Russell Middleton

Political Expression of Adolescent Rebellion

The relationship between deviation from parental political viewpoints and parent-child relationships is explored in a sample of 1,440 students in sixteen colleges and universities across the United States. Males are more likely to deviate from the political positions of their than females. A significant association is not found between a history of defiance of parents and political rebellion, suggesting that adolescent rebellion in American is expressed primarily in non-political ways. Rebellion is associated, at least for female students, with discipline in the home that is perceived as either strict or permissive, whereas those who report average discipline are less likely to rebel politically. Perceived extremes of parental discipline (strict or permissive) are associated for both males and females with lack of closeness between parent and child, which, in turn, is associated with political rebellion. This is particularly true when the student perceives his parent as being interested in politics. Political rebellion, then, appears most likely to occur when parent and child are emotionally estranged, when the child believes parental discipline is nontypical, and when the parent is interested in politics.

Some Factors Associated with Student Acceptance or Rejection of War

it would certainly be spurious to equate the church with other formal voluntary organizations.31 It is hard to deny, however, that the recognition that the Negro is able to obtain from his church and voluntary associations is almost impossible for him to obtain in any other sphere. It is possible that for the whites the church serves a very different function from that of the voluntary association. Our findings strongly support the thesis that affiliation patterns differ substantially between the two races. Our conclusions, however, require qualification. Other variables over which we were not able to exercise control may well have played a part in the conclusions we reached. Those that come to mind include size of community, region, ratio of Negroes to whites living in the community, and the residential stability of the Negro subgroup. To illustrate, only a small proportion of the population in the community studied was Negro and this proportion has remained relatively stable over the past few years. Factors such as these might also help to account for the discrepancy that exists between our findings and those reported in other investigations. 31 Increasingly, sociologists who have been studying voluntary associations rightly have been reluctant to count religious organizations (church affiliation) as voluntary groups. Lenski presents an incisive rationale for the position that religious organizations are different from other voluntary formal organizations. Lenski, op. cit., pp. 17-19.

DOMINANCE IN DECISIONS IN THE FAMILY RACE AND CLASS DIFFERENCES

In the making of minor family decisions among forty married couples in four groups-white professors, white skilled workers, Negro professors, and Negro skilled workers-no significant differences were found in the relative dominance of husband and wife. Neither were there significant differences in dominance between groups on specific problems. Contrary to expectation, the equalitarian pattern appeared to predominate in all four groups. A comparison of families with working wives and families with non-working wives revealed surprisingly that the non-working wives were more dominant in decision-making than the working wives in all areas studied except purchases and living standards, where there was no significant difference.

Ethical Relativism and Anomia

Ethical relativists and ethical absolutists are compared with regard to their acceptance and observance of certain social norms. The relativists do not appear to exhibit a greater degree of anomia than absolutists in terms of any of the following indexes: difficulty in evaluating actions, a sense of making too many exceptions to principles, failure to live up to verbally accepted norms, or general rejection of norms. Relativists are less likely to accept ascetic norms which stem directly from an absolutistic religious tradition, but there is a core of generally accepted social norms which govern both the relativists and the absolutists. At least among educated and predominantly mioddle-class American young people, ethical absolutism does not essential to the efficacy of social norms.