Tradition and Modernity in the Mediterranean

Abstract

The subject of Vassos Argyrou's study is modernisation, as reflected in the changing nature of wedding celebrations in Cyprus over two generations from the 1930s to the present day. He argues that modernisation is not a secular, progressive process, that remodels the life of a society, ironing out local differences. Rather, it is a legitimising discourse. It is an idiom which Greek Cypriots employ to represent, and contest, relationships between social classes, old and young, men and women, city folk and villagers. At the same time, by involving modernisation, they are submitting to foreign standards, and accepting the symbolic domination of Europe.

Assessing the Dimensionality and Other Psychometric Properties of a Greek Translation of the Sex-role Egalitarianism Scale (Form B)

“…These roles refer to what we have described in the introduction as formal contact egalitarianism which as was pointed out tends to be associated with the public social sphere which appears to be more progressive than the private social sphere. This result is consistent with similar findings reported by Uji et al (2006) and can be attributed to the fact that in Greece rural areas on the whole tend to be closer to traditional forms and structures (Argyrou 1996).…”

“…Uji et al (2006) have found that people who live in rural areas had less egalitarian attitudes than people who reside in urban areas. Based on the above finding, we wanted to see whether the same results will be revealed from the Greek sample having in mind Argyrou's (1996) ethnographic study which indicated a similar point. Thus, we hypothesized that:…”

“…One possible explanation why young individuals tend to have more egalitarian attitudes than older individuals might be the fact that beliefs and attitudes towards gender roles are usually established during youth and adolescence, a period of life in which attributions of responsibility, attitudes of equity and social fairness, and commitment towards others dominate their ideas and actions, and might affect the way they conceptualize egalitarianism (Damon and Hart 1982;Huston and Alvarez 1990). Also the fact that young individuals are socialized within cultural contexts whereby overall societal attitudes towards gender roles shifts towards egalitarianism,-as part of the modernization process (Argyrou 1996)-contributes to the way young people's ideas and beliefs are shaped.…”

“…Different sects of the society appear to be closer to one or the other pole. For example, Argyrou (1996) has reported that better educated, middle class people, residing in urban centers tend to adopt more modern attitudes towards women compared with lower educated, working class people residing in rural areas. As Vryonides (2007) has shown this relates to the ways they perceive their relative social positioning in the structure of available opportunities for social success.…”

“…This result is in line with findings from other studies (Berkel 2004;Brogun and Kunter 1976;Swatos and McCauley 1984) although there are studies which have failed to support the above findings (McGhee et al 2002). On the basis of the above and Argyrou's (1996) findings about the educated middle class' modernist/egalitarian viewpoint in relation to gender, we hypothesized that:…”