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Family composition and adult attitudes towards youth
Journal of tldolescence x98o, 3, 2o9-215
Family composition and adult attitudes towards youth D A V I D hi. S M I T H * It is argued that the attitudes of adults towards youth are influenced by the composition of their own family, since the extent to which their own children are adolescent gives major differences in both their knowledge of youth and its emotional significance for them. A sample of 499 women, all of whom have one x6-year-old child are distinguished in terms of the composition of the rest of their families. Respondents are divided into three broad categories: those whose older children have passed through adolescence, those whose oldest children are now passing through adolescence and those whose oldest child is just entering adolescence. T h e latter group are further distinguished between only children, very young children and others. It is concluded that attitudes towards adolescents is associated with closeness to youth, but in a rather complicated way.
INTRODUCTION Intergenerational relations have been characterized by different schools as, at one extreme, in general accord (Musgrove, I964; Sebald, x968), and at the other extreme, as in implacable opposition (Neville, i97I ; Leach, I973). Yet members of any generation differ in their knowledge of, interest in and coneern about other generations. When sociologists write about adult-youth conflict many tend to see an oppositional relation between the two agestatuses. However, even assuming the existence of some opposition, there will be members of each camp who would wish to differentiate between the members of the other. Thus the youth who has contempt for "adults", does not necessarily have contempt for his own parents or other significant adults. Similarly the adult who condemns youth will not necessarily apply the condemnation to his or her own children. Whilst this obviously applies in individual eases, it is also relevant in the wider consideration of social relations where the extent and quality of social relationships between adults and youth will vary widely. Work on racial stereotypes has argued for a correlation between frequency of interaction and the extent of stereotyping (Van den 9
Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Middlesex Polytechnic, London.
ox4o-1963/8o/o3ozo9 + 07 $o2.~olo
9 z95o The Association for the P$:'.chlatric Stud:," of Adolescents
zo9
21o
D.M. SMITH
Berge, 197i ). This is logically inevitable since the function of stereotyping for individuals appears to be the convenient organizing of information into readily meaningful sets. Where the information so organized is frequently used it is more subject to modification. So adults with little contact with youth are logically more likely to accept stereotypical presentations of youth (Smith, 197o). This is not a function of age, since some adults--i.e, teachers and youth workers, will have better quality and more frequent relations with youth than will others. One category of adults which will have a totally different quality of relationship with youth will be those adults who are themselves parents of 9adolescent children. If we accept that the extent to which an adult's children are adolescent is likely to influence their attitudes towards youth in general, we can then ask to what extent the composition of families as a whole affects the attitudes of one age group to anothcr. In the present study, the sample consists of 499 women who are mothers of x6-year-old children. The respondents were divided into three broad categories: those whose older children have passed through the period of adolescence (i.e. over 20 years old) ;* those whose oldest children are now passing through the period of adolescence (defined as I7-2o years inclusive); and those whose oldest child is just entering the period of adolescence. All the respondents, of course, have one I6-year-old child. The latter group is further subdivided into those with only one child (i.e. the i6-ycarold); those who apart from the sample child have children who are under xo years old; and those who have some other combination of children under 17 years. The data derives from a longitudinal study conducted by the department of Sociology, University of Aberdeen. The methodology of the larger study is explained in Smith (1977). In brief, an area sample was used, with a sample frame based on children attending primary schools in a given year in the city. Children and their parents were interviewed every other year for a period of six years. The data used in the present paper derives from the last wave of interviewing when tile children had reached the age of 16. Two kinds of questions were used. During the interviews with the mothers a number of open-ended questions were asked seeking their attitudes towards i6-year-olds in general and their own 16-year-old child and his/her friends. In addition, they were presented with a checklist questionnaire about teenagers in general which required them to indicate whether each of a series of statements applied to "All, most, some, a few, or no teenagers".
* This is a somewhat arbitrary distinction since the literature offers cut-off points for adolescence ranging from 18 )'ears (IIorowitz and Friedland, 197o) to 36 years (Musgrove, 1974).
