Global youth perspectives on “good work” role models: a qualitative study of character strengths and behaviors

Adolescence is a time of expanded identity exploration, including exploring potential career options, and, in some countries, making a decision about one’s career for the future (Erikson, 1993). Thinking about possible selves – the many possible identities one might inhabit in the future – is one way that adolescents can explore their future identities (Oyserman, Bybee, & Terry, 2006). Role models can play an important part in this process of exploration and identity development by helping youth to identify positive future goals, possible selves and the potential route for achieving this outcome (Klimstra, Archer, Reitz, Chung, & Engelen, 2023; Lockwood, 2006). In fact, the influence of social factors, such as role models, on career development is considered a key element of social cognitive career theory (Lent & Brown, 2013). Moberg (2000) noted, “role models appeal not to existing observer self-conceptions but rather to the possible future selves that guide aspirations and ambitions, conceptions that sometimes have more motivational effect than the existing self-concept” (p. 681). In addition, we know from social cognitive learning theory (Bandura et al., 1996) that youth are primed to learn from and to imitate others who are both implicitly and explicitly modeling behaviors in their environments.

Indeed, people have long looked to others to help guide their life decisions and goals: the young basketball player watches videos of Michael Jordan on repeat; the aspiring writer studies Jane Austen’s craft; an eager chess player examines Magnus Carlsen’s moves. Such people often serve as role models in a particular domain of life – basketball, writing and chess (Feezell, 2005). Other times, people might look up to someone who they feel guides their life decisions more broadly and holistically – Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, Gandhi and more. They find they want to be like them in many ways – such a person is often called a “moral exemplar.” Exemplars include “people who serve as ideal models for the kind of person to become and the decisions to make in life” (Klimstra et al., 2023, p. 154). Here, we use the term “role model” to encompass both “role model” and “moral exemplar,” acknowledging a conflation of the two terms for ease of understanding. In doing so, we are building upon years of work on the importance of moral exemplars for building individuals’ moral integrity and moral identity (e.g. Colby, 1994; Narvaez & Lapsley, 2013).

Looking up to role models can have other beneficial outcomes in people’s lives. A study by Han, Kim, Jeong, and Cohen (2017) found that reading stories about attainable moral exemplars can help inspire students to engage in voluntary service activities when compared to students who read stories about unattainable moral exemplars; that is, unattainable role models are those who are considered “extreme” or very difficult to emulate. In Han et al.’s (2017) study, they varied the amount of volunteering the role model completed in an average week based on the overall average. Whereas the mean response was four hours a week, their unattainable role models volunteered nine hours a week, and their attainable role model volunteered three hours per week. Han et al. (2017) also found that peer exemplars – who are also considered attainable role models by youth – can inspire service engagement when compared to more unattainable historic exemplars.

Role models can also help mitigate the effects of negative gender and racial biases and stereotypes. Studies have found that the presence of female role models in STEM classrooms can encourage more female youth to enjoy math and choose STEM careers and that a female peer mentor can help women in STEM to persist in their major and career aspirations (Dennehy & Dasgupta, 2017; González-Pérez, Mateos de Cabo, & Sáinz, 2020). Female air force cadets have also been found to perform better when taught by a female professor (Carrell, Page, & West, 2010). Similarly, students marginalized by racial or ethnic differences have been found to have higher achievement in classrooms taught by similarly marginalized professors (Fairlie, Hoffmann, & Oreopoulos, 2014). Another study found that Black elementary school students who had a Black teacher were more likely to graduate high school and enroll in high school than those who had a white elementary school teacher (Gershenson, Hart, Hyman, Lindsay, & Papageorge, 2021).

Research likewise supports the influence of role models on career development. Buunk, Peiró and Griffioen (2007) found that when college students read about an interview with a college graduate who has been successful in finding a career, these students feel more identification with the graduate and are more proactive in their career behaviors than college students who read about an unsuccessful job-seeking graduate. Additional research has found that parents influence their child’s occupational aspirations directly and indirectly; that is, parents’ own career beliefs and values directly influence students’ occupational beliefs, and are also mediated by the child’s educational expectations and outcomes (Jodle et al., 2001). Wiese and Freund (2011) similarly found that adolescents use their parents as role models regarding work involvement; that is, they found that youth tend to use parents of the same sex as role models for their own work plans and parents of the opposite sex as guides for how much they would like their future life partners to engage in work.

Who do we consider role models or moral exemplars? To date, the majority of studies that have examined role models for youth have focused on known or accessible role models in an adolescent’s life. However, Lerner, Wong, Weiner and Johnson (2021) acknowledged that role models “may also be individuals who are not personally known to the participants (such as famous people, figures from history, or religious figures)” (p. 299). Indeed, such proximal or inaccessible role models are often a form of parasocial relationships, or “one-sided connections imagined with celebrities and media figures” (Gleason, Theran, & Newberg, 2017, p. 1). Moreover, such role models have been found to be particularly impactful for adolescents (Atif et al., 2022; Gleason et al., 2017). Indeed, Strasser-Burke and Symonds (2020) found that while adolescents are more likely to select accessible role models in their local contexts, adolescents rely on similar inaccessible role models (such as famous persons) to help them form their sense of future self (see also Gibson, 2004; Tian & Hoffner, 2010).

