Youths' attitudes about life issues and family. A multiple cultural study of Greek and Swedish adolescents and Greek young adults
LEKKOU S., ÅSTRÖM T., HÄGGLÖF B., NYGREN L.

This interview study examined attitudes about life issues and family in Greek and Swedish adolescents and Greek young adults. The aim was to see how adolescents and young adults orient themselves to life and the family. Two samples of 583 Swedish and 238 Greek school-aged adolescents aged 13 through 18 years were selected to participate in a larger study. These were students at a Junior High and a High School in the town of Lycksele close to the University town of Umea Sweden and the Greek sample was selected from three High schools and three Lyceums in Patras Greece. From these ethnic samples, a smaller sample was recruited to represent socio demographic strata in the study areas from adolescents who reported either high or low on Achenbach's Youth Self Report -47 Greeks and 47 Swedes- were selected for semi-structured interviews.

An interview guide with semi-structured questions was created to gather information about youth's life attitudes. The questions addressed a broad spectrum of everyday life issues to understand how youths orient themselves to life, -the central themes of an adolescent life,- and the basic codes of behavior related to family and culture.

For the same reasons in a random sample of 110 Greek young adults, students of a Department of TEI of Athens, School of Health and Care faculty, a semi-structured questionnaire was delivered to see how they orient themselves to life and future family in a pilot study. Encephalos 2010, 47(2):67-82.

Key words: Adolescents, young adults, problems, fears, coping, life-family attitudes, cross cultural.