School as a Milieu Forming Career and Socio-political Aspirations of Youth

The analyses seek to compare the chances of private school and state school informing career and socio-political aspirations of youth. On the ground of the findings the level of aspirations is very high in both groups of secondary school leavers under study, the pupils who represented various types of schools. The difference was revealed in the rate of choices made in relation to the jobs of prestige and high social posts (for the benefit of the private school); it is not however, so big as to make us conclude that the private school is decisively more successful. As to political aspirations there is a marked disproportion between political interests and the plan to engage oneself in political life in the future. Such interests have been declared most of all by the pupils from the private school; on the other hand, lack of any plans to commit oneself to the matter of the country in the future is characteristic to a similar degree of the pupils from both types of secondary schools (private and state alike). Final conclusions emphasize the obvious positive points of the private school, if they respect the assumed principles as to their curricula, selection of the staff and collaboration with parents (the role of the board of directors of a school is important here). The bearing of the aforementioned positive points, in the case of the private school, was manifested first of all in the high level of pupils' self-assessment; the young people were convinced that they would make their plans come true and complete their education, profession, and would take a social post. The findings, however, do not decide about decisively poorer chances of the state school. Its efficiency will depend not only on to what extent they will mange to overcome the basic barriers (number of pupils in classrooms, opportunity to select the staff); they will also depend on making the cooperation more efficient, the cooperation on the pedagogical and organizational levels, and on orchestrating the three tendencies of these three "links": board of directors, teachers, and parents