Do teenagers have the same values as their parents? A Estudy with student body native of Ceuta of Secundary Education

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Once aknowlegde the values of high school in Ceuta are acknowlegded within what you would call an educational bicultural context (Herrera Ramírez, Herrera Clavero & Ramírez, 2008), the objective of this article is to study those of their parents, in order to be able to compare them an to draw some conclusions. For this reason, two samples were selected with a total of 331 participants: the first one, comprised of 188 teenagers (boys and girls), of ages between 14 and 17 years old (cited by Herrera Ramírez, Herrera Clavero & Ramírez, 2008; except 18 years); and, the second one, with 143 parents, of ages between 35 and 52 years; to which the Questionnaire of Values –HVQ– (Herrera, 2007) was administered, with a reliability = 0,977, for the teenagers, and = 0,979, for their parents. The main results obtained were the following: the most appreciated values by teenagers coincide little with those of their parents, probably, because the perceived similarity is greater than the actual one, as Whitbeck & Gecas (1988), and Gecas & Seff (1990) assert. In addition, teenagers appreciate more than their parents the analyzed values, above all, in the case of Muslims. This fact contrasts radically with obtained results in monocultural samples, where parents obtained superior scores (Herrera, 2007). Furthermore, whereas teenage girls appreciate more than teenage boys the majority of values, in accordance with the contributions of Thornton & YoungDeMarco (2001); statistically significant differences have not been found between their fathers and mothers. Finally, there are more differences between Muslims and Christians’, assessments regarding their values, than between those of their parents.