Changing Values among Chinese Young people

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Changing Values among Chinese Young people

• Chen Qi, Professor
• Department of Psychology,
• Beijing Normal University
• Beijing 100875 China
• Tel [phone]
• Fax [phone]
• Emailchenqi_at_email.bnu.edu.cn

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Changing Values among Chinese Young people

• I. Introduction
• II. Two surveys have been done
• III. Some thoughts

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I. Introduction

• From 1989 to 1998, China's Economic Reform
• Changes of Chinese Ideas on Value

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Chinas Economic Reform (1989-1998)

• Economic success and new problems
• Changes of China's social structure

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Economic Success

• GDP amounting 362.4 billions at 1978,to 7,955.3
  billions at 1998.
• GDP per capita was 379 yuan at 1979 to 6,079
  yuan at 1997
• Up to 1998, the average annual real per-capita
  income of farmers came to 2,160 yuan,
• of urban people came to 5,425 yuan.

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New Problems

• Social problems such as moral disorder,
  materialism, etc.
• Poverty up to 1995, China's poor urban resident
  population amounted to 24.28 million, 8.6 of the
  total urban popularity. Among them, 12.42 million
  was absolute poor.

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The reasons for poverty

• 1) the poor condition of state-owned
  enterprises fell into bankrupt or failure
  amounted to 46 thousand, and 7.54 million
  employees was involved, 4.69 million employees'
  salary was stop or cut down.
• 2)Inflation rate was unbearable for low-income
  families.

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Changes of Chinas Social Structure

• Stratification from three stratums to more--from
  political status to economic status.
• Job assignment from the rigid employment-obtainin
  g mode to labor power market mode

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Changes of Chinese Ideas on Value

• Living goal-orientation changed from working for
  primary needs, such as physiological , safety
  needs, to working for secondary needs, such as
  the need to know and understand, and
  self-actualization.
• The marketing economy influenced Chinese's
  cultural ideas at following aspects
• The ethical structure of group-individual
  interaction has too changed greatly. Individual
  profit has expanded unprecedentedly

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The marketing economy influenced Chinese's
cultural ideas at following aspects

• It weakened Chinese people's emphasizes on family
  and pushed them to enter society. And the
  conception to conform to elders began to weaken.
• Chinasmarketing economy was still among the
  primary stage, which caused Chinese people to
  pursue material profits blindly, so the parochial
  idea to make money in illegal ways became more
  and more popular.

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• In 90's, Chinese people's social needs, value
  goals, and behavior orientations have all been
  changed.
• Social needs
• Value goals
• Behavior orientations

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Social needs Material desires other than basic
needs increased Needs for occupation and income
insurance increased Needs for independence and
freedom, for fairness and equality emerged and
developed rapidly.
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Value Goals Making money has become more and more
Chinese people's main life goal. In the eyes of
the Chinese people who hold this kind of life
goal, how much property (money) one owned is
considered as one of the indexes judging people's
social status and evaluating whether people make
success or not, even is considered as an
important happiness resource.
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Behavior Orientations The idea about
self-others relationship has been changed from
"only for others not for self at all to "Unless
for yourself, you will stand condemned by God".
More and more people tend to value asking from
society, instead of devoting themselves to
society as before.
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II. Two surveys have been done

• 1. 1996-1997 Survey Chinese young adults(18-20)
• 2. 1998-1999 Survey college and secondary
  students

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Chinese Young Adults

• Most of Chinese young adults (18-20 years old) at
  1996 are only child in their family. Their
  characteristics
• lack of good learning methods
• more dissatisfaction
• more anxieties about whether their ideas can be
  actualized
• worried more about future occupation
• felt more uneasiness about their economic
  reliance on their parents.

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1996-97 Survey Chinese young adults

• What kind of problems the Chinese young adults
  worry about the most?
• Identity, schooling, and altruism problems
  rank among the top three problem classes for most
  subject groups.

