High school students' career decision-making pattern across parenting styles and parental attachment levels

Introduction. The purpose of this research was to investigate career decision among high school students regarding to their parenting styles (authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and neglectful) and parental attachment levels. Method. With this purpose, 382 (200 females; 182 males) Turkish high school students aged 14-18 completed Career Decision Inventory, The Parenting Style Inventory and The Inventory of Parent Attachment, as measures of career decision, parenting syle and parental attachment levels, respectively. For analyzing the data one way ANOVA was performed. Results. Results of the study demonstrated that children of more authoritative and authoritarian parents were found more decisive than the children of neglectful and indulgent parents. In terms of attachment levels, significant differences were found among all sub-scales of CDI. Furthermore, students who experienced a medium degree of attachment to their parents were found more decisive than the ones experiencing low or high degree of attachment. Discussion. Therfore, the effects of parenting styles and parent attechment levels on career decision-making pattern have to be taken into consideration regarding to career development and career choice of adolescents. Further research should explore the explanation of career decision in terms of parenting styles and attachment levels for different gender and age groups in order to identify relevant determinants at each age level and for females and males separately.