ADULT ATTITUDES TO YOUTII
2I t
ATTITUDES TO I6-YEAR-OLDS I have argued that family-composition should correlate with knowledge of youth and the emotional significance of youth, and so should influence the attitudes held. In our repondents with children in the 17-2o age range we have people who possess both knowledge of some youth and an emotional commitment to them. One might anticipate that such people wiU be more favourably inclined towards youth. On the other hand, their greater knowledgc may be reflected in a greater awareness of attributes of youth which they find undesirable. In fact, the response to our open-ended questions on I6-yearolds show no major differences in attitudes towards youth behaviour. Workingclass mothers with children in the range 17-2o years give less favourable responses, but the difference is not statistically significant. There are, however, important differences in their attitude towards the appearance of 16ycar-olds. Mothers with children in the age-range 17-2o are significantly more critical (o.o 5 level). What is more, most of this statistical significance can be attributed to the responses of working-class respondents in that category. More detail of the response to adolescence can be found in responses to our questionnaire about attitudes to teenagers in general. In reply to this middleclass respondents with children in the age-range 17-2o tend to be rather more. favourably inclined towards teenagers than are other respondents. More of them see most teenagers as self-confident, hard-working, serious and respectful to parents, and only a few teenagers as delinquent, drug-takers or sexuaUy permissive. Amongst working-class respondents, however, this is not the casc. For the working-class it is those with children under 17 years who are rather more favourable, being more likely to see most teenagers as mature, respectful to parents and few as being delinquent or violent. Those with children in the 17-2o age group, on the other hand, are more likely to see most teenagers as sexually permissive and drunken, as well as discontented and wishing to change the world. For working-class respondents, then, mothers with children in the 17-2o age range have a morc negativc attitude to teenagers. Yet it is a negative attitude which may have at least some basis in reality, for sex and drink are available to them whether they partake or not, and to describe them as discontented is not beyond the bounds of possibility. This same group of respondents, however, are less likely than others to see most teenagers as long haired and dressed in way-out clothes. This is particularly so for thc middleclass. It seems they may be critical of i6-year-olds but they do not characterize teenagers in general in terms of stereotypical attributes of appearance. These findings are generally supported by cluster analysis. If respondents whose oldest children are in the age-range 17-2o are of interest because of their intimate association with youth, those most removed from adolescencc are equally of interest. It will be recalled that respondents with only children under 17 years of age were subdivided into three groups.
212
D. AI. SMITII
Those with only young children (under io) except for the 16-year-old are of particular interest because of their relative distance from adolescence. Those with but one child will also be distinct but their experience of youth, though more limited, may not differ so widely from others. Our data suggests that those with children who are nine years and under do react less favourably to the behaviour of i6-ycar-olds amongst the working-class respondents (o-05 level) but not amongst the middle-class. The unfavourable response towards appearance of 16-year-olds is even stronger with not a single workingclass respondent in this category giving a favourable response to appearance. This difference applied also to the responses to our questionnaire on attitudes to teenagers. Middle-class respondents in this category were not markedly different from other middle-class respondents, but amongst the working-class they were markedly more negative, being much less likely to say that most teenagers are considerate to elders, self-confident, hard-working, serious or respectful to elders and more likely to describe most teenagers as having too much money and irresponsible. Interestingly, respondents with children under io years of age placed considerable emphasis upon appearance, though the attributes chosen differed by class, l~'Iiddle-class respondents tend to emphasize the "way-out clothes" of teenagers, whilst the working-class emphasize their long hair. We may conclude that amongst working-class respondents the most negative attitudes are to be found both in those we have characterized as most intimately associated with youth and in those most removed from it. The nature of this negative response is however somewhat different, since they regard different attributes of youth as unfavourable. Respondents with children under ten years old place particular emphasis upon unacceptable appearance. ATTITUDES TO OWN CHILD The attitudes held by adults about youth form part of the social context within which they interact with their own children. Where these children are themselves adolescent, such attitudes and their impact upon the parent-child relationship are of particular interest. We are concerned at this point to investigate the respondents' attitudes towards their own adolescent children and their children's friends. This is of particular interest in the case of those working-class respondents whose eldest children are in tile age-range i7-2o since these are the most critical of youth in general. In general, as has been observed elsewhere (Smith, I978 ) the responses to their own children's behaviour were generally favourable, but with a greater tendency amongst working-class respondents to give unfavourable responses. Family composition is of significance where their child's appearance is. concerned. Here there is a significant difference amongst middle-class, but not
