Length of hair
( 12/0) 12 6 18Freedom to choose own hair style
0/0) 2Sum
(13/0) 13 7 20Percentage
(5.26/0) (2.94) (2.85)一 142 一
Attitudinal Differences Between High School Students and Their Parents in U.SA.:A Case Sludy ofGeneration Gap 18. Discussion issues
Lack of understanding (0/2) 2 3
What schoo1 to go to (2/0) 2 3
Prejudice (0/2) 2
。
2Approach toward problem solving (1/0) 2
Distinction between
socio-economica1 c1asses (0/2) 2
。
2How to spend summer (0/2) 2
。
2Views on death and suicide (0/2) 2
。
2Taste on art forms (0/2) 2
。
2Sum (3/12) 15 3 18
Percentage (1.21/6.15) (3.39) (1.22)
19. Drug, smoking and gambling
Smoking (2/4) 6 7
Drug (3/0) 3 3 6
Gamb1ing (1/0) O
Sum (6/4) 10 4 14
Percentage (2.42/2.05) (2.26) ( 1.63)
20. Double standards
Favoritism (5/2) 7 8
Punish differently and unfairly ( 1/2) 3 4
Sum (6/4) 10 2 12
Percentage (2.42/2.05) (2.26) (0.81 )
21. Privi1ege and privacy
Over-protection (2/4) 6 7
Independence (1/0) 2
Privacy (1/0)
。
Privi1eges (1/0)
。
Phi1osophy (1/0)
。
Sum (6/4) 10 2 12
Percentage (2.4 2/2.05) (2.26) (0.81)
22. Miscellaneous (Fema1e)
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Bulletin of National Taiwan Normal University No. 28
Selfishness (0/3) 3
。
3Talk openly about anything (0/3) 3
。
3Hand writíng (0/3) 3
。
Showing emotion to other people (0/3) 3
。
3Sarcastic remark 0/2) 2
。
2Sources from whích a person can
leam good values (0/2) 2
。
2Sum (0
/1
6) 16。
16Percentage (0/8.20) (3.61)
。
23.. Miscellaneous (Male)
Government and po1itics (2/0) 2
。
2Sleeping in the morning (2/0) 2
。
2Having a party (2/0) 2 O 2
What for dinner (2/0) 2
。
勻..,Way of campÌng 0/0)
。
Views on owníng a gun (/0)
。
Use of fireworks (/0)
。
Trivia (1/0)
。
Teasing (/0)
。
Sum 03/0) 13 O 13
Percentage (5.26/0) (2.94) O
Total frequency 247/195 442 245 687
Nomber of subjects 42/40 82 60 142
Mean 5.88/4.87 5.39 4.08
*Percentage is computed from dìviding sum of each response category by total frequency within each subject group.
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Attitudinal Differences Between High School Students and Their Parents in U.SA.:A Case Study ofGeneration Gap in proportions of responses between students and their parents (4.75% versus 8.97%) indicated the emphasis of sharing fami1y responsibilities by the parents.
The fifth area of disagreement
,“
curfew" was related to restriction On chi1dren's sleeping time. However, parents considered this area less conf1ictua1. The sixth category was“
religion related issues" inc1uding such items as religious idea1s,
attending church, belief in God. No obvious difference was found within and between generations as far as the proportion of its importance with respect to their respective generation gap domains.
“
Rock music" was the seventh area of disagreements with p缸ents being more sensitive about its va1ue. The eighth area was related to parenta1 roles in children's spimding money behaviors. No obvious sex and generationa1 differences was observed. The ninth area,“
telephone",
inc1uded two items - chi1dren's ta1king too long on telephone and parents' giving phone message too late. Parents regarded this category 部 a more important area of conf1ict than their children.“
Owning or drivning a car" was the tenth category. The order of relative proportions among the three groups was,
in order,
fema1e students,
ma1e students and parents. ‘Having a car' in particular was the most dominant item for a11 subjects. The eleventh area,“
drinking",
has a simi1ar pattern of frequency dis-tribution as the issue related to cars. However,
except for the item of drinking beer, none of the other items were reported by fema1e students.“
Going steady"was the twelfth area of discrepancy listed. This included both the opinion of the necessity of going steady and the actua1 dating pattern. No proportiona1 differences was found among a11 three groups of two generations.
