Intrafamily Acculturation of Values in Greece

Abstract

Changing ecological and social factors should result in different degrees of acculturation of family values associated with the traditional hierarchical collectivist family system, between parents and their sons and daughters within rural and urban contexts. A family values questionnaire was given to 226 three-person families (mother, father, 18-year-old son or daughter; 110 from Athens and 116 from small communities). The results indicate that (a) values associated with hierarchical father-mother roles were rejected by young people from both Athens and small communities, (b) Athenian parents were in a middle position, and (c) parents from small communities still agreed with these values. Gender was an important variable in that daughters were more rejecting than were sons of the traditional family hierarchical collectivistic structure and fathers of daughters were more traditional than were fathers of sons, whereas no such relationships were found with mothers. Also there appeared to be two stages in the acculturation of the collectivist family values, the first being rejection of the authority of the father and the second being the active disobedience of paternal authority.

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