Unseen Expectations of Blind Youth: Educational and Occupational Ideas

Abstract

This article addresses two questions: Is blindness a disadvantage to educational or occupational expectations? and, Do expectations vary according to the degree of vision? A comparison of two independent samples of legally blind and sighted high school students in Ontario, Canada, indicated that legally blind students generally had lower occupational, but not educational, expectations than did their sighted counterparts. Regression analyses, using only the sample of blind students, revealed an unanticipated negative relationship between expectations and the students’ degree of vision. The students’ self-concept of academic ability, socioeconomic status, friends’ educational plans, and degree of vision accounted for 38 percent ( p< .001) of the variance in the level of educational expectations, while their self-concept of academic ability, socioeconomic status, and degree of vision accounted for 33 percent (p< .001) of the variance in the level of occupational expectations.