In regard to inaccessible figures, in their research on “famous character role models (FCRMs),” Hammond et al. (2024) found that youth identified entertainers the most (31.5%), then religious figures (13.1%), politicians (10.7%), activists (10.4%), athletes (9.9%) and so on as their key FCRMs. A study of lower socio-economic status Indian male adolescents ages 10 to 19 found that almost all youth were able to identify a role model, with 35% identifying a film star, 28% a teacher, 14.3% their parents, 12% a sportsman, 1.2% a politician and 9% other or no response (Azmi et al., 2014).

Parasocial bonds – one-sided social emotional connections with celebrities – can be particularly strong, inaccessible role models for adolescents, with 15-year-olds developing more parasocial bonds than 18-year-olds (Aytulun & Sunai, 2020; Pérez-Torres, 2024). Such role models help adolescents ideate for their future, enhancing their self-esteem and helping them envision different relationships, interests and identities (Aytulun & Sunai, 2020; Pérez-Torres, 2024). Social media, such as Facebook, TikTok and Instagram, plays a particularly important role in helping to foster such parasocial bonds, as it allows adolescents to identify influencer and celebrity role models with whom they can form “live” attachments (Pérez-Torres, 2024). The sense of reciprocity developed in parasocial relationships, wherein celebrities interact with their followers and share elements of their own lives, then helps to inspire adolescents’ identification and imitation of these role models (Pérez-Torres, 2024).

Focusing on more accessible role models, Bojuwoye and Mbanjwa (2006) found that mothers (at 52.50%), then fathers (at 18.75%), followed by siblings or guardians (at 16.25%) served as the most influential figures on students’ career choice. Likewise, Bricheno and Thornton (2007) found that 31.7% of UK youth in their sample named parents as their most important role model. A 2023 Gallup and Amazon Future Engineer (2023) poll of young adults (ages 18–40) who said that they knew their role models personally also found that 41% of respondents cited their parents, guardian, or sibling as their top role model, followed by teachers and their co-workers. Notably, such parental influence has been found to be particularly influential in collectivist cultural settings (Sawitri, Creed, & Zimmer-Gembeck, 2015) and for African American youth in the United States (Bryant & Zimmerman, 2003).

Accordingly, not all youth have the same access to or enculturation into admiring the same type of role models. Research by Yancey, Siegel, and McDaniel (2002) sheds additional light on the types of individuals chosen by various demographic communities as role models. They found, for example, that youth of color were more likely to identify figures (e.g. actors, historical figures, singers) as role models in comparison to white students; male students identified more figures than women as well. Yancey et al. (2002) also noted that immigrant youth were more likely to identify family members as role models than youth who grew up in the United States. Higher-income students were the least likely to name figures from the media. In addition, the large majority of students chose role models of similar ethnicity (72%) and similar sex (86%) (Yancey et al., 2002). Although the majority of sports role models are men (Giuliano, Turner, Lundquist, & Knight, 2007; Midgley, DeBues-Stafford, Lockwood, & Thai, 2021), research on sex differences in role models has found that women and men are both motivated more by known, rather than famous, role models and that women tend to be more motivated by same-gender role models (Midgley, Lockwood, & Hu, 2023) whether known or unknown (Lockwood, 2006).

In all, research suggests that role models come in all shapes and sizes: fictional characters, family members, peers, historical figures and more (Athanassoulis & Han, 2023; Kristjánsson, 2020; Sanderse, 2012) and that who we look to as a role model can be determined by variety of individual and cultural factors. However, there are a few key elements that we know help determine who most people emulate as role models.

There are two key elements that individuals, particularly youth, look for when identifying a role model: attainability and relevance. First, several studies (Han & Dawson, 2024; Han et al., 2017; Han & Graham, 2024; Lockwood & Kunda, 1997) have found that attainability plays a key role in whether an individual considers a role model’s behavior as worthy of being emulated. Here, attainability refers to how possible or easy it is for the individual to emulate the role model’s behavior (Han et al., 2017). Studies have found that the more attainable a role model’s behavior, the more likely they are to be emulated (Han et al., 2017; Lockwood & Kunda, 1997). This means that role models and moral exemplars need not always be “perfect moral saints” (Athanassoulis & Han, 2023, p. 2). Rather, research has found that the more relatable and attainable a role model, the more likely they are to have a positive influence on individuals (Han & Dawson, 2024; Han & Graham, 2024).

