The Social Management of Ambition

This study of “the social management of ambition” (Hopper 1968) analyzes the changes in occupational expectations that occur among a group of ambitious high school seniors during the seven years after graduation. The predictions of a socialization and of a social reproduction model of the process of expectations change are compared using data from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. Loglinear analysis is used to estimate a model, with a focus on the roles played by race, gender, social origins, and marriage. Less than one-fifth of the original sample remained “on track” toward achieving their original goals, most often members of already advantaged groups (whites and those from upper-middle-class homes). Married women were among the “cumulatively disadvantaged,” unlike their single peers. Marriage in particular had very different consequences for members of different social groups.