Occupational Knowledge

Abstract

Recent findings from the Department of Labor's National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS) show that level of occupational knowledge is stronglv influenced bv both social origin and certain family- and school-related factors. Additionally, the pre liminary NLS findmgs suggest that occupational knowledge makes a significant and independent contribution to earlv occupational status attainment and mcome for a national sample of vouth The present analysts develops a causal model with a level of occupational knowledge in the sophomore year of high school as an mtervening variable between background and senior career attitudes and subsequent early status attainment. Using path analysis, the results indicate that occupational knowledge does not contribute to status attainment directly, but has significant "socialization" effects on career attitudes whrch in turn impact positively on attainment Significant nonlinear bivariate relationships between occupatronal knowledge and status attainment indicate that the modicum of direct causal effects mav be masked using a multivariate linear model as developed here Further research regarding the impact of occupational knowledge on the status attainment process is suggested.