A Job is a Job is a Job... or is it?

Abstract

Researchers and policy makers have treated adolescent work experience as a unidimensional phenomenon and have ignored possible differences among jobs along the very dimensions of working posited as developmentally significant: opportunities for learning, initiative and autonomy, and interaction with others. Behavioral observations support the hypothesis that different work settings expose adolescent workers to substantially different experiences. The six job types differ on all indices of opportunity for initiative and autonomy and half the indices of opportunity for social interaction. But, work settings differ little in opportunities for learining and provide few such opportunities. The implications of the place of work experience in the socialization and education of youth are discussed.