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Purpose – Research finds that youths who are able to align their educational and occupational ambitions are better able to realize both. In this chapter, we describe when and how the educational, occupational, and family aspirations and expectations of a subgroup of youth often marginalized in traditional status attainment research are aligned.

Methodology/approach – We use qualitative data from the Gautreaux Two program in Chicago, which gave vouchers to families in existing public housing to move to low-poverty and racially diverse areas. Our sample includes in-depth qualitative interviews with 93 children in 57 of the families included in the study.

Findings – Our results show that there are two groups of youths – one group whose educational, family, and occupational ambitions are aligned and one whose ambitions are misaligned. Many of the narratives of the youths whose ambitions are at odds reflect the ways in which competing ideologies of success for inner-city children can lead to misaligned aspirations. Both groups of youths also discuss their awareness of the difficulties they face in realizing even their aligned ambitions.

Research limitations/implications – This research provides implications for policies and programs seeking to improve youths' experiences both in housing mobility programs and disadvantaged neighborhoods and schools.

Originality/value of paper – This chapter adds to previous research by considering how youths' family plans intersect with their educational and occupational ambitions. Also, we explore the alignment of ambitions among a group of youths who may be considered socially marginalized, those who have grown up in urban housing developments.

This chapter is concerned with the varied legitimizing discourses used by midwives to frame their identities in relation to their work. This sociological issue is particularly important in the context of an occupation, such as this one, that exists at the border of competing service claims. Drawing on 26 in-depth interviews, I use narrative analysis to examine the stories that midwives tell about their work. Through these women’s work narratives, I show the complex intersection of narrative, culture, institution, and biography (Chase, 1995, 2001; DeVault, 1999).

Purpose – Conservative Protestantism is conceptualized as a cultural framework influencing class formation and transmission in the United States.

Design/Methodology/Approach – The framework is tested using Public-Use Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), Waves I, III, and IV. Four key outcomes – educational attainment, earnings, marriage, and parenting – are modeled as functions of class background and religious affiliation, controlling for other factors.

Findings – Religious affiliation and their effects on the normative pathways to adulthood help explain differential social mobility and the imperfect transmission of social class across generations. Religious culture plays an independent role in producing lower adult attainment via the life choices of conservative Protestant youth during the transition to adulthood.

Research limitations/Implications – This study is limited by the final age range (24–32 years) of the sample in Wave IV.

Originality/Value – Contributes to literature on conservative Protestants' educational attainment and labor force participation by charting the educational and income achievement of youth from varying class origins and identifying how childhood class location and childhood religious affiliation interact to affect adult socioeconomic status.