Die toekomsverwagtinge van die Suid-Afrikaanse skoolverlater: 'n kruiskulturele ondersoek

English: The primary aim of this research was to determine the similarities, as well as the differences, which exist between South African school leavers from the different race groups. The construct future expectations was investigated in the study. The theoretical principle of the research was based on the broad conceptual framework of Psychofortology. The ecological systems theory was used to investigate the different contexts in which the school leaver finds himself. Due to the fact that school leavers are in their late adolescence, this stage was discussed at length. The research design includes the Hope Scale of Snyder to determine the levels of hope, as well as the socio-economic index of Riordan, which determines the socio-economic standing of families, and which pointed out large differences between Whites on one side and Blacks and Coloureds on the other. In addition, the researcher has developed a future expectations scale to measure the future expectations of school leavers. Hope has been used as co-variant. Information was acquired from matriculants from 20 schools – 50% in rural areas and 50% in cities. A total of 1823 respondents participated in the research. Of these, 50.06% were Afrikaans speakers (mostly white and Coloured), while 42.46% indicated that they speak an African language. Due to the fact that the focus of the study was cross-cultural and because it was deemed necessary to keep the three groups as homogenous as possible with regard to language, a decision was made to use only respondents from the White and Coloured groups who speak Afrikaans and only speakers of an African language (Sesotho) from the black group. Following these adjustments, the total sample consisted out of 1637 respondents. The future expectations scale was designed in such a way that it was able to show cultural or ethnic, as well as gender differences between the three groups. This was not possible with the application of the Hope Scale. The future expectations scale shows a high correlation with the Hope Scale of Snyder. In fact, the future expectations scale is probably able to indicate the contents of hope – that on which the individual hopes – better than the Hope Scale. The results confirm the hypothesis that there are differences between the general future expectations count (as on the four sub-scales) for school leavers from the different race groups, gender, socioeconomic strata, academic performance levels as well as study and career possibilities. The majority of school leavers think that crime and HIV/Aids will play a large to very large negative role in the development of South Africa in the next decade. The majority of White school leavers (83.3%) are of the opinion that political factors will play a large to very large role in the development of the country in the next decade, compared to only 44.4% of Black and 57.6% of Coloured school leavers. Currently, the South Africa school leaver does not experience a overwhelming negative feeling towards the future. Compared to the other two groups, Black school leavers are experiencing a higher level of hope. White school leavers as well as female Coloured respondents have shown significantly higher family expectations than Black school leavers. Black and Coloured school leavers have indicated that school forms an important frame of reference for them. They have also shown a more positive attitude towards school than White respondents. Black school leavers shows a higher degree of self motivation than the other groups. The use of the self-designed future expectations scale as well as the Hope Scale has enabled the researcher to reach the goals of the research satisfactorily.