The Medical Implications of Nuclear War (1986) / Chapter Skim
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19 Children's and Adolescents' Perceptions of the Threat of Nuclear War: Implications of Recent Studies
19 Children's and Adolescents' Perceptions of the Threat of Nuclear War: Implications of Recent Studies
Pages 413-434
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From page 413... ...
The considerable attention in the media, the formation of such groups as Educators for Social Responsibility, the development of curricula and programs in response to the need to educate high school and junior high school students about the nuclear threat, and the development of children's groups opposed to nuclear war reflect this concern. Surprisingly, most work on this question appeared either in the early 1960si-6 or after 1980.
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From page 414... ...
For example, in response to the question "What does the word nuclear bring to mind? " some students gave the following answers: "Big grey clouds, pipes and smokestacks, red waiving lights, dead wildlife and humans, unnecessary death and violence." "Danger, death, sadness, corruption, explosion, cancer, children, waste, bombs, pollution, terrible devaluation of human life .
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From page 415... ...
The questionnaire focused solely on the nuclear issue rather than being a more general inquiry about youngsters' attitudes about various matters, so that the respondents knew specifically what the investigators were interested in, and this