The Measurement of Career Interests among At-Risk Inner-City and Middle-Class Suburban Adolescents

This article examines the factor structure and underlying dimensions of Holland's occupational themes with inner-city, at-risk middle school adolescents and middleclass, suburban middle school adolescents. Both groups constructed the occupational world across the Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, and Social Holland themes similarly. However, there were differences in their construals of the relationships between occupations in the Enterprising and Social Themes. Subsequent means analyses indicated significant ethnic differences in medical science careers and within-group ethnic differences in working with hands, working outdoors, professional and fashion arts, social service, and medical service careers.