during a period when military salaries rose less than inflation; these respondents showed sharp increases (averaging about three-quarters of a standard deviation) in their preferences for greater military spending.
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From page 179... ...
. The data in Figure 6-12 show modest selection effects; high school seniors headed for military service were significantly more likely than their classmates to endorse unquestioning obedience.
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From page 180... ...
The purpose of this review is not to summarize cumulative theory and research on youth development but, more modestly, to identify those nexuses in the career decision-making process that bear most directly on propensity to enlist in the military. We limit our examination of the literature in three ways.
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From page 181... ...
Finally, views about the value of education showed high and growing agreement with parents between 1976 and the early l990s; the proportions perceiving mostly or very different views declined from 14 to about 8 percent, whereas proportions perceiving very similar views rose from about 50 to about 65 percent. Notably, this increase in perceived close agreement about the value of education coincided with the increase in proportions of high school seniors reporting that they definitely expected to complete a four-year college program.
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From page 182... ...
Against this backdrop, it is instructive to examine what is known about youth influencers and how they affect youth career decision making in terms of accumulated theory and empirical research. The Achievement Process The social psychological model of the achievement process provides a useful initial framework within which to identify major influencers and key processes that affect youth career decisions.
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From page 183... ...
Their research and that of others bear directly on the question of who influences youth career decisions. Following Sorokin and Parsons, Blau and Duncan reasoned and provided empirical confirmation for the theses that level of education is the key means by which society selects and distributes youth into occupational roles, and that education serves the critical socialization function of instilling achievement values and orientations in youth.
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From page 184... ...
Rather than assuming that persons in particular roles influenced youth and then measuring that influence, both studies asked the youth to specify who influenced specific aspects of their career plans. In the Youth Development Study (Mortimer, 2001)
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From page 185... ...
More than three-fourths discussed plans for college, twothirds discussed career preparation possibilities other than college, and half discussed plans for vocational or trade school often or sometimes with their parents during the past year. Respondents named their mothers most often as the person who offered the greatest help when discussing career plans and was most aware of their career interests and abilities.
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From page 186... ...
Nonetheless, the influence patterns reported by enlistees largely parallel those reported by civilian youth and underscore the influence of parents, mothers as well as fathers, in the youth career decislon ma mug process. Summary of Youth Influencers Two questions framed our inquiry: Who influences youth propensity to enlist in the military, and how do young people incorporate those influences into their career plans and decisions?
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From page 187... ...
Close examination of the empirical data suggests that parents, peers, counselors, and recruiters exert different kinds of influence on youth career decisions. Attitude theories traditionally differentiate between two attitude dimensions, direction and intensity.
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From page 188... ...
Parents are well positioned to provide support for both their aspirations and their career decisions. This raises the possibility that military recruitment effectiveness may be improved by taking into account major youth influencers and the critical processes that affect youth career decisions.
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From page 189... ...
The primary value that has been changing is college aspirations, and this has led to increases in rates of college attendance through the mid-199Os. One useful finding regarding education and military service is that in recent years the majority of high school seniors (both male and female)
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