ADULT ATTITUDES TO YOUTtI
2x3
working-class respondents, with those whose eldest children are over 2o years old being less favourably disposed towards their own 16-year-old. Workingclass respondents whose oldest children fall into the i7-2o age group, are, if anything, more favourably inclined towards their own children's bchaviour than others. They are also less likely to make unfavourablc remarks about appearance. Their more unfavourablc response to youth is not mirrored in their attitudes towards their own children. Similarly with their children's friends. In this case the vast majority of all respondents were favourable. The other group of respondents whom wc observed to bc negative in their attitudes to youth in general wcrc those working-class respondents with very young families, except for the sample child. Although no more critical than others of bchaviour, they were markedly morc critical of their own child's appearance (significant at o.o 5 level). This group of respondents, who we argued, had less direct knowledge of adolescence and relatively less contact, may bc characterized as not condemning their own child's behaviour but being critical of his or her, presumably adolescent, appearance. More difficult to explain is how respondents with teenage children arc able to bc critical of youth without associating such criticism with their own children. A number of mechanisms appear to bc operating. Some clearly adopt a position which whilst not denying the unsatisfactoriness of adolescents excludes their own children from the definition. This is limited to notions of youth in terms of age and level of maturity and results in their own children being defincd as immature and therefore not yet entered upon adolescence. Hence "young for years", "very young for her age--not a sophisticated type", or "just now he is still childish in lots of things". Even with only children this mechanism poses problems since the child cannot retain the status of child indefinitely and so must either leap from immaturity to maturity, or bc subsumed under another mechanism. The second mechanism to bc observed is one which concentrates deviant activity upon particular groups associated with significant variables. Thus boys--or girls--can be seen as the unsatisfactory group, the other sex being relatively blameless. Thus, where sexual permissiveness is seen as the youthful problem girls arc dcscribcd as "all man mad. They do all the chasing". Where violence is the problem, boys arc described as "very aggressive". Similarly, the blame may bc attached to one class predominantly: hence youth are described as "rough" or as "rowdies" and this contrasted with the respectability of their own children. This mechanism is also used to relate to youth as a category but excluding their own child. This operates by distinguishing trendy or way-out youth with conservative respectable youth across class and sex. Thus "he is a nice boy, a bit of a square", "not rebellious"; "he isn't way-out in dt:ess or behaviour"; "She is a bit conservative". The most common mechanism, however, is not to question the undesirable
zI4
D.M. SMITtI
status awardcd to youth nor their own child's youthfulness but to set up their own children as exemplars of desirable youthful bchaviour and appearance. Hence " I n gencral i6-year-olds are disgusting, very forward, very far advanced" whereas hcr own child is "everything I hoped shc would be"; the mother of a boy states that he and his friends are "just not the same as others". Other examples are: "Very good--for a boy of his agc", or, morc succintly: "He combs his hair",and "Shc washes her hair 2 or 3 times a week. Very clean". KNOWLEDGE OF. SUBGROUPS OF YOUTH Whilst we have distinguished our respondents in terms of their relationship with youth and have argued that this is reflected in their knowledge of youth, care must be taken in assuming them to be more knowledgeable. We asked the respondents questions about their knowledge and experience of four subgroups of youth: rockers/greasers, hippies, skinheads and students. In general their knowledge of and experience of these subgroups, with the exception of students, was extremely slight. Middle-class respondents with children over the age of i6 years were more likely to have heard the terms greaser/rocker than were those with younger children, but no differences were apparent among working-class respondents. There were no differences within either class in their claimed knowledge of actual members of subgroups except in the case of students. In this case, respondents with children in the age-range I7-2o years were more likely to know a student. This is hardly surprising since most students fall within this age-range. No differences were noted in regard to respondents with children of nine and under. CONCLUSIONS It appcars that closeness