African American Mothers' and Daughters' Beliefs About Possible Selves and Their Strategies for Reaching the Adolescents' Future Academic and Career Goals

The current study combines qualitative and quantitative data to examine beliefs and strategies related to possible selves within a sample of 22 rural African American female adolescents and their mothers. Mother–daughter pairs responded to interview questions pertaining to the adolescents' desired possible selves. Pairs also completed a possible selves Q-sort focusing on the personal attributes, roles, and life circumstances that might be expected for an adolescent's future adulthood. Academic and occupational selves were the most prominent possible selves discussed during the interviews. A mother's exposure to college influenced her strategies for helping her daughter reach academic and career goals. Findings from the Q-sort data indicated two distinctive mother–daughter groups, with one group emphasizing daughter's personal attributes and the other group putting greatest weight on the daughter's future occupations and life circumstances. The relative importance of possible selves was related to the strategies that mothers and daughters used to help the adolescent reach her goals.