Value orientations of adolescents: Focus on personal and other people’s welfare

• Main Authors: Joksimović Snežana, Maksić Slavica
• Format: Article
• Language: srp
• Published: Institute for Educational Research, Belgrade 2006-01-01
• Series: Zbornik: Institut za Pedagoška Istraživanja
• Subjects: adolescents; values; life styles; social changes
• Online Access: http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0579-6431/2006/0579-64310602415J.pdf
• ISSN: 0579-6431; 1820-9270

Values, as general and relatively permanent orientations, speak of the goals that an individual or groups deem desirable and after which they strive. This paper presents a review of research findings on young people’s life styles which testify to their value orientations. As well the paper contains the research results on attitudes of secondary school students to certain life styles. The goal of the research was to establish the following: (a) to what extent life styles, as indicators of value orientations on personal or general welfare, are accepted by students; (b) what connection is there between certain personal traits of students and acceptance of certain life styles; (c) has there been a shift in value orientations of the surveyed students in relation to earlier generations of young people. The research was carried out on a sample of 628 first grade students of ten secondary schools in Serbia. Preference for utilitarian and hedonistic styles was perceived as focus on personal welfare while adoption of altruist and Promethean-activist style as focus on other people’s welfare. The findings demonstrate that the most popular life style for respondents is utilitarian life style, with the other threes styles sharing roughly equal popularity. Compared to the findings of previous research, there has been a drop in popularity of hedonistic life style and a small increase in the popularity of activist style. The observed changes in value orientations of young people are ascribed to their maturity and changed social circumstances. .