to youth in the sense of knowlcdgc and cmotional commitment is associated with attitudes towards adolescents but in a rather complicated way. Our findings have suggested that the most unfavourable responsc to youth comes from those who are closest and farthest away from adolescence in this sense. Of course, it must be rcmembered that all our rcspondents have some emotional ties to adolescents and some knowledge of them. Ncvertheless, the findings are of interest. The differences in the naturc of the unfavourable responses arc themselvcs of intcrcst. It seems that thosc with most knowledge of youth arc prepared to be critical of some aspects of youthful behaviour--parficularly sex and drink in relation to tccnagcrs. This response may bc related to thcir grcater knowledge. Those most distant from adolescence offcr critical commcnts of a much more ill-defincd naturc. Again this seems to relatc to their knowledgc, or in this case, lack of it. Thc diffcrcncc
ADULT ATTITUDES TO YOUTH
2z5
in knowledge of youth should not, however, be exaggerated. Certainly this age group are more in contact with students, but are not more involved with "deviant" subgroups of adolescence. T h e i r more unfavourable responses do not come from a direct experience of deviant subgroups of youth. Neither do they appear to come from their knowledge of their own children and their friends. Unfavourable responses to youth, do not appear to be mirrored in less favourable responses to their own children. I t appears that a n u m b e r of mechanisms are operating to ensure that the response to youth in general does not stick to the individual adolescent child. This is a mechanism which one might expect to operate in some form but it has serious implications for their generalised attitudes to youth. Since most adults direct experiences of youth are very limited, most direct experience will come from their own adolescent children. I f they distinguish clearly between their own children and youth, then, their main source of information becomes inactive, and they must rely, ahnost exclusively, on the media presentation of youth. The empirical data used in this paper was collected with the assistance of a grant from the Television Research Committee. REFERENCES van den Berghe, P. (z97I). Race and Racism" A Comparative Perspective. London: Wiley. Horowitz, I. L. and Friedland, W. H. (I97o). Tile K~zowledge Factory: Student Power mid Academic Politics in ,qmerica. Chicago: Aldine Press. Leach, K. (x973). Youthquake: tile Growth of a Counter.Culture Through two Decades. London: Sheldon Press. Musgrove, F. (z964). Youth and the Social Order. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Musgrove, F. (x974). Ecstacy and Holiness : Counter Culture attd the Open Society : London, Methuen. Neville, R. (z97z). Play Power. London: Paladin. Sebald, H. (z968). Adolescence: ,4 Sociological tlnalysis. New Stork: AppletonCentury-Crofts. Smith, D. M. (z97o). Adolescence: a study of stereotyping, Sociological Review x8, t97-zzl. Smith, D. M. (z977). Children, mass media and excitement. Gazette, Vol. XXIII, I 16-33.
Smith, D. M. (z978). Social class differences in adult attitudes to youth. Journal of Adolescence I, z47-54.
Family composition and adult attitudes towards youth D A V I D hi. S M I T H * It is argued that the attitudes of adults towards youth are influenced by the composition of their own family, since the extent to which their own children are adolescent gives major differences in both their knowledge of youth and its emotional significance for them. A sample of 499 women, all of whom have one x6-year-old child are distinguished in terms of the composition of the rest of their families. Respondents are divided into three broad categories: those whose older children have passed through adolescence, those whose oldest children are now passing through adolescence and those whose oldest child is just entering adolescence. T h e latter group are further distinguished between only children, very young children and others. It is concluded that attitudes towards adolescents is associated with closeness to youth, but in a rather complicated way.
INTRODUCTION Intergenerational relations have been characterized by different schools as, at one extreme, in general accord (Musgrove, I964; Sebald, x968), and at the other extreme, as in implacable opposition (Neville, i97I ; Leach, I973). Yet members of any generation differ in their knowledge of, interest in and coneern about other generations. When sociologists write about adult-youth conflict many tend to see an oppositional relation between the two agestatuses. However, even assuming the existence of some opposition, there will be members of each camp who would wish to differentiate between the members of the other. Thus the youth who has contempt for "adults", does not necessarily have contempt for his own parents or other significant adults. Similarly the adult who condemns youth will not necessarily apply the condemnation to his or her own children. Whilst this obviously applies in individual eases, it is also relevant in the wider consideration of social relations where the extent and quality of social relationships between adults and youth will vary widely. Work on racial stereotypes has argued for a correlation between frequency of interaction and the extent of stereotyping (Van den 9
Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Middlesex Polytechnic, London.
