What values are parents communicating to their children about war and peace?

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What values are parents communicating to their
children about war and peace?

• Ruby Pentsil-Bukari
• and
• Judith A. Myers-Walls
• Purdue University

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Abstract

• This study explored values in parents
  explanations of war and peace to children and the
  relationships between parents values and their
  childrens. Fifteen parents and 20 of their
  children were surveyed using a structured
  questionnaire about war, peace, and terrorism.
  Their children participated in semi-structured
  interviews. After a qualitative analysis of
  parent answers, values in parents responses were
  used as sensitizing concepts to examine
  childrens responses for the presence of those
  themes. Twenty-two value themes in parents
  responses were grouped into 8 overarching
  categories. All 8 categories were found in both
  parent and child responses.

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Objectives

• Attendees will learn of values parents
  communicate to children about war and peace.
• Attendees will learn of values represented in
  childrens responses about war and peace
• Attendees will learn of relationships in
  parent-child values relative to war and peace

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Background

• Part of the parental socialization role passing
  on values.
• Studies say by at least age 6 or 7 children know
  some things about war and peace.
• The earliest study that looked at parent-child
  communication about war and peace (Myers-Walls,
  Myers-Bowman, Pelo, 1993) surveyed only parents
  with hypothetical questions such as what would
  you say to your child if he/she came and asked,
  What is war/peace?
• Very few studies have investigated a relationship
  between parents conceptions of war and peace and
  their childrens understanding of these concepts,

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Research Questions

• What is the relationship between values in what
  parents report they would say and values
  represented in their childrens descriptions of
  war and peace?
• How does that relationship vary by childs age?

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Theoretical Framework

• Lev Vygotskys Sociocultural Theory and his
  construct of Zone of Proximal Development
• Adult-child interaction on the intermental plane
  becomes internalized into the childs intramental
  plane
• Social context guides cognitive development
• The parent scaffolds information within the
  childs zone of proximal development to move the
  child to a higher level of competence

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Methods

• Existing data set
• Convenience sampling in Indiana, Idaho, and
  Colorado
• Parents completed questionnaires children were
  interviewed
• 9 to 14 months after 9/11 attacks

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Sample (see Table 1 for details)

• 15 parents, matched with at least one child in
  the study
• 20 children aged 4-15
• 10 families
• 25 matches
• 3 religious groups Peace Church, Muslim, Other

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Parent Questions

• If your child came to you tonight and asked,
  What is war? what would you say? (Fill in your
  response. Use other side if necessary.)
• If your child came to you tonight and asked,
  What is peace? what would you say? (Fill in
  your response. Use other side if necessary.)

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Hawk/Dove Attitude Scale (Likert scale SA?SD)

• Sometimes war is the best solution to
  international problems.
• All wars are sin/evil.
• Sometimes killing is justified.
• The lives of all persons are equally valuable.
• There probably will be a nuclear war in my
  lifetime.
• There probably will be a nuclear war in my
  childs lifetime.
• There is nothing an individual person can do to
  avoid a large-scale war.
• The best way to avoid war is through military
  strength and mutual deterrence.
• The best way to avoid war is through disarmament.
• Four items related to a current conflict.

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Child Questions (questions repeated for peace)

• Do you know what war is? What can you tell me
  about war? If someone who didnt know anything
  about it asked you about war, what would you say?
• Prompts
• Other words that mean the same thing
• What happens in war
• Who is involved in war
• Why is there war
• How does war start/end
• What happens because of war
• Is war good or bad

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Analysis

• Parent answers to war and peace questions
  analyzed together
• 2-phase data-reduction process
• Open coding
• Axial coding
• Verification through peer examination
• Parents grouped by attitude scale scores
• Parent themes used as sensitizing concepts for
  coding child answers
• Child themes compared across 3 age groups 4-7
  years, 8-11 years, 12-15 years

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Results Parent value-related themes (see Table 2
for quotes)

• 1. Respecting different points of view
• 2. Respecting one another
• 3. Embracing diversity
• 4. Living in harmony
• 5. Co-existing with other people
• 6. Not hurting others on purpose
• 7. Having good inter-group and interpersonal
  relations with people
• 8. Resolving conflicts through alternate means
  other than via war
• 9. Resolving differences
• 10. Using words rather than weapons to resolve
  conflicts
• 11. Resolving disagreements without hurting

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Results Parent value-related themes, part 2

• 12. Using reason and working hard at reasoning
• 13. Giving people what they want and need
• 14. Embracing peace
• 15. Showing love and compassion
• 16. War is bad
• 17. Avoiding war
• 18. War results in deaths
• 19. War may be used to show power
• 20. Peace is essence of humanity
• 21. Using religious principles to achieve peace
• 22. War may be for legitimate reasons

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Results Overarching categories

1. Respecting others (1,2,3)
2. Getting along and not fighting (4,5,6,7)
3. Working out and resolving problems (8,9,10,11,12)
4. Caring for others (13,15)

• 1. Respecting different points of view
• 2. Respecting one another
• 3. Embracing diversity
• 4. Living in harmony
• 5. Co-existing with other people
• 6. Not hurting others on purpose
• 7. Having good inter-group and interpersonal
  relations with people
• 8. Resolving conflicts through alternate means
  other than via war
• 9. Resolving differences
• 10. Using words rather than weapons to resolve
  conflicts
• 11. Resolving disagreements without hurting
• 12. Using reason and working hard at reasoning
• 13. Giving people what they want or need
• 15. Showing love and compassion

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Overarching categories p. 2

• E. Peace is good (14,20)
• F. War is terrible (16,17,18)
• G. War is sometimes legitimate (19,22)
• H. Using religious principles to achieve peace
  (21)

• 14. Embracing peace
• 20. Peace is essence of humanity
• 16. War is bad
• 17. Avoiding war
• 18. War results in deaths
• 19. War may be used to show power
• 22. War may be due to legitimate reasons
• 21. Using religious principles to achieve peace

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Overarching categories of parents answers by
attitude groups

• Hawk/Dove Attitude Scale scores added
• Parents divided into three groups
• The overarching categories were identified in the
  answers of parents in each group.
• Low attitudessupport for military solutions to
  conflict high attitudesnonviolent solutions to
  conflict
• Answers are shown in Table 3.

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Parent values as sensitizing concepts in child
answers

• 14 of the 22 value-related themes found in child
  answers
• All 8 of the overarching categories found in
  child answers
• See Table 4 for child quotes
• Four categories found in all age groups
• See Table 5 for age analysis

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Discussion

• There were more values identified that related to
  peace than war. It may be that parents prefer to
  talk with their children about positive aspects,
  or that answers about peace are varied and not
  standardized, falling into more categories.
• Simple judgments about war and peace may be
  related to the parents belief that children are
  not able to understand more complex aspects of
  the topics.

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Discussion, p. 2

• The category, War is sometimes legitimate, may be
  confusing to children who all said war is bad.
• The differences in parents attitudes did not
  relate to whether they thought peace was better
  than war, but how much they elaborated on the
  concepts.
• Parents most committed to nonviolence included
  values related to HOW to make peace.

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Discussion p. 3

• Parents with attitudes supporting military
  intervention used fewer words and expanded on
  concepts less.
• Older children expressed more complex ideas,
  consistent with cognitive development theories.

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Implications

• Concepts need to be presented to younger children
  and older children differently.
• Parents with different hawk/dove attitudes will
  communicate different values to their children
  and may seek different educational support than
  other parents.
• Parents may need help with scaffolding their
  education about war/peace values for their
  children.