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1998-99 Survey University freshmen and
secondary students

• Subjects
• Instrument
• Results

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1. Subjects

• Subjects were students both came from university
  and high schools.
• 101 questionnaire from the university students,
  38 males and 63 females with age 20-24(average
  21.57) have received.
• The high school students were from two parts a
  key school, 313 questionnaire, with age 15-18
  (16.32 in average), have been received, and an
  ordinary school, 288 questionnaire, with age
  17-19 (17.38 in average), have been received.

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2. Instrument a two dimension questionnaire

• Based on the 96-97 survey, we have designed the
  second survey only concentrating on the following
  two dimensions
• 1. Material oriented vs Immaterial oriented
• 2. Individual oriented vs collective (altruism)
  oriented

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3. The results

• 1) Secondary students are more material-oriented
  while college students more in pursuing
  immaterial goals.
• 2) College students are more individual oriented
  than the secondary students.
• 3) There are no gender differences shown
• 4) Different family economical levels and
  mothers professional level have different
  impacts on the values.
• 5) Different type of schools impact on the value
  differently.
• 6) The impacts of academic achievements on the
  values are rather weak

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Table 1. Difference of Material oriented and
Individual oriented students between college and
secondary school
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Material oriented vs Immaterial oriented

• Tab.1 shows that both college and secondary
  students have the tendency of material oriented
  and individual oriented in general. However,
  secondary students are more towards
  material-oriented than the college students,
  while college students enjoy more in pursuing
  immaterial goal instead of material goal.

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Individual oriented vs Collective (Altruism )
oriented

• College students are more individual oriented
  than the secondary students which means that the
  university life has been more emphasizing on the
  development of self-consciousness, therefore,
  making the individual more concerned about the
  self-realization. However, the secondary school
  life has been more focusing on the collective
  life so that comparatively, the students are more
  concern about the others.

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Gender differences

• There are no gender differences shown both in
  Material oriented vs Immaterial oriented, and
  Individual oriented vs collective oriented which
  means the values system of different genders are
  concurrent.

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Table 2. Difference of Material oriented and
Individual oriented between genders
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Impacts of different economical levels on values.

• The impacts of different family economical
  levels on the values are differently, especially
  to the material oriented dimension, the lower
  level economical level of the secondary students,
  the higher material oriented tendency they are.

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Tab3. Impacts of different economical levels on
values of the secondary students
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Impacts of Mothers Different Profession Level on
values of secondary students

• Significant differences in these two
  dimensions can be seen among the secondary
  students with different professional mothers.
• Therefore, mothers impact on the values in
  secondary education stage is an important factor.
  

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Table 4. Impacts of Mothers Different
Profession Level on the Value of Secondary
Students
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Table 5. Differences between Types of Secondary
School on Two Dimensions
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Differences between Types of Secondary School in
two Dimensions

• There are very significant differences
  between two types of schools on the values based
  on these two dimensions.
• Key school has better human resources and
  facilities in many aspects, the administrators
  and teachers pay more attention on all round
  development of the students including the
  immaterial oriented goals. Therefore, their
  students tends less material oriented and
  individual oriented of values. However, the
  ordinary school tends more, comparatively
  speaking.

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Impact of achievement on the value

• No significant differences have been found among
  the different achievers, which means that the
  impacts of academic achievements on the values
  are rather weak.

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Table 6. Differences of Two dimensions between
Different Achievement Level Students.
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III. Some thoughts

• 1. The changing values reflect the changing
  world. The existing multi-values reflects multi
  economic systems. However, how to insist a
  directed value orientation in a multi-dimension
  value society is a new issue what the educators
  have to think about.

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(Some thoughts )

• 2 The market economy directed some values
  different from the planning economy value which
  is nature and not as a bad thing. However, we
  must direct the young generation towards
  combining the material and immaterial goals, the
  individual and collective benefits, avoid the
  youth live in an extreme way which is only
  towards materialism and individualism

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(Some thoughts )

• 3 The survey shows that the importance of school
  education and the influence from the family.

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Correspondence Email chenqi_at_email.bnu.edu.cn
Tel [phone] Fax [phone]
0567