A second key element concerns relevance. Relevance includes how similar an individual feels to the role model or exemplar, often in terms of identity such as race/ethnicity, social group, age or shared interest (Han et al., 2017; Lin-Siegler, Ahn, Chen, Fang, & Luna-Lucero, 2016; Moberg, 2000; Walton, Cohen, Cwir, & Spencer, 2012). Relevance explains why several studies have found that when asked to nominate role models, individuals were more likely to nominate someone that they knew personally rather than a famous individual (Lockwood, 2006; Midgley et al., 2021). Gallup and Amazon Future Engineer (2023), in their study of career role models of young adults ages 18–40, found that 90% identified a role model of the same race and 77% identified a role model of the same gender.

A few studies have identified the specific qualities that youth admire in role models by asking them specifically about role models of character. The majority of youth in a study by Johnson et al. (2016) identified virtuous qualities of the role model, such as being “nice” or “kind.” The second largest group identified elements of their relationship with the role model, such as receiving good advice from the person. The third category included choosing role models who treated others well, such as those who were altruistic. Many role models were identified as fitting into all three categories. To our knowledge, at present, Hammond et al. (2024) have investigated most specifically the characteristics and qualities of famous role models that youth look for in terms of character virtues or ethical qualities. They found that over half the qualities youth identified as important in these role models were character virtues, such as being authentic, caring, and hardworking. Other large categories included the person’s identity, the similarity of the person to the youth, and whether or not the person was an advocate. Earlier research (Bricheno & Thornton, 2007) confirmed youth’s focus on character strengths such as “honesty” and being “hardworking,” although Bricheno and Thornton (2007) found that girls were more likely to focus on such strengths over boys, who focused on more surface level attributes. Yet, in all, Kelly (2023) noted, “virtuous role models, whether sacred or secular, are in short supply these days” (para 5).

Above we noted the positive effect of role models on youth and adults’ career and work outcomes. We have also discussed how youth have identified particular character strengths in their role models. However, there has been relatively little focus on the characteristics and qualities that youth identify in work and career role models beyond the elements of attainability and relevance (Bowers, Rosch, & Collier, 2016; Foy, 2019). The quality most identified in literature specific to youth work role models is that of competence. For example, 77% of young adults in the Gallup and Amazon Future Engineer (2023) poll indicated that they looked up to their role model because they “trusted their knowledge and expertise” (p. 21). Gladstone and Cimpian (2021) similarly found that the competence of STEM role models influences youth motivation, specifically when the role model is also from the same “in-group” as the student.

Certainly, studies about role models and youth role models have been conducted around the world; we have mentioned some of these studies above. However, there is a paucity of research that has explored role models, and in particular, youth role models, cross-culturally or interculturally. We note two studies here that offer implications for cross-cultural research on role models.

Research has found that the tightness or looseness of a country – whether they adhere strictly or not to social norms, respectively – is associated with the attributes that individuals admire in their leaders (Aktas, Gelfand, & Hanges, 2016). Aktas et al. (2016) explored the relationship between the tightness and looseness of 33 nations with the six forms of leadership as defined by the GLOBE Leadership research team (Hanges & Dickson, 2004): charismatic (visionary), team-oriented (collaborative), self-protected (status conscious), participative (autocratic), humane-oriented (modest) and autonomous (independent). They primarily found that those in tight cultures are more likely to believe that autonomous leadership is effective and that team-oriented and charismatic leadership are less effective, citing that tight cultures have a low tolerance for uncertainty and value independent leaders who are able to quickly make decisions (Aktas et al., 2016).

Smith, Smith, and Christopher (2007) also explored what “the good person” meant to university students across seven countries, using a variety of different values and virtues frameworks to classify the responses. Ultimately, they determined that what they call “behavioral qualities,” such as happiness and respect, were the most common attributes mentioned by their sample. Looking more deeply into different frameworks, they qualified that prosocial goals – such as being helpful, honest and generous – appeared more regularly across countries than competence-based goals, such as being intelligent or knowledgeable. When specifically examining Peterson and Seligman’s (2004) character virtues framework, they again noted that more human values, such as love and kindness, were the most populous in the sample, whereas transcendence virtues varied considerably across countries.

In all, there is a dearth of research on the character strengths, behaviors, and qualities adolescents’ associate with their work role models, and, to our knowledge, there is limited, if any, scholarship that examines these concepts together cross-culturally. Accordingly, the present study aimed to further understand who adolescents identified as their “good work” role models – work role models that embody the Good Project's core framework of excellence, ethics and engagement – and what character strengths and behaviors they ascribed to these role models. Moreover, the study adopted a global perspective on this question by incorporating perspectives from youth across the world.

This study was drawn from an ongoing mixed-methods research project exploring the implementation of a set of lesson plans designed by the Good Project for a global teacher community of practice (COP). The study received human subjects’ approval from the [home university] Institutional Review Board under IRB22-0934, ^[1].

