Measuring Child-Rearing Values. A Research Note

• Authors: Bogdan Voicu
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Large scale comparative studies, such as the value surveys (EVS and WVS) or the Eurobarometer, include measurements for parental/child-rearing values. This reflects a persistent interest for the topic, which produced salient studies starting with the first half of the twentieth century (Lynd and Lund 1929; Duvall 1946). Various scholars report data on parental values which use versions of the Q-sort methodology (Kohn 1977), ranking variables (Alwin 1990; Lenski 1961), scale indicators (Tulviste et al. 2007). Q-sort methodology remains the most widely employed. One of its versions is included in the value surveys as well. However, it fails to produce comparable indicators in different countries (Rabušic 2011; Xiao 2001) or at different moments in time (Wright and Wright 1976). This paper uses original data, provided by a Romanian convenience sample, to check if using various versions of the EVS/WVS items may lead to better ways to produce synthetic indicators for parental-values at individual level. SEM models are used to show that the best analytic solution would be to use individual items instead of producing summative indexes.

Keywords

EN

Child-rearing/parental values Value surveys Measurement issues Rating vs. ranking

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Social Change Review
• Year: 2012
• Volume: 10
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 47-70

Dates

published

2012-06-01

online

2014-02-13

Contributors

author

Bogdan Voicu

• CEPS/INSTEAD, 3 Avenue de la Fonte, L-4364 Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
• Romanian Academy, Research Institute for the Quality of Life, 13 Calea 13 Septembrie, 050711 Bucureşti, Romania
• Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Department of Sociology and Social Work, 2-4 Lucian Blaga, 550169 Sibiu, Romania

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/scr-2013-0011