Beyond College For All: Career Paths for the Forgotten Half

Notes

283 Notes Chapter 1 1. Among males age thirty-five to thirty-nine, the percentage of workers with short job tenure (less than five years) is 40 percent in the United States, but only 28 percent in Germany, 24 percent in the Netherlands, 22 percent in France, and 17 percent in Japan (OECD 1993, tables 4.3, 4.4). 2. Although only 10 percent of Japanese employers have special relations with schools, they are the larger firms, they hire about half (49.6 percent) of all the work-bound graduates from each school, and they offer the most desirable jobs (those with more training, security, and advancement ). As a result, these employers have a large impact on each school’s graduates. 3. Some Japanese teachers note that this constraint does help them resist pressures from influential parents. If they succumb to parent pressure and nominate students with substandard grades, employers will ignore their nomination and possibly stop offering jobs to their school in future years. Indeed, analyses find that social class background has very little influence on the jobs that youths get after high school (see Kariya and Rosenbaum 1988; Rosenbaum and Kariya 1989). Chapter 2 1. This chapter extends the work of James Rosenbaum, Takehiko Kariya, Rick Settersten, and Tony Maier (1990) and James Rosenbaum and Karen A. Nelson (1994). 2. This difference in the experiences of high school graduates in the United States and Japan is not due to any greater selectivity in Japan. Indeed, a higher proportion of youth graduate from high school in Japan (about 95 percent) than in the United States (about 73 percent), and the enrollment rate in colleges and postsecondary schools is virtually the same in Japan and the United States. Indeed, if, as human capital theory assumes, lowachieving youth have more work-entry problems, American high school graduation is more selective because of its higher dropout rate, and it excludes a greater proportion of problem youth than in Japan. Indeed, if 284 Notes dropouts had been considered in the these analyses, the United States would have even greater work-entry problems, while Japan’s rate would increase only slightly. 3. Of course, other barriers to employment may also operate, including lack of transportation; discrimination on the basis of age, sex, or race; and insufficient training or experience (Hills and Reubens 1983). 4. Not surprisingly, these practices have counterparts in students’ behaviors . In the general track, the program that does not even pretend to offer specific preparation for jobs, students are particularly disengaged and classes tend to have more than their share of effort and discipline problems. John Combs and William Cooley (1968) found that nearly three-quarters of high school dropouts were in the general track at the time they left school. Delos Kelly (1974) found that, even after controlling for sex and social class, non-college-track students are more likely to report drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, skipping school, stealing, vandalizing, and gang fighting (see also Rosenbaum 1980a; Stinchcombe 1965; Polk and Schafer 1972; Oakes 1985). Of course, it is hard to separate the effects of weak incentives from selection effects that put people into this track. 5. The same constraint would apply if teachers were tempted to favor students from influential families. In fact, such bias rarely if ever occurs. Social background has very little influence on entry-level jobs. Employer contracts provide strong institutional controls to keep selections meritocratic (Rosenbaum and Kariya 1989). 6. Japanese high schools do not have distinct guidance counselors. College and job placements are handled by teachers. Chapter 3 1. College degrees are considered to be an associate’s or higher degree (Digest of Education Statistics 1998, table 9). 2. While a prior version of this paper used students’ reports of their educational attainment, this chapter uses a variable based on transcript information . This variable is likely to be more accurate than students’ reports, and it indicates slightly lower attainments. 3. Somewhat similar beliefs have been shown to influence students’ achievements (Mickelson 1990), but since achievement is influenced by many factors besides motivation, this study has chosen to focus on the determinants of effort (for an excellent overview, see Steinberg 1996). 4. The data in these analyses are for the class of 1982, so that we can analyze long-term follow-up outcomes. Analyses of the class of 1992 (NELS) indicate a big increase over a decade, consistent with contentions of Schneider and Stevenson (1999). Unfortunately, the class of 1992 data do not allow long...