The Good Project is a research project based at Harvard University that explores the nature of what it means to do “good work,” defined as work that is excellent, ethical and engaging (a framework called the “3 Es”). The Good Project has researched the world of work for over 25 years and, through a “good work” curriculum, encourages secondary students to reflect and discuss work-related dilemmas, examine role models, and reflect upon their identities, values and sense of purpose in relation to current and future work.

In line with character education pedagogical best practices (e.g. Berkowitz & Bier, 2005; Lamb, Brant, & Brooks, 2021), the lesson plans were designed with the following undergirding principles in mind:

1. Reflection. Each lesson includes individual student and group prompts, worksheets and exercises that further explore “good work” concepts (e.g. responsibility, values, personal meaning) and ask students to reflect (usually in written form) on their own thoughts around this concept.

2. Group Work/Discussion. Each lesson employs small or whole group discussion or small group activities, such as role-playing exercises or debates.

3. Collaborative Decision Making. Students are given opportunities to think about how they would solve dilemmas together, or to think about their whole school or community mission.

4. Dilemmas/Case Studies. Each dilemma is inspired by real-life situations in which an individual confronts a difficult decision entailing competing priorities.

5. Modeling. Teachers are asked to model their own thinking for students, or students are asked to model for one another.

6. Seeing Multiple Perspectives. Dilemma discussions are meant to surface potentially competing viewpoints in order for students to develop empathy and open-mindedness toward others.

The curriculum has four units, each paired with specific learning goals and assessment rubrics. The four student learning goals of the curriculum are: (1) to understand the term “good work” as defined by excellence, ethics and engagement; (2) to develop habits of reflection through examination of external dilemmas and resources; (3) to articulate personal values and beliefs about work and (4) to reflect upon active strategies to accomplish good work in the future. In addition, each of the sixteen lessons included an individual lesson goal, a set of outcomes, and assessment recommendations.

The curriculum aims to help adolescents develop and internalize moral (i.e. a good neighbor), civic (i.e. a good citizen), performance (i.e. a good student/worker) and intellectual (i.e. a good thinker) character strengths (Baehr, 2022), which align with the Good Project's 3 Es of “good work.” In order to understand youths’ conceptualizations of career role models, the present study draws upon data from one year (2022–2023) of student work completed during the course of these lesson plans, wherein youth defined their “good work” role models.

Fourteen schools, located in Colombia (two teachers), Guatemala (one teacher), India (three schools with six teachers, ten teachers and one teacher), Mexico (one teacher), Nigeria (ten teachers), Poland (five teachers), Romania (three teachers), Spain (two schools, one teacher per school), Turkey (six teachers), United Arab Emirates (one teacher) and the United States of America (one teacher), participated. Forty-eight teachers in total from these schools submitted student work, with students’ grade levels ranging from Middle School to early University. Due to the anonymized way in which teachers submitted their students’ work to the research team, it is not possible to estimate the exact number of students in the sample. However, each teacher was required to have at least ten students participating in the study and was asked to submit all student work. In all, 685 documents were coded.

Teachers participating in a research COP who were completing the Good Project's sixteen “good work” lesson plans. Teachers implemented the lesson plans according to their own academic schedules and were able to make adaptations to the lessons in order to fit their own cultural or contextual needs. Only 9% of teachers reported adaptations to Lesson 1.1. Teachers were asked to submit students’ work at the close of the 2022–2023 school year. Not all teachers were able to submit work, nor were they able to submit work for all of their students due to either a lack of consent or logistical issues. Once work was submitted securely to the research team, it was subsequently anonymized and stripped of identifying information if such information was still attached to the documents.

Two activities were qualitatively coded for this study from the curriculum’s first lesson. First, students completed a reflection about one individual they considered a “good worker.” Second, students completed the lesson homework assignment, entitled “Who does good work?”, which asked students to identify three people (real or fictional) that they considered to be good workers, and then to respond to the following question for each individual: “What is it about these people that makes them good workers?” On the following page, students are asked to consider, “What qualities do these individuals share?,” “What makes these people different from each other?” and “What makes you admire these people?” At times, teachers chose to condense this lesson and had students simply write about one person they considered a “good worker.” If this was the case, the material was also coded.

Qualitative coding in this study was completed in Atlas.ti Version 24 and drew upon Charmaz’s (2006) Grounded Theory and Braun and Clarke's (2013) Thematic Analysis. The data went through five rounds of coding and analysis:

1. In the first round of coding, drawing on Grounded Theory, the data were examined for emergent, emic and “in vivo” codes that came from the data itself (Maxwell, 2013). At this point, bottom-up codes emerged such as “Makes good decisions,” “Best at what they do,” and “Gives emotional support.”

2. In the second round of coding, analyses became a more iterative process between emic and etic coding (Braun & Clarke, 2013), with larger merged categories emerging as well as broader overarching themes. At this point, merged codes such as “Teamwork/Collaboration/Sociable” and “Critical Thinker/Problem Solver/Logical” emerged, as well as larger coding themes such as “Attributes/Qualities/Character Strengths,” “the Good Project Framework,” “Behaviors,” “Types of People” and “Names of People.”

