Interpersonal Influences and Educational Aspirations in 12 Countries: The Importance of Institutional Context

Research in the United States has found that peers and parents play an important role in shaping students' educational aspirations. Little research has examined the extent to which these findings apply in other countries or whether the role of significant others varies according to the organization of national educational systems. This article examines the effects of peers' and parents' attitudes regarding academic performance on students' educational aspirations in 12 countries. The results indicate that peers and parents influence educational aspirations in countries with relatively undifferentiated secondary schooling, like the United States, while the influence of significant others is negligible in societies with more differentiated secondary education. In these latter systems, it appears that aspirations are largely determined by the type of school the student attends; there is little room for interpersonal effects. The effects of significant others on students' aspirations depend, in large part, on the structural features of the educational systems in which they operate