Family interaction patterns, career planning attitudes, and vocational identity of high school adolescents

The purpose of the current study was to examine how perceptions of family interaction patterns as defined along three dimensions of family environment (quality of family relationships, family goal-orientations, and degree of organization and control within the family system) predict vocational identity and career planning attitudes among male and female adolescents living at home. One hundred twenty three high school students completed measures of family environment, vocational identity, and career planning attitudes. Analyses revealed that the quality of family relationships (i.e., degree to which family members are encouraged to express feelings and problems) played a small, yet significant role in predicting career planning attitudes of adolescents. KEY WORDS: adolescents; family patterns; career planning; vocational identity. Career counselors and theorists have long acknowledged the role of the family context in the career development literature (e.g., Hagen