   • Importantly, some codes were not applicable to some of the data set; for example, it was not always clear what type of person the student was describing. Moreover, the elements of the [authors’ organization’s] framework – ethics, excellence and engagement – were all coded broadly in order to encompass the various ways in which teachers had spoken about and defined these terms with their students. For example, “engagement” was coded when students spoke about being fulfilled by one’s work, being engaged in meaningful work, feeling passionate about one’s work, feeling very interested in one’s work or other related concepts.

3. In the third round of coding, once all data had been coded for etic and emic emerging themes, Atlas.ti software was used to create a code co-occurrence correlation matrix in order to look for areas of overlap and wider trends.

4. In the fourth round of coding, we synthesized character taxonomies found in Arthur and Earl (2020), Arthur et al. (2019), Peterson, Civil, McLoughlin, and Moller (2022), McGrath et al. (2016), Syvertsen, Wray-Lake and Metzger (2015) and Han and McGrath (2023) in order to categorize how the attributes identified by students fell into the moral, intellectual, civic and performance character strength taxonomies found in the broader character literature. Importantly, at this point, it became clear that the character strengths youth described fell into the moral, intellectual and performance domains, whereas the behaviors they described aligned with the civic character domain, as described below.

5. In the fifth round of coding, we examined how codes varied amongst schools from different countries to see if any patterns emerged by country.

This data sheds light on a variety of elements regarding how youth globally conceptualize good work role models. We begin by exploring who youth identify as their role models. We then explore the specific character strengths that youth ascribe to their role models. This is followed by a summary of the behaviors that youth also named as important in good work role models. Subsequently, we review whether youth discussed elements of the Good Project's framework – ethics, excellence and engagement – when writing about their role models. After exploring these results, we then revisit each section in order to compare students’ answers across the fourteen participating countries.

Accessible role models were identified as family members, peers/friends, teachers and community members. Inaccessible role models were identified as academics/scientists, artists/writers, fictional characters, athletes, celebrities, business entrepreneurs, fighters/warriors, historical figures, inventors, public figures/politicians or religious figures. In all, students spoke about similar numbers of accessible (48.05%) and inaccessible (51.95%) role models.

The top category of “good work” role model identified by students was a family member, with 26.64% of documents coded as “family” (Figure 1). As can be seen in Figure 2, 33.97% of role models identified referred to male family members, whereas 27.14% referred to female family members. Fathers and mothers were often named as role models; however, other family members were also mentioned, such as grandfathers, “cousin-brothers,” aunts, grandmothers and more.

Following family, the second and third most mentioned role models were celebrities and fictional role models, with 10.9% and 9.43% of documents, respectively (Figure 1). For these, popular figures in the media were often mentioned. Importantly, the categories identified by students are not mutually exclusive (Figure 1). As noted, celebrities were often athletes, with 44% of celebrity cases characterized as such. 10.7% of the time family was discussed, students mentioned that their family members were involved in business and another 7.5% of the times they mentioned that a family member was a teacher. “Business/entrepreneurship” and “Inventor” were co-coded frequently, at 27.5%. “Public figure/political” and “Historical figure” were also commonly co-coded (44%), given that many students often referred to deceased statespersons. For example, one student spoke about his admiration for the famous football player Cristiano Ronaldo:

For this student, the football player’s hard work, dedication, success and ability to overcome challenges stuck out as elements of what make him a good work role model. Another student spoke about their father and his work as a businessman:

For this student, numerous strengths stick out as to why their father is a good work role model, including his adaptability, ability to handle pressure, communication skills, determination, effort, honesty, creativity, reliability and straightforwardness, amongst others.

The majority of students described their good work role models using some form of character strength. Indeed, 50% of coding was dedicated to character attributes and qualities, whereas 34% was dedicated to behaviors, and 16% was dedicated to the Good Project's framework elements of excellence, ethics and engagement.

Youth identified a plethora of character strengths and attributes in their role models, with 33 character-based items representing more than 1% of the coded data. Here, we report on the top 20 character strengths identified by youth (Table 1). Most prominently, students noted that good workers are hardworking, dedicated, perseverant, selfless, honest, kind and successful. Examining further how these top 20 characteristics fell within the moral, performance, and intellectual character strength taxonomies, we see that 55% of attributes were performance character strengths, 25% were moral character strengths and 20% were intellectual character strengths (see Table 1). In particular, students’ top three character strengths of “hard work,” “dedicated” and “perseverant” can be described as in line with Duckworth’s conceptualization of “grit,” which she and her colleagues described as “effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity, and plateaus in progress” (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, 2007, p. 1088).

For example, one student, in describing why they admired their role models, spoke about the importance of dedication:

For this student, their role models’ persistence, hard work and dedication to influence others were particularly important.

