This thesis is designed to explore the educational and occupational aspirations of New Zealand adolescent girls in high school, to test hypotheses about the relationship between these aspirations and personal and social factors that are thought, or have been found, to be related to levels of aspiration and the goals aspired to, and their marital expectations. These hypotheses were based on studies of aspirations and plans done in other countries, so this research will,to some extent, allow some comparisons with overseas studies. The research is also designed to increase sociological understanding about the role perceptions of females, since research on aspirations in the past has been on predominantly male samples. The author believes that studies of this kind are of considerable importance, not only for sociological understanding of such phenomena, but also for future planning by educators, vocational gui-0ance counsellors, parents, administrators, and those concerned with the potential labour force in New Zealand. This thesis will try to give a comprehensive review of the literature on educational and occupational aspirations in the first two chapters, a brief review of the literature on achievement motivation in Chapter III and the feminine role in Chapter IV. All these theoretical areas and the empirical research associated with them provided the rationale and the hypotheses of this study as presented in Chapter V. ·The actual procedures adopted for the research will be presented in Chapter VI. The results of the research will be presented in Chapters VII and VIII. Chapter VII will be devoted to results on educational aspirations and Chapter VIII to occupational aspirations. The discussion and summary will integrate the research findings, in Chapter IX. Chapter IX will also present the conclusions of the study.