NEIGHBORHOOD CONTEXT AND COLLEGE PLANS.

The popular thesis that neighborhood socioeconomic status exerts considerable influence on educational aspirations of youth is examined, using data on Milwaukee metropolitan area public high school seniors. Large differences are found in the college plans of students from neighborhoods classified by occupational composition. When sex, family socioeconomic status, and intelligence are simultaneously controlled, these differences tend to be eliminated or greatly reduced, except for a few subpopulations--most notably girls of all intelligence levels from high socioeconomic status families. Correlation analysis indicates that neighborhood context adds little to the explained variance in college plans beyond that accounted for by sex, family socioeconomic status, and intelligence. Consequently, the evidence from this study suggests that past claims for the importance of neighborhood context in the development of educational aspirations may have been overstated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]