ox4o-1963/8o/o3ozo9 + 07 $o2.~olo
9 z95o The Association for the P$:'.chlatric Stud:," of Adolescents
zo9
21o
D.M. SMITH
Berge, 197i ). This is logically inevitable since the function of stereotyping for individuals appears to be the convenient organizing of information into readily meaningful sets. Where the information so organized is frequently used it is more subject to modification. So adults with little contact with youth are logically more likely to accept stereotypical presentations of youth (Smith, 197o). This is not a function of age, since some adults--i.e, teachers and youth workers, will have better quality and more frequent relations with youth than will others. One category of adults which will have a totally different quality of relationship with youth will be those adults who are themselves parents of 9adolescent children. If we accept that the extent to which an adult's children are adolescent is likely to influence their attitudes towards youth in general, we can then ask to what extent the composition of families as a whole affects the attitudes of one age group to anothcr. In the present study, the sample consists of 499 women who are mothers of x6-year-old children. The respondents were divided into three broad categories: those whose older children have passed through the period of adolescence (i.e. over 20 years old) ;* those whose oldest children are now passing through the period of adolescence (defined as I7-2o years inclusive); and those whose oldest child is just entering the period of adolescence. All the respondents, of course, have one I6-year-old child. The latter group is further subdivided into those with only one child (i.e. the i6-ycarold); those who apart from the sample child have children who are under xo years old; and those who have some other combination of children under 17 years. The data derives from a longitudinal study conducted by the department of Sociology, University of Aberdeen. The methodology of the larger study is explained in Smith (1977). In brief, an area sample was used, with a sample frame based on children attending primary schools in a given year in the city. Children and their parents were interviewed every other year for a period of six years. The data used in the present paper derives from the last wave of interviewing when tile children had reached the age of 16. Two kinds of questions were used. During the interviews with the mothers a number of open-ended questions were asked seeking their attitudes towards i6-year-olds in general and their own 16-year-old child and his/her friends. In addition, they were presented with a checklist questionnaire about teenagers in general which required them to indicate whether each of a series of statements applied to "All, most, some, a few, or no teenagers".
* This is a somewhat arbitrary distinction since the literature offers cut-off points for adolescence ranging from 18 )'ears (IIorowitz and Friedland, 197o) to 36 years (Musgrove, 1974).
ADULT ATTITUDES TO YOUTII
2I t
ATTITUDES TO I6-YEAR-OLDS I have argued that family-composition should correlate with knowledge of youth and the emotional significance of youth, and so should influence the attitudes held. In our repondents with children in the 17-2o age range we have people who possess both knowledge of some youth and an emotional commitment to them. One might anticipate that such people wiU be more favourably inclined towards youth. On the other hand, their greater knowledgc may be reflected in a greater awareness of attributes of youth which they find undesirable. In fact, the response to our open-ended questions on I6-yearolds show no major differences in attitudes towards youth behaviour. Workingclass mothers with children in the range 17-2o years give less favourable responses, but the difference is not statistically significant. There are, however, important differences in their attitude towards the appearance of 16ycar-olds. Mothers with children in the age-range 17-2o are significantly more critical (o.o 5 level). What is more, most of this statistical significance can be attributed to the responses of working-class respondents in that category. More detail of the response to adolescence can be found in responses to our questionnaire about attitudes to teenagers in general. In reply to this middleclass respondents with children in the age-range 17-2o tend to be rather more. favourably inclined towards teenagers than are other respondents. More of them see most teenagers as self-confident, hard-working, serious and respectful to parents, and only a few teenagers as delinquent, drug-takers or sexuaUy permissive. Amongst working-class respondents, however, this is not the casc. For the working-class it is those with children under 17 years who are rather more favourable, being more likely to see most teenagers as mature, respectful to parents and few as being delinquent or violent. Those with children in the 17-2o age group, on the other hand, are more likely to see most teenagers as sexually permissive and drunken, as well as discontented and wishing to change the world. For working-class respondents, then, mothers with children in the 17-2o age range have a morc negativc attitude to teenagers. Yet it is a negative attitude which may have at least some basis in reality, for sex and drink are available to them whether they partake or not, and to describe them as discontented is not beyond the bounds of possibility. This same group of respondents, however, are less likely than others to see most teenagers as long haired and dressed in way-out clothes. This is particularly so for thc middleclass. It seems they may be critical of i6-year-olds but they do not characterize teenagers in general in terms of stereotypical attributes of appearance. These findings are generally supported by cluster analysis. If respondents whose oldest children are in the age-range 17-2o are of interest because of their intimate association with youth, those most removed from adolescencc are equally of interest. It will be recalled that respondents with only children under 17 years of age were subdivided into three groups.