Although the ways in which students described their good work role models was primarily in terms of character strengths, qualities, and attributes, 34% of coding was also devoted to behaviors performed by role models and behaviors performed toward them (e.g. being respected by others) that students described. In particular, 16.29% of good worker role models were described as “helping others” in some capacity, with almost 10% also described as contributing to society. Another 8.97% were described as helping others learn in some capacity (Table 2).

Although the items coded here were not described by students in terms of character strengths or attributes, when considering the items in terms of how they align within the Jubilee Centre’s Character Strength’s framework (see Peterson et al., 2022), half of the items align with prosocial, civic character strengths such as general prosociality (“helping others”), civic engagement (“contributing to society,” “spreading awareness”) and service (“serves the nation”) (see Table 2). Indeed, the Jubilee Centre (Peterson et al., 2022) defined civic character as “traits that are necessary for engaged responsible citizenship, contributing to the common good” (p. 9).

One student described “Sandeep Maheshwari and other motivational speakers around the world” as one of their good work role models primarily for such prosocial behavioral reasons:

This student admires these motivational speakers for their ability to help others, for their consideration of others' health and wellbeing, and for their ability to see new creative perspectives.

In addition to character strengths and behaviors, some students also referenced ideas associated with the Good Project's framework of the 3Es – ethics, excellence and engagement – when describing their good work role models. The Good Project conceptualizes ethics as considering one’s responsibility to communities and the wider world, excellence as doing quality work and engagement as taking part in fulfilling, meaningful, and purposeful work. In their answers, students were most likely to mention ideas related to that of “excellence” in their good work role models (47.4%). However, engagement was often indicated as well (29.4%). Less prominent were discussions of ethics (16.7%).

One student pointed out how they felt that the character of Superman encompassed all three elements of the 3Es framework: “Superman is a good worker because [he] excels at his job of defeating criminals, but also is ethical as he follows his code of honour and protects civilians from collateral damage, remaining engaged to his job through a sense of duty and to protect humanity.” For this student, clearly all three Es are able to be achieved by their work role model – at least if you’re a superhero.

As discussed above, we then re-explored how students from each of our participating fourteen countries varied or aligned in their descriptions of role models across each of our overarching themes of role model types, character strengths, behaviors and the Good Project's framework.

As noted above, the most commonly described role model type was that of a family member across several countries. Family members remained the first or second most mentioned category of role model for almost all countries (see Table 3). We saw that male relatives were the most commonly named role models and females the second most mentioned in seven of the eleven countries (Turkey, Poland, India, Mexico, USA, Colombia, Nigeria). Alternatively, female relatives were the top-named role models in two countries (Guatemala & Romania, where no male role models were mentioned), with the UAE speaking of male and female relatives as role models evenly. A Pearson’s chi-square test revealed there was not a significant difference between the number of male relatives referenced and the number of female relatives referenced within each country, although, as noted, the number of male relatives referenced was generally higher.

Students at nine out of the eleven represented countries in this sample described hard work and dedication as one of their top three character strengths in their “good work” role models (Table 4). Only two countries did not fit this pattern: Turkey and Nigeria. In Turkey, students focused on dedication without hard work in their top two, whereas in Nigeria, students pinpointed hard work as important in role models, without dedication within their top two strengths.

The second and third most popular character strengths varied by country, again highlighting potential global differences. Students in some countries emphasized kindness (UAE, India, the United States, Nigeria), while others prioritized perseverance (Turkey, Romania, Mexico), while still others focused on success (Turkey, Guatemala, Poland). Unique top strengths included passion in Colombia, positivity and optimism in the United States, responsibility in Guatemala, selflessness in Spain and honesty in Nigeria (Table 4).

A student from the United States offered an example of a good work role model that demonstrates the US sample’s emphasis on positivity:

This student’s example emphasizes that they believe an important element of being a good worker is a sense of optimism, positivity and bringing happiness to others.

For behaviors, again students in nine out of the eleven countries in the sample described “helping others with their problems” as one of the top three behaviors of a work role model (Table 5). Exceptions included Spain, which did not have any answers in this category, and the UAE. It is important to note, however, that Spain had extremely low participation numbers in our sample. Second most popular included “Contribution to society,” which students in six of the eleven countries noted was an admired quality in their work role models.

Unique top strengths emerged in the UAE, where “helping others learn” and “donating” were the most valued strengths in role models, while for Colombian students, a top valued behavior included “overcoming challenges.” Other uniquely valued behaviors included “spreading awareness” in Nigeria and Romania, “spending time [at one’s work]” in Mexico and the United States and “considering others’ wellbeing” in Poland and India (Table 5).

For example, one Nigerian student spoke of her admiration for the nurse Mary Slessor: “The reason Mary Slessor did good work is: she stop the killing of twins in Cross River State. And she was among the first Europeans who brought the gospel to Africa (Nigeria).” This student looked up to the nurse as a good work role model for her contributions to Nigerian society and her spreading awareness of the Christian faith.

