A study was conducted to determine the influence of family background and attitudinal factors on occupational aspirations of Year 9 students in Victoria, Australia. A survey was made of all Victorian Year 9 students and comparisons were made between groups of students who aspired to different occupations. Discriminant function analyses were computed to provide functions that maximally differentiated among students with differing occupational aspirations. The discriminant function analyses were computed separately for each sex and two analyses were computed to predict both boys' and girs' aspirations. For both boys and girls, the results of the analyses indicated that school characteristics were important predictors of aspirations, while self-rating of achievement was the single most important predictor. Students with professional aspirations rated themselves higher in school achievement than did students with lower aspirations. Family background variables had a greater influence on boys' aspirations than on girls' aspirations. Boys' aspirations were highly related to father's occupation and moderately related to ethnic background and mother's employment status. Ethnic background, however, was the only family background variable that was found to relate to girls' aspirations. On the other hand, the influence of significant others (teachers, parents) was unrelated to boys' aspirations but was an important predictor of girls' aspirations. (KC)