212
D. AI. SMITII
Those with only young children (under io) except for the 16-year-old are of particular interest because of their relative distance from adolescence. Those with but one child will also be distinct but their experience of youth, though more limited, may not differ so widely from others. Our data suggests that those with children who are nine years and under do react less favourably to the behaviour of i6-ycar-olds amongst the working-class respondents (o-05 level) but not amongst the middle-class. The unfavourable response towards appearance of 16-year-olds is even stronger with not a single workingclass respondent in this category giving a favourable response to appearance. This difference applied also to the responses to our questionnaire on attitudes to teenagers. Middle-class respondents in this category were not markedly different from other middle-class respondents, but amongst the working-class they were markedly more negative, being much less likely to say that most teenagers are considerate to elders, self-confident, hard-working, serious or respectful to elders and more likely to describe most teenagers as having too much money and irresponsible. Interestingly, respondents with children under io years of age placed considerable emphasis upon appearance, though the attributes chosen differed by class, l~'Iiddle-class respondents tend to emphasize the "way-out clothes" of teenagers, whilst the working-class emphasize their long hair. We may conclude that amongst working-class respondents the most negative attitudes are to be found both in those we have characterized as most intimately associated with youth and in those most removed from it. The nature of this negative response is however somewhat different, since they regard different attributes of youth as unfavourable. Respondents with children under ten years old place particular emphasis upon unacceptable appearance. ATTITUDES TO OWN CHILD The attitudes held by adults about youth form part of the social context within which they interact with their own children. Where these children are themselves adolescent, such attitudes and their impact upon the parent-child relationship are of particular interest. We are concerned at this point to investigate the respondents' attitudes towards their own adolescent children and their children's friends. This is of particular interest in the case of those working-class respondents whose eldest children are in tile age-range i7-2o since these are the most critical of youth in general. In general, as has been observed elsewhere (Smith, I978 ) the responses to their own children's behaviour were generally favourable, but with a greater tendency amongst working-class respondents to give unfavourable responses. Family composition is of significance where their child's appearance is. concerned. Here there is a significant difference amongst middle-class, but not
ADULT ATTITUDES TO YOUTtI
2x3
working-class respondents, with those whose eldest children are over 2o years old being less favourably disposed towards their own 16-year-old. Workingclass respondents whose oldest children fall into the i7-2o age group, are, if anything, more favourably inclined towards their own children's bchaviour than others. They are also less likely to make unfavourablc remarks about appearance. Their more unfavourablc response to youth is not mirrored in their attitudes towards their own children. Similarly with their children's friends. In this case the vast majority of all respondents were favourable. The other group of respondents whom wc observed to bc negative in their attitudes to youth in general wcrc those working-class respondents with very young families, except for the sample child. Although no more critical than others of bchaviour, they were markedly morc critical of their own child's appearance (significant at o.o 5 level). This group of respondents, who we argued, had less direct knowledge of adolescence and relatively less contact, may bc characterized as not condemning their own child's behaviour but being critical of his or her, presumably adolescent, appearance. More difficult to explain is how respondents with teenage children arc able to bc critical of youth without associating such criticism with their own children. A number of mechanisms appear to bc operating. Some clearly adopt a position which whilst not denying the unsatisfactoriness of adolescents excludes their own children from the definition. This is limited to notions of youth in terms of age and level of maturity and results in their own children being defincd as immature and therefore not yet entered upon adolescence. Hence "young for years", "very young for her age--not a sophisticated type", or "just now he is still childish in lots of things". Even with only children this mechanism poses problems since the child cannot retain the status of child indefinitely and so must either leap from immaturity to maturity, or bc subsumed under another mechanism. The second mechanism to bc observed is one which concentrates deviant activity upon particular groups associated with significant variables. Thus boys--or girls--can be seen as the unsatisfactory group, the other sex being relatively blameless. Thus, where sexual permissiveness is seen as the youthful problem girls arc dcscribcd as "all man mad. They do all the chasing". Where violence is the problem, boys arc described as "very aggressive". Similarly, the blame may bc attached to one class predominantly: hence youth are described as "rough" or as "rowdies" and this contrasted with the respectability of their own children. This mechanism is also used to relate to youth as a category but excluding their own child. This operates by distinguishing trendy or way-out youth with conservative respectable youth across class and sex. Thus "he is a nice boy, a bit of a square", "not rebellious"; "he isn't way-out in dt:ess or behaviour"; "She is a bit conservative". The most common mechanism, however, is not to question the undesirable
