Antecedents of Adolescent Self Evaluation : A Cross-National Application of a Model

Abstract

The purpose of this cross-national study was to: a) initiate construction of a model to analyze the development of self evaluation among adolescents; and b) to show that this process of development occurs cross-culturally. A path model was constructed based on a symbolic interaction perspective. Seven variables assumed to be antecedents of self evaluation were included in the model: SES, support from the mother and from the father, the adolescent's evaluation of his/her mother and of his/her father; self religiosity of the adolescent, and evaluation of culturally significant religious images. The model was evaluated using Catholic high school samples from five cultures: Spain, Mexico, Puerto Rico, West Germany and the United States. The total sample included 1069 boys and 916 girls . The results show that the same process of self evaluation occurs cross-sexually and cross-nationall y . The results also indicate that the evaluation of the parents (an indicator of identification w ith the parents) and identification of the self with religious images (which are valued social symbols in these social situations) are the most important positive antecedents tested . Religiosity and SES are not significantly related to self evaluation. Father support is positively related to self evaluation, but rnother support, controlling for the interaction of the other dependent variables in the model, is negatively related. Explanation of this unexpected finding is provided.

Parental Behaviors and Adolescent Self-Esteem in the United States and Germany

“…There were no apparent differences, for example, in the Buehler et al (1977) study in the strength of the relationships between parental behaviors and adolescent self-evaluation in U.S. and German families. In the absence of such data, assertions of the type and degree of relationships between parental rearing practices and developmental outcomes remain speculative.…”

“…Since the early 1960s at least five comparative socialization studies have been conducted between the United States and Germany (Buehler, Weigert, & Thomas, 1977;Devereaux, Bronfenbrenner, & Suci, 1962;Karr & Wesley, 1966;Rabbie, 1965;Rodgers, 1971;Thomas, Weigert, & Winston, 1984). All of the studies used purposive samples and relied upon self-report data from one source, usually children of various ages.…”

“…With the exception of the Thomas studies (Buehler et al, 1977;Thomas et al, 1984), all of the comparative analyses have focused exclusively on parental role differentiation in the two cultures, and have not attempted to relate parental behaviors to child outcomes. The studies have focused primarily on parental control techniques (Devereaux et al, 1962), with one study devoted exclusively to dimensions of parental control (Karr & Wesley, 1966).…”

Exotic Enterprise No More? Adolescent Reports of Family and Parenting Processes From Youth in Four Countries

“…They found that youth from different national contexts (U.S., British, German, Soviet, and Swiss adolescents) reported different levels of parenting and different levels of what they called behavioral standards (e.g., parenting, manners, and ''masculinity''), supporting context specificity or relativity. Similar such efforts comparing socialization practices across cultural contexts have included studies by Thomas and colleagues (Buehler, Weigert, & Thomas, 1977;Ferreira & Thomas, 1984;Thomas & Weigert, 1971;Weigert & Thomas, 1970), although in Buehler et al's (1977) study, the authors were also interested in examining issues related to cross-contextual scalar equivalence. A common feature in most of these studies was the comparison of socialization similarities and differences that mostly focused on average parenting behaviors or ratings of parents as well as average outcomes (for recent studies, see Arnett & Arnett-Jensen, 1994;Berndt, Cheung, Lau, Hau, & Lew, 1993;Crystal, Chen, Fuligni, & Stevenson, 1994;Mujtaba & Furnham, 2001).…”

A measure of religiousness, and its relation to parent and child mental health variables

“…Friedrich (1979) found religiousness of parents to be unrelated to a measure of coping behavior for mothers of handicapped children of average age 9.8 years. Buehler, Weigert, and Thomas (1977) reported that Roman Catholic adolescents' self-evaluation was not positively related to a measure of religiousness, but was positively related to positive evaluation of religious images such as God and Jesus. Burkett (1977) reported negative correlations, both on the order of -0.3, between religiousness and use of beer and marijuana among high school seniors; correlations close to 0 were reported between teenagers' use of these substances and parents' religiousness.…”