What will my life be like when I am 25? How do children's social class contexts predict their imagined and actual futures?

Abstract

Children use school as a way to imagine and strive toward their futures. We analyzed thousands of essays written by children in Britain in the late 1960s about what their lives would be like as adults. We used a bottom-up approach to explore naturally occurring topics in these essays and tested how these topics varied with children's social class context and their adult outcomes. Higher education was the most prevalent topic in these children's essays; children whose fathers—and maternal grandfathers—had higher-status occupations were especially likely to write about this, as well as about interests in teaching, medicine, and the military. Children in lower class contexts were especially likely to write about making money, but also about family and daily responsibilities. We further found that—controlling for family background—children who wrote more about higher education and less about money-making tended to achieve education, status, and income.