The thirteenth area
, “
neatness of bedroom",
included the condition of children's bedrooms and their habits of keeping things at home. In genera1, parents were less satisfied with both items than their chi1dren. The fourteenth缸ea was the issue of living outside among high school students. Both ma1e and fema1e students tended to perceive this as Bre problematic than their parents.
“
Dressing" was the fifteenth issue with no difference of proportions between ma1e students and the p缸ent group. However, fema1e students considered it least problematic一 145 一
Bulletin of National Taiwan Normal University No. 28
item for femaIe students. The eighteenth issue
,“
discussion on issues" seemed to relate general social perceptions and behaviors (e.g.,
what school to go to,
prejudice, distinction of social-economic classes, taste of art, etc.). Compared with low response frequencies from male students and parents, this was an issue specifically emphasized by female students.The next three categories had the fewest frequencies and showed no major differences between sexes or generations. Category nineteen was
“
drug, smokingand gambling弋 category twenty was
“
double standards" (toward different children) and category twenty one was“
privi11ege and privacy" (over-protection, independency,
privacy,
privi1ege and philosophy). The last two categories were student/sex specific issues. Category twenty-two identified 船“miscellaneousfor fema1es" consisted of items reported uniquely by female students. They inc1uded selfishness, talk openly anything, hand writing, showing emotion to other people. Since among these items, there seemed no direct relationship. to each other and neither to 出e previous twenty-one categories, it was identified as miscellaneous. On the other hand
,
category twenty three,
identified 部“
miscellaneous for males" was all male related issues, inc1uding such ítems as government and politics, sleeping in the morning, having a party, what for dinner, way of camping, use of fireworks, trivia and teasing.Discussion
The preceeding opinion discrepancies were organized into six supe r-categories based on their patterns of frequency distribution within and between generations. As given in Table 3 each entry represents the proportion conflicting item to the entire elicited responses within each sex/generation group.
Their relative differences between groups would therefore indicate the relative dominance of an issue with respect to separate subject group domains of the so-ca11ed generation gaps. The first super-category contained five
“
old generationa1 higher responses". They seemed to characterize the traditional expectations of parents from their children - having promising future and also being a cooperative and hard working membet in the family. This super-category accounted for about 40% of the entire díscrepancy domaìn for the parent group.On the other hand
,
both male and female students perceived them less important.The second super-category represented the young generation higher íssues,
including 出e categories of curfew, independent living, double standards, and privilege alid privacy. In contrast to the fami1y orientation in super-category 1,
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Attitudinal Di加rencω BetweenHigh School Students and Their Parents
iñ
U.SA.:A Case Study 01 Generation GapTable 3
Summary ()If Proportional Differences in Opinion Responses
Proportion Category
Male Female Students Students I. 01d generation higher issues
2. School grades and 8.09 9.23
future goals
4. Responsibi1ities at 4.85 4.61
home
7. Rock music 4.04 4.61
9. Telephone 2.83 3.07
13. Neatness of bedroom 3.23 2.56
Sum (23.04) (24.00)
II. Y oung gener~tion higher issues
5. Curfew 7.69
14. Independent living 4.04
20. Double standards 2.42
21. Privi1ege and privacy 2.41
Sum (16.56)
III. Fema1e student higher issues 22. Miscellaneous (Fema1e)
16. Showing respect to authority
18. Discussion all issues
1.61
1.21
一 147 一
6.15 4.61 2.05 2.05 (14.86)
8.20*
6.15*
6.15 串
Parents
11.02*
8.97*
7.75*
6.12*
5.71 * (39.57)
4.08 串 2.85 串
0.81 * 0.81 * (8.55)
2.04 1.22
Bulletin of抽tionalTaíwan Normal Universìty 泊.28
8. Parents consultation
on spending money 3.23 5.64* 4.08
Sum (6.05) (26.14) (7.34)
IV. Female student 10wer issues 1. Restriction on sports
and activities 11.33 8.22* 11.02
12. Going steady 4.45 3.07* 4.08
15. Dressing 4.04 2.05* 4.08
Sum 09.8:2) (13.34) (19.18)
V. Cross sex and cross generational differences
3. Dating and sex education 7.28* 10.76* 3.26
10. Owning or driving a car 4.04* 2.05 5.71 *
11. Dlinking 4.45* 1.02 6.12*
17. Hair style 5.26* 2.85*
23. Miscèllaneous (Male) 5.26
Sum (26.29) (13.83) (17.94)
VI.S扭曲arresponse patterns
6. Religion 5.66 5.64 5.71
19. Drug, smoking and ,
2.42 2.05 1.63
gambling
Sum (8.08) (7.69) (7.34)
Total Percent (99.84) (99.86) (99.92)
車 Salientissues.
