NCJ Number
226930
Journal
Journal of Youth and Adolescence Volume: 38 Issue: 5 Dated: May 2009 Pages: 642-653
Date Published
May 2009
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This article explores the relative contributions to the inculcation of the value placed on obligations to the family among adolescents and their parents from family and from society.
Abstract
Results show that there were significant relationships between the value placed on family obligations among parents and offspring, and that these were independent of gender. Zeitgeist effects, both intergenerational and intra generational, were also found. Parents’ and adolescent’ notions about the importance of family related obligations are influenced by kin as well as by non-kin representing the wider society. These findings support general socialization theories contending that there are a number of significant others who influence the socialization of children; that there was a correspondence between the obligation values of adolescents and their actual parents; that the correspondence in obligation values between adolescent children and their parents could be explained by Zeitgeist, represented as person who are non-kin; and that the strength of this correspondence depends on the definition of Zeitgeist, whether it refers to one’s own ethnic group or to the broader society, including the preferred level of adolescents’ family related obligations. Data were collected from 1,252 immigrant and 726 national adolescent-parent dyads from 10 Western countries. Tables and references