zI4
D.M. SMITtI
status awardcd to youth nor their own child's youthfulness but to set up their own children as exemplars of desirable youthful bchaviour and appearance. Hence " I n gencral i6-year-olds are disgusting, very forward, very far advanced" whereas hcr own child is "everything I hoped shc would be"; the mother of a boy states that he and his friends are "just not the same as others". Other examples are: "Very good--for a boy of his agc", or, morc succintly: "He combs his hair",and "Shc washes her hair 2 or 3 times a week. Very clean". KNOWLEDGE OF. SUBGROUPS OF YOUTH Whilst we have distinguished our respondents in terms of their relationship with youth and have argued that this is reflected in their knowledge of youth, care must be taken in assuming them to be more knowledgeable. We asked the respondents questions about their knowledge and experience of four subgroups of youth: rockers/greasers, hippies, skinheads and students. In general their knowledge of and experience of these subgroups, with the exception of students, was extremely slight. Middle-class respondents with children over the age of i6 years were more likely to have heard the terms greaser/rocker than were those with younger children, but no differences were apparent among working-class respondents. There were no differences within either class in their claimed knowledge of actual members of subgroups except in the case of students. In this case, respondents with children in the age-range I7-2o years were more likely to know a student. This is hardly surprising since most students fall within this age-range. No differences were noted in regard to respondents with children of nine and under. CONCLUSIONS It appcars that closeness to youth in the sense of knowlcdgc and cmotional commitment is associated with attitudes towards adolescents but in a rather complicated way. Our findings have suggested that the most unfavourable responsc to youth comes from those who are closest and farthest away from adolescence in this sense. Of course, it must be rcmembered that all our rcspondents have some emotional ties to adolescents and some knowledge of them. Ncvertheless, the findings are of interest. The differences in the naturc of the unfavourable responses arc themselvcs of intcrcst. It seems that thosc with most knowledge of youth arc prepared to be critical of some aspects of youthful behaviour--parficularly sex and drink in relation to tccnagcrs. This response may bc related to thcir grcater knowledge. Those most distant from adolescence offcr critical commcnts of a much more ill-defincd naturc. Again this seems to relatc to their knowledgc, or in this case, lack of it. Thc diffcrcncc
ADULT ATTITUDES TO YOUTH
2z5
in knowledge of youth should not, however, be exaggerated. Certainly this age group are more in contact with students, but are not more involved with "deviant" subgroups of adolescence. T h e i r more unfavourable responses do not come from a direct experience of deviant subgroups of youth. Neither do they appear to come from their knowledge of their own children and their friends. Unfavourable responses to youth, do not appear to be mirrored in less favourable responses to their own children. I t appears that a n u m b e r of mechanisms are operating to ensure that the response to youth in general does not stick to the individual adolescent child. This is a mechanism which one might expect to operate in some form but it has serious implications for their generalised attitudes to youth. Since most adults direct experiences of youth are very limited, most direct experience will come from their own adolescent children. I f they distinguish clearly between their own children and youth, then, their main source of information becomes inactive, and they must rely, ahnost exclusively, on the media presentation of youth. The empirical data used in this paper was collected with the assistance of a grant from the Television Research Committee. REFERENCES van den Berghe, P. (z97I). Race and Racism" A Comparative Perspective. London: Wiley. Horowitz, I. L. and Friedland, W. H. (I97o). Tile K~zowledge Factory: Student Power mid Academic Politics in ,qmerica. Chicago: Aldine Press. Leach, K. (x973). Youthquake: tile Growth of a Counter.Culture Through two Decades. London: Sheldon Press. Musgrove, F. (z964). Youth and the Social Order. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Musgrove, F. (x974). Ecstacy and Holiness : Counter Culture attd the Open Society : London, Methuen. Neville, R. (z97z). Play Power. London: Paladin. Sebald, H. (z968). Adolescence: ,4 Sociological tlnalysis. New Stork: AppletonCentury-Crofts. Smith, D. M. (z97o). Adolescence: a study of stereotyping, Sociological Review x8, t97-zzl. Smith, D. M. (z977). Children, mass media and excitement. Gazette, Vol. XXIII, I 16-33.
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