Italian Culture and Work Ethics Essay

autobiography teaches us that it is through the family that new generations ar equipped with ethics and set regarding work. The advent of bourgeois clubhouse, with its characteristic openness towards other neighborly bodes, appears to be in possession of relegated the promotion of working(a) set by families to the background. This study sets come forward to screen the hypothesis according to which the family continues to primary(prenominal)tain an authorised role in the infection of working set.Based on data from the Work Importance field (Super and Sverko, 1995 Life Roles, Values, a n d Careers, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass), two subgroups were compared (working adults, and high develop and university students), considered as representing two different generations ( callownesss vs adults). Some results from cluster anatysis show how whole similarity exists among adults and youths in terms of likingl set, expressing what would be important in an ideal world. The di fference between the subgroups lies in expectations (termed judge values) relating to what would be important in my actual work purlieu.Here, relatively much(prenominal) important values for adolescent people are relatively less important for working adults. A nonher result presented concerns the descent existing betiveen value typobgies (classed into six categories) and personal character associated with birth order. What emerges is that the entirely children are prevalently the tough type, while the first bom, considered by both(prenominal) to be custodians of family traditions, tum out to be more indep endingent than the plunk for or third bom, identified above all by their serene and sociable characters.Introduction the work ethic and the family ethic This study presents the results of a survey conducted nationaUy in 1995 on a sample of 1523 subjects (represendng the three main geo-cultural areas of Italy North, Centre and Southsee BeUotto, 1997). The objecdve of the s urvey was to determine values associated with work. For this a quesdonnaire, a values scale (VS) was used, devised by an intemadonal team pardcipadng in a world-wide survey cal take the Work Importance StudyWIS (Super and Sverko 1995). With the data coUected, a pen of the value judgements of Italian families was formulated.The importance of working values within the family place setting has been little explored from a psychological point of view. Yet the family is characterized by the hvirtuosost nature of the reladonships it contains, hence its values (Boszormeny-Nagy and Spark, 1973 Cigoli, 1992). The family is rightly placed in that class of insdtudons that Hegel indicated as the ethical horizon of human society. There are very(prenominal) few Italian studies on the processes of value transmission within families, not to mendon the handing down of working values.While wholeness of the principal funcdons recognized as typical of families is the favorableizadon of the indivi dual, studies regarding the socializadon by families with regard to work are rarely encountered. 1351-1610/99/040583-13 1999 Interdisciplinary Centre for Comparative Research in the Social Sciences 584 Massimo Bellotto and Alberto atti The lose of research in this field can be partly explained by the relatively new-made history of the concept of the family as a scientific subject for study in social psychology.At least until the end of the 1940s, families were considered as a group typology (Lewin, 1951). Successively, interest focused on the pathology of family relationships (Bateson et al. , 1956 Epstein et al. , 1982 Bamhill, 1979 Watzlawick et al. , 1967). It was completely in die 1970s that the so-called normal family was considered worthy of psychological investigation as a scientific subject (Scabini, 1985). In recent years, however, the theme of values and the ethical importance of families has emerged strongly in a variety of fields, from individual and family psychothe rapy to organizational psychology.In this article we would equivalent to pro mould that a terminological distinction be made between ethics and morality. Ethics are, as the etymology of the word suggests, the study of the tradition (ethos), the social habits, the relational practices of a people or social grouping. Morality relates more to the theme of how much certain behaviour corresponds to a reference model. In this sense, it is important to distinguish between ethics and morality when studying the customs and habits, in a word, the ethics of families (and not their morality).This is to avoid the pitfalls associated with referring to a concomitant set of values held by the family being analysed. What exacdy are the working values held by families? What relationship exists between these values and family needs? What are the motivations that trounce the family organization? And which family values can be linked, even indirecdy, with work? let us seek most answers to these imp ortant questions. Families in history form also been units of production.The peasant family, craft guilds, the factory worker families of the first and trice industrial revolutions (Manoukian, 1976) are the most emblematic examples. In medieval society the chances of changing wholenesss profession from the one inherited from the family were earlier hmited. Children continued the working traditions of the family without having much choice in the matter. The transmission of working values within family groups, historically speaking, seemed to go without saying. However, it would be worthwhile to pose the question of how families educate their members today with regard to work.Families in Westem society go for changed profoundly. The social mobility intrinsic to the very idea of bourgeois society (Weber, 1904) has led to the privatization of family relationships (Aries, 1960) and to the specialization of family practices to the sentimental sphere. The educational role of families is becoming more and more marginal, being delegated to collective institutions such as schools. Moreover, from the viewpoint of economic history, families hand over last increasingly characterized as units of consumption, losing in part their role as units of production. From a macrosocial perspective, a fundamental problem emerges in Italy the percent be on of youth unemployment is one of the highest in Europe, especially in the South.Working Values and the Italian Family 585 majority of tender people between the ages of 15 and 24 embody at nucleotide 82. 4% of males and 72. 5% of females. In the next age bracket, 25-34, many more juvenility men sdU live at home with their parents (33. 6%) compared with young women of the same age (22. 9%). According to some demographic projecdons to the year 2000, these percentages wiU touch 36. 3% for young males and 34. 2% for young females.There are cultural and ideological reasons for this phenomenon, such as the idea that marriage is th e only proper route towards adult independence (8 males out of 10 and 9 women out of 10 leave the family only foUowing marriage). However, social factors also make a contribudon, in particular, high youth unemployment and a shortage of rental accommodadon. The result is that families coundng a young adult as a member are a socially significant category. psychological factors and value systems also play an important role. The working values tradidonaUy turn over down in Italian families place heavy emphasis on permanent and full-dme employment.The definidve departure from the family is often condidonal on minimizing the risks of independence. Among others, for these two factors (permanent fuU-dme employment and stripped-down risk of independence), life-dme employment in government and union employment policies piss come to be considered as a necessary and sufficient essential for the attainment of adulthood. The quest for so-caUed guaranteed employment has led Italian society to one of the most cridcal paradoxes in its history the creadon of a barrier to occupadonal access for youth.Thus, the one prerequisite considered a vital and sufficient condidon for the evoludon of Italian families, life-dme employment, has become one of the major obstacles to the same end. By disallowing generational change in employment, it has become impossible for young generadons to enter the workforce, and hence to reach independence. * Following on these consideradons, we decided to use the results of a study on working values (WIS 1995) to shed some light on value differences between young students and adult workers.As mendoned above, very few studies have been carried out in Italy on the transmission of values within families. While the WIS study was not designed for this purpose, we believed that it could give some indicadons regarding the generadon gap (youths vs adults) and differences in social view (students vs workers). The underlying hypothesis to tjiis study is there fore that working adult values can be considered as being similar to those of parents likewise, those held by young students can be considered as being similar to those of offspring. The WIS survey.