Jan Lasek

Family and Values: Values and Attitudes of Early Adolescents and Educational Styles in Families Jan Lasek

Our research focuses on parenting styles in contemporary families and their presumed influence on how children solve moral dilemmas. This influence reflects the moral development of adolescents as well as their attitudes towards citizenship in our society. We used three questionnaires during the research: The Moral Dilemma Questionnaire is based on the frequency of individual answers to the dilemmas given, we formulated statements for the questionnaires and implemented the Likert Scale for each of them. The Citizen + Change Questionnaire focuses on the attitudes of adolescents towards the behavior of a citizen and his/her virtues and vices. The Parents' Behavior Questionnaire consists of a number of items based on the results of factor analysis. Our research sample consisted of 337 boys and 302 girls (N = 639) aged 12-17. The independent variables were age, sex, place of residence, number of siblings and family structure. The results show that adolescents analyze themselves based on the best and worst practices of their parents. This critical analyses shapes their values and attitudes in their behavior and their positions in society, community, citizenship, and moral development.