Students in eight of the participating countries named excellence as the top element of the good work framework that good work role models should embody (with the UAE tied for first between excellence and engagement). Students in three countries described engagement as the most important element of the framework for role models (UAE, Romania and the United States). No students chose ethics as their top element of the “good work” framework for role models; however, several countries did focus on ethics as the second most important element of the framework (UAE, Turkey, India and Nigeria) (see Table 6).

A Romanian youth described a “colleague” as a good work role model, partially due to their engagement in their work. Listing off their good work attributes, the youth noted that the colleague was: “hardworking; passionate; in love with what she does; and brave.” Clearly, the colleague’s engagement in their work plays a role in their ability to be a good work role model.

We began this paper with the question: what types of work role models do adolescents globally identify, and, in addition, what character strengths do they ascribe to their role models? Drawing on qualitative data of student work wherein students described their “good work” role models, the present results indicate that youth in eleven countries primarily understand good work role models in terms of character strengths, followed by prosocial behaviors and impact on others, and then by engaging in core “good work” concepts identified by the Good Project, including ethics, engagement, and excellence. Half of students’ responses were coded as containing character attributes, 34% contained behaviors and impact on others and 16% contained elements of the Good Project's framework.

In line with much previous research on youth role models (Bojuwoye & Mbanjwa, 2006; Bricheno & Thornton, 2007; Gallup and Amazon Future Engineer, 2023), this study also found that youth identified family members as their primary role models. This result is perhaps not surprising when we consider the key elements of attainability and relevance that individuals look for in role models, as family members are individuals that are similar to the adolescents in background and identity (relevance) and are likely more able to be emulated than, perhaps, a famous “footballer” such as Cristiano Ronaldo (who many would consider unattainable). Notably, there was not a significant difference between students’ discussion of male and female role models, which suggests that perhaps, as other researchers have found (Kearney & Levine, 2020), the rate of female participation in the workplace has allowed more women to become good work role models worldwide. The World Bank (2024) now reports a 49% employment rate of women worldwide; women in six of the participating countries already represent above 50% participation in the workforce – Colombia (51%), Nigeria (52%), Poland (52%), Spain (53%), UAE (55%) the United States (57%) – and women in four of the participating countries who are below a 50% participation have employment trends currently on the rise (Guatemala at 41%, India at 33%, Mexico at 47% and Turkey at 35%). Additional research might explore the effect of the contemporary workforce on the choice of students’ female good work role models.

However, it is also important to note that students spoke about similar numbers of accessible and inaccessible role models (48–52%) and that their descriptions of role models were not mutually exclusive between types of role model categories. Athletes were described as celebrities, sometimes their family members were described as businessmen and women, and so on. Work by Strasser-Burke, and Symonds (2020) has found that youth turn first to accessible role models for emotional and cognitive support but to inaccessible role models to help form their future selves. Moreover, adolescents are increasingly turning to inaccessible parasocial role models on social media for guidance (Pérez-Torres, 2024). Accordingly, further research is needed to understand whether students’ inaccessible versus accessible role models play varying roles in shaping students’ understandings of what it means to do “good work.” Moreover, perhaps there is a connection between the two: some role models may be chosen because they are able to both support emotional wellbeing and offer guidance for success in future work.

The three most commonly attributed character strengths for role models included being “hardworking” (8.62%), “dedicated” (7.26%) and “perseverant” (3.52%), all character strengths that are associated with Duckworth et al.’s (2007) conceptualization of “grit” or “passion and perseverance for long term goals” (Character Lab, n.d.). Notably, such findings align with the literature on adult role models, such as that of Arthur et al. (2019), who found perseverance a key element of how adults define the “good professional.” The results also align with the results of Hammond et al. (2024), who noted that youth identified “being hardworking” as a valued character strength in their identified famous role models. Interestingly, students in nine of the eleven countries (except for Turkey and Nigeria) described hard work and dedication as their top two character strengths in their role models. The prevalence of students’ endorsement of grit worldwide is potentially concerning, given research about whether “grit” is really good for students’ work success and achievement. Research by Khan, Neveu, and Murtaza (2021) found a curvilinear relationship between grit and work progress that suggests that only intermediate investments of “passion and perseverance” are associated with the best work outcomes. Other research by Houston et al. (2021) found that while grit is positively associated with several positive personality traits (e.g. proactivity, personal growth, competitiveness), it is also associated with maladaptive forms of perfectionism, hyper-competitiveness and overinvestment in unsolvable problems or unattainable goals. Surprisingly, there was not much variation in the endorsement of the strengths associated with grit across the eleven different countries included in this data.