一 148 一
Attitudinal Di刀卸的lcesBetween High School Students and
刃leirParents in U.SA.:A Case Study ofGeneration Gap
this seemed to suggest the desirabi1ity of self realization among youth. The third super-category was fema1e student specific with consistently higher proportions.
1 t inc1uded issu.es relating to the current progress of woman's equa1ity in fami1y and societa1 functions. The fourth super-category was a1so fema1e specific, but with lower proportions. This inc1uded restriction on sports and activities
,
going steady, ane éressing. The higher proportions fOT ma1e students and parents in this super-category may be mainly due to the relatively more vulnerable development for teenage ma1es than for teenage fema1es.The fifth super-category reflected opinion discrepancies not only between but a1so within generations. Therefore, dating and sex education was the most conflictua1 for female students. Some fema1e students in吐icated that many of their parents permitted the dating only under various restricted conditions which may not easi1y be fol1owed. For example, some parents required their 注aughters
to ca11 back home every ha1f an hour during the entire dating period.
Drinking and driving a car were more concemed by parents than by chi1dren.
However, within the younger generation, they were genera11y less problematic among females. Hair style and the male miscellaneous items were uniquely high for ma1e students. The last supei-category with no dIÍterence among a11 three groups was related to religion, drug, smoking and gam.bling behaviors. The drug issue which was usua11y considered as one of the major problems among youth was not reported as highly conflictua1. According to the schoo1 counsellor, this may be due 10 the fact that most students in the present study do not have drug use expenence.
Since the pu中 ose of the present elicitation of opinion discrepancies was to identify sa1ient areas of issues for construction of semantic differentia1 ratings in Chapter III, category 1 to 18 which have consistent pattem of inter- and intra-generationa1 disagreements
wm
only be used. Therefore, categories 19 through 23 with minor frequencies reported will not be pursued further in later comparisons.Notes
76. 品 id.
一 149 一
Attitudinal Differences Between High School Students and Their Parents tiz U.SA.:A Case Study ofGeneration Gap
CHAPTER III
OPINION DIFFERENCES BETWEEN STUDENTS AND THEIR PARENTS
In this chapter, those salient opinions from Chapter II which represented the most important generation ga:ps were used to define the concept domain of the present opinion differential study. Standard semantic differential bipolar scales were a1so constructed as the measurement to01s for rating these concepts by the samp1es of the same (male and female) students popu1ations and their parents. This resu1ted in four (i.e., two sexes by two generatoions) three-mode semantic differential ratings of concepts by scales by subjects. Factor analytic techniques were then emp10yed on each data matrix for intra:闢 and inter-generational c'omparisons of semantic meaning systems and patterns of conf1icting opmlOns.
Selection of Areas of Conflictual Opinions and Semantic Differential Scales
Based on Chapter II, a total of 18 statements which presumably represent all common conf1ictual areas of opinions between generations were prepared as given in Table 4, and used to define the usual semantic differential concept domain for both elicitation of bipo1ar scales and standard semantic differential ratings. According tc Tzeng 77 in selection of semantic differential scales, it is necessary to consider (i) their representativeness of the traits actua11y used by general individua1s for characterization of the entire concept domain, and (ii) their frequencies with respect to the entire subject popu1ations. These procedures wil1 maximize the re1evancy and content va1idity of a11 traits in semantic differentia1 ratings of a given concept domain. Therefore, in the present study, a natura1istic elicitation procedure of sca1es was applied by asking a group of 50 students of both sexes and their parents to respond with an adjective to each of 18 statements. As a resu1t, 162 different adjectives were col1ected from 45 students and 37 parents and were further subjected to the following ana1yses:
(1) Salience of qualifier. It was the overa11 frequency of occurrence from a11 subjects responding to a11 18 statements. The maxima1 sa1ience score equa1ed to the product of 18 (statements) and 82 (subjects).
