Integration of Adolescent Career and Pro-social Aspirations

Adolescent career and prosocial aspirations are rarely studied together, but work on moral identity by Blasi, Lapsley and Damon suggests that an integration between the two may be associated with positive developmental outcomes. This mixed-methods study used the clinical interview method and a thirty-minute survey to investigate the presence of and possible integration between career and prosocial aspirations in a diverse group of 6th, 9th, and 12th grade students (N=194). Frequency of integration and cross-sectional trends in self narratives are discussed, as are implications for the future of research on positive youth development.