Generalizability of Holland's structure of vocational interests across ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status

Items from the Vocational Preference Inventory (J. L. Holland, 1985b) were administered to a sample of 370 African American and White high school students to investigate differences in the circular structure of RIASEC interests across ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and gender. Analyses using both the randomization test of hypothesized order relations (L. Hubert & P. Arabie, 1987) and 3-way MDS suggest that there are no differences in interest structure between African American and White high school students. However, structural differences were found when both ethnicity and SES were considered together.