In terms of behavior and impact on others, we found that students’ discussions of role models’ behavior could be described primarily as prosocial civic character strengths. Here, half of students’ top answers aligned with a prosocial understanding of civic character strengths (Peterson et al., 2022). Students’ top three behaviors included helping others (16.29%), contributing to society (9.97%) and helping others learn (8.97%), which align with civic character strengths such as leadership, personal responsibility, social responsibility and civic engagement (Syvertsen et al., 2015). As above, students’ endorsement of these behaviors did not vary widely across countries, with students in nine of the eleven countries rating “helping others” as one of the top three most important behaviors of a work role model. Such findings align with Hammond et al.'s (2024) results, which found that students value kindness, relational elements and altruism in their role models—all elements that “helping others” could encompass. Moreover, the prominence of prosocial activities in students’ responses—“intentional actions that help or benefit others” (Weinstein & Ryan, 2010, p. 222) – raises further questions about what it means to be a good work role model and living a flourishing life. Indeed, several studies have found a positive correlation between prosociality and the Aristotelian understanding of eudaimonic flourishing (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Ryan & Martela, 2016; Sheldon, 2018). Accordingly, more research is needed to understand the role that flourishing might play in adolescents’ conceptualizations of their role models.

Finally, in turning to the Good Project's framework, students in this study primarily endorsed ideas of excellence and engagement in their good work role models, with less focus on the idea of ethics. Little variation was seen across participating countries, with students in eight of the participating countries focusing most on excellence in their role models. It seems possible that this focus on excellence in role models aligns with the youth’s focus on hard work and dedication to create an overall focus on success and achievement. This focus on excellence can be juxtaposed with the rising scholarship on the growing global youth mental health crisis; such research suggests that the culture of high pressure, academic perfectionism, and high expectations is contributing to adolescent anxiety, depression and other mental health conditions (The Lancet, 2023; Mohr, Honnudóttir, Mohr, & Helgadóttir Davidsen, 2023; Steare, Lewis, Lange, & Lewis, 2024). A future question for investigation includes how and if this “toxic achievement” culture is shaping students’ understandings of good work role models (Breheny Wallace, 2023).

This research comes with certain limitations. Being a qualitative study, it does not allow for causal claims. Although the study investigates how students described good work role models across the globe, its conclusions are not meant to be generalizable to a broad population of age groups, other nationalities or other demographic categories. In addition, it is important to note that this study is cross-cultural in a very limited sense. Our conclusions, while based on a sample of almost 600 student documents, are drawn from only 14 schools across the globe. This includes only two countries that were represented by more than one school – India, by three schools, and Spain, by two schools. We cannot expect the present data to generalize to entire national cultures. We hope, instead, that the study’s findings are viewed as explorations into adolescents’ understandings of ideal good work role models within different cultures across the globe.

Furthermore, qualitative coding for this study was only conducted by one individual, raising the possibility of rater bias. To mitigate this issue, a detailed in vivo coding approach was utilized. In addition, reactivity – students’ awareness of being studied – could have biased students’ answers on their lesson plans (Zahle, 2023). However, the high ecological validity of the lesson setting (being conducted in classrooms), as well as the fact that students would not have begun preparing their lesson portfolios for the research study as this was only the first lesson, should have lessened this effect (Zahle, 2023).

As noted above, businesses and scholars alike agree that new skills will be needed in the future workplace. The World Economic Forum (2023), for example, reported in their 2023 Future of Work report that the top five “core skills” that organizations consider to be increasing in importance include creative thinking, analytical thinking, technological literacy, curiosity and lifelong learning, and resilience and flexibility. Notably, only resilience might be considered within students’ top five qualities admired in their role models, given that “overcoming challenges” was the fifth most-mentioned behavior discussed. Lifelong learning – in the form of “growth mindset” – and creativity (“Imagination”) were also mentioned by students, but were not near their top five most discussed character strengths. Certainly, we do not mean to suggest that there is no benefit to encouraging strengths and behaviors that do not align with top corporate values. As noted above, several studies have identified strong positive correlations between grit and prosociality and positive outcomes (Duckworth et al., 2007; Ryan & Martela, 2016). Moreover, businesses and industries today might take note of the attitudes, behaviors and character strengths that today’s youth value in order to better prepare the workplace of tomorrow. On the other hand, research suggests that school is a primary lever for promoting career preparation worldwide (Nassar, Al-Qimlass, Karacan-Ozdemir, & Tovar, 2019). Accordingly, it follows that finding new ways for students to learn from their role models about the importance of the “21st century” skills outlined above may be needed.

We are hopeful that this study shines a light on youth’s own understandings of good work role models. Such knowledge can be used pedagogically through drawing on youth role models to foster desired work outcomes (e.g. social learning theory; Bandura et al., 1996). The findings might also help us further understand the types of character strengths and behaviors students are valuing or struggling with in their own lives, such as prosociality and flourishing or grit and a toxic achievement culture. Further research is of course needed to help tease apart these relationships. Certainly, understanding who students value as role models and what they value in these role models is critical as we aim to help inspire these character strengths, behaviors, as good work framework elements in youth themselves.