(2) Diversity. It is defined as the association of each qua1ifier with the
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Bulletin of National Taiwan Normal University No. 28
Table 4
Eighteen Concepts of Opinion Discrepancies
1. Parents imposing curfew on high school students 2. Attending church regularly for high school students 3. High school students accepting responsibi1ity at home 4. Going steady for a high school student
5. High school students dressing sloppi1y
6. High school students choosing their own hair style
7. Being free to leave home when a high school student feels he or she is independent
8. High school students spending a long time on the telephone 9. High school students owning or driving a car
10. High school students drinking alcoholic beverages
11. High school students getting good grades for future advancement 12. Rock music
13. Neatness of a bedroom
14. Parent's consultation for high school students spending money 1 S. Freedom from restriction for high school students on sports and
activities after school
16. Frequent open discussion on all issues between high、 schoolstudents and theírparents
17. High school students showing respect to authority 18. Dating whenever the high school student wants
一 152 一
Attitudinal D訂'ferences Be削leenHigh School Students and Their Parents iñ U.SA.:A Case Study ofGeneration Gap number of statements. The maximal diversity score is 18 when the same qualifier is used at least once for all statements.
(3) Productivity (called H-index). This indexεquivalent to the measure of conditional entropy in infOIτnation theory (Cf., Osgood, May and Miron, 1975) and was computed for each qua1ifier by
、1J﹒唔，Arga、
PD PJ
IL O
、‘.J
.,
IJ
.，自固樹，'，、
DA
--
MZi HJWhere j stanc1s for each qua1ifier, i for concept, P(i, j) is the probab宜ity of the joint occurrence of concept i and qualifier j, and Pj(i) is the conditional probability of qualifier j given concept i. This index indicates simultaneously a qualifier's overall frequency (salie!').ce) and diversity of occurrence in relation to other different stimuli. However, the zero Hvalue i8 obtained whenever it has a diversity score equa1 to 1, regardless of its total frequency. Based on this infor-mation, a11 qua1ifiers were arranged in a hierarchica1 order.
(4) Qualifier independence. In order to select a relative sma11 number of qua1ifiers which would be representative of not 01'l.1y the most productive (組gh
H-va1ue) but a1so inter-independe了lt opinion domain relevant traits, the Phi measure was ca1cu1ated for each qua1ifier against every other qua1ifier having a lower H-va1ue in the productivity-or丘ere吐 list. This statistics is to index quasi-synonymity among qua1ifiers - that is, qua1ifiers having 站位 positive Phi value with its preceeding qua1ifier in the list will be considered as functionally the same
and 出us redu.ndant. Based on a .601 rejection level of Phi (i.e., for one tailed test at the .05 significant leve1). 40 qua1ifiers having the highest 耳rankand most independence from 令ach other (with lower phi's) were retained. These qua1ifiers presumably represent the exhaustive
,
important opinion domain relevant 訂aitsactua11y used by 也e present student and parent populations. In order to con-struct the standard semantic differentia1 bipolar-sca1es from these qua1ifiers, ten native Eng1ish speaking individua1s with at least.high school education were then asked to respond the best opposite worιs (adjectives) for each qua1ifier. The opposite 'which received a c1ear m吋 ority (at least 70%) of agreement for the qua1ifier was then taken as a semantic differentia1 sca1e item. Since some qua1ifiers elicited one another as opposites (e.g., usual/unusual, predictable/unpredictable) and some qualifiers could not elicited be agreed-upon opposites
,
the origina11ist of 40 qua1ifie:rs was reduced to 26 semantic differentia1 bipolar pairs. Further-more,
in order to detect the affective conotatíon about the present opinion一 153 一
Bulletin of National Taiwan Normal University No. 28
Table 5
Twenty Nine Semantic Differentìal Scales
1. bad/gooda 16. dangerous/safe
2. wrongjrighta 17. flexiblejrigid
3. strong/weaka 18. unreasonable/reasonable
4. powerful/power1essa 19. destructíve/ constructíve
5. slow/fase 20. dirty!c1ean
6. noisy!quieta 21. tolerant!intolerant
7. active/passive 22. self-confident/insecure 8. careful/careless 23. necessary /unnecessary
9. beautiful/ug1y 24. re1axed!tense
10. rationa1/irrationa1 25. light/heavy 11. naive/sophisticated 26. immora1/mora1
12. unpleasant/pleasant 27. unpredictable/predictable 13. disreputable/reputable 28. clever/stupid
14; un加portantl加portant 29. artificia
1/
na tural 15. usual/unusualaOsgood's cross-cultura1 E-P-A markers.
一.154 一
Attitudinal Differences Between High School Students and Their Parents 的 U.SA.:ACase Study ofGeneration Gap domain, Osgood's markers for the cross-cu1tura1 common Eva1uation, Potency, and Activity dimensions a1so inc1uded (two for each dimension, but three markers were a1ready elicited). The fina1 selected list of the 29 sca1es
,
in Table 5,
was therefore used in the later semantic differentia1 ratings.Subjects
High school students of both sexes in Glenbrook South High School were defined as the student population of the present research. Fifteenstudents were randomly sampled based on their school identification numbers across both ma1es and fema1es in four ye缸s. This accounted to a tota1 sample of 120 students
,
ha1f ma1es and half fema1es. Parents (preferably, of the same sex)οf the selected students were a1so requested to participate in this study. It shou1d be noted that since the school cite is a suburban community of Chica阱， most students have upper middle-c1ass, white ethnic background.Procedures
Data were collected by means of a questionnaire of three p 缸ts. As given in Appendix B, the first part was to solicit demographic information. For the student group of both sexes, this p叮t consisted of six items, inc1uding sex, age, year in school, persona1 perception about the fami1y income in the region they live, persona1 feelings as to which paτent has influenced student's opinion most, and the student's birth rank. For the parent group, this part consisted of both parents age, relative income level, educationa1 background, marita1 status, and which p訂enthas influenced student's opinion most.
The second p訂t was standard semantic differentia1 ratings of 也e 18 conflict-ing opinions against the 29 bipolar sca1es with eachconcept printed at the top of a page and a11 29 seven-step bipolar sca1es randomly ordered with respect to both sca1e sequences and two poles at the bottom.. All subjects were informed of the nature of the survey and did the ratings at home following the same printed instructions. In order to obtain fuJl cooperation, the confidentia1ity and anony-rnity of their responses were assured by eliminating use of names on the questionnaire. However, within each fami1y, their fami1y pairs were given an identica1 code number. Follow-up requests were a1so made by telephone to increase response rate.
Subject Demographic Information
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Bulletin 01抽tionalTaiwan Normal University No. 28
Among a11 120 family pairs of subjeCts sampled, 88 questionnaires were retumed from 47 male students and 41 females. Al1 parents' questionnaires of these students were a1so collected. Among them, for the parents of ma1e students group
,
29 were from fathers and 18 from mothers; for the parents of fema1e students group, 33 from mothers and 8 from fathers. The marital status of a11 parents, as given in Table 6, indícated that over 92% of parents are presently married and 9的毛 of them belong to students' natura1 p訂ents. Only 4% were divorced and 3% being either widowed or separated. The ages of these parents were in the range of 31 to 70 with the majority of parents (over 90%) in the range of36 to 55.The number of students in each school year and their age distribution are given in Table 7. It is c1ear 也at the present sample of students consisted of
加dividuals ageq from 14 to 18 with rather even prbportions of numbers with respect to both their school ye缸s and ages. As to the informatìon of students' birth rank
,
the average number of children in all fami1ies were 4 for the male加dividuals ageq from 14 to 18 with rather even prbportions of numbers with respect to both their school ye缸s and ages. As to the informatìon of students' birth rank