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Teenagers today: A comparative study Introduction and aims We decided on this project to explore the world of teenagers and find out what teenagers think about their life. It is important to do this because young people are our future and by interviewing them we can find out the problems they have to face and the best way to solve them. We all need to be aware of what they need in order to build a better world all together. We wanted to draw a clearer picture of teenagers and their world and compare two very different cultures because we were interested in investigating the differences between teenagers from a town in Italy and teenagers from a town in Britain. This interested us because we are the same age and we wanted to know if teenagers from different countries have the same difficulties and how they cope with them, for example how they feel about their hometown, family, school, future career, their personal values and ideals. That is why we decided to interview young people both in Barcellona (Italy) and in Abergele (UK) to compare the way of life in an Italian town with a town in Britain. In order to obtain the necessary information, we created a questionnaire which we gave to young people selected at random. Our questionnaire is an attempt to find out more about the world of young people and to focus on the priorities, worries and personal values that characterize young people today.
The questionnaire asked about teenagers’ personal situations, asking what they are going to do after school, what they think their city can offer them, what the most problematic areas in their city are and where they would like to live if they could. We included questions about the local situation so that we could find out what teenagers’ troubles are and if they are the same in both places. We realized that if we know what teenagers think about our town, we can find ways to improve it in future. In addition, we wanted to find out their most important values, how they feel about their personal problems and the problems of their society, what they think can be done to resolve social issues like delinquency, drugs and lack of family communication. Through this comparison we would be able to discover the difficulties that teenagers face and suggest ways to deal with them. The aim of this project is therefore to learn more about teenagers from two very different cultures in order to understand what support they need and what they want from life. This is a project created by teenagers for teenagers and thus realistically reflects the world of "teenagers today". Method Subjects: In Italy we gave our questionnaire to 62 young people aged from 15 to 19 years old. Most of them (36) were female, while only 26 were male. In Britain 37 subjects in the same age group were interviewed, 18 male and 19 female. The vast majority of the subjects interviewed were still at school (56 out of 62 for Italy and 29 out of 37 in Britain) The following graph shows what these subjects intend to do after leaving school.
For the remaining subjects (6 in Italy, and 8 in Britain), the graph below shows how they are currently employed.
Material: We designed a multiple-choice questionnaire with 16 questions. Some questions asked respondents to put the items in order of importance
Procedure : Each participant of the course asked up to five young people to answer our questionnaire in Italy which we gave to teenagers on the streets of Barcellona P.G. (our hometown in Italy). We did the same in Abergele in Britain.We collected our results on a specially designed document which we used to combine the data. We then analyzed these results to prepare statistics and graphs and compared the results between the two countries.
Analysis of content: the initial part ( questions 1 and 2) asks about the age and sex of the respondent. Questions 3, 4, 5, 6 and 14 ask about respondents’ intentions after school, the good and bad points of the hometown and entertainment. Questions 7, 13 ask about the main problems that affect young people. Questions 8, 9, 15, and 16 ask about personal values and family relations. Questions 10 11 and 12 ask teenagers how satisfied they are with their life and the place they live. Results The majority of people interviewed in Italy and the UK still go to school. Most young people in the age range of 15-19 in Italy are going to go to university after school. (see graphs 2 and 4). In the UK a smaller proportion of subjects wanted to go to university and would prefer to look for a job instead. Teenagers in both Barcellona and Abergele are unhappy about their town especially problems like unemployment, poor quality of social life and drugs (see graph 6 and 7). The main difference is that a much greater percentage of British teenagers said lack of money was a problem. Italian teenagers were much more afraid of delinquency and, to resolve this problem, they suggest introducing tougher penalties for delinquents. (see graph 13) Young people in both countries think their hometown doesn’t have a lot to offer them. (see graph 5) They complain that there aren’t any facilities there, especially parks and sports centres in Italy while in Britain a shopping precinct, sports centre and cinema were priorities (graph 14) It is not surprising that most young people would like to change the place where they live: if they could, they would move to a large city in their country: Rome or Milan in Italy and London or Manchester for the UK. (graphs 10 and 11) Other European capitals and Australia were also popular while the USA attracted very few subjects. As regards the world of work Italian teenagers are not very optimistic. (graph 6) Young people who live in Barcellona and Abergele think the most important values are family and friendship. More importance was given to love by Italian subjects while the British prized personal freedom. (graph 9) Another common problem in both countries is the lack of communication within the family (graph 7) caused particularly by too little time spent together (graph 15) although hostility between teenagers and parents and TV are also blamed. The preferred solutions were to create time and space for the family and try to find ways of talking to each other. (graph 16) Differences regarding the perceived role of a parent emerged; a greater percentage of British youngsters believed a parent should be a close friend rather than a strict guardian. (graph 8) Discussion and conclusion The results showed a lot of similarity between Italian and British teenagers, particularly their frustration of living in a small town with a lack of facilities, although the type of facilities lacking differed to some extent. Overall both groups of subjects enjoyed being teenagers. As regards employment prospects it seems that British people were more confident they would find a job, even without going to university first. British teenagers were more worried about money and this could be related to the greater importance they attach to personal freedom. Drugs, alcohol and delinquency seemed to worry Italian teenagers more and perhaps this is why few people said they would like to live in the USA which has a bad image, mainly from TV programmes, regarding such issues. Lack of family communication was felt by both groups as well as little quality family time but more so by British teenagers; this could be linked to their perception that a parent should be a close friend rather than a strict guide. In conclusion, some extremely interesting results were found. It would be a good idea to extend the study to a larger number of subjects and also to interview young people from larger towns to see what differences emerge.
APPENDIX: QUESTIONNAIRE ‘Teenagers today ‘ Respondent: Male ? Female ?How old are you?
3) If no, are you working at the moment? a) full time b) part-time c) self-employed d) casual work 4) If yes, what do you intend to do after leaving school?
6)If no, which of these areas are the most problematic in Abergele?
7) Put the following in order of importance (from the least serious to the most):
8) What do you think the role of a parent should be with teenagers?
10) What would you like to change in your life?
a) London or Manchester b) The U.S.A. c) A European capital such as Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam d) Australia e) Japan 12) On a scale from 1-10, how much do you enjoy being a teenager? 13) How could you sort out the problems of delinquency?
14) What types of entertainment does Abergele need most for teenagers?
15) What do you think the main reasons for communication problems in a family are?
16) What solutions would you suggest?
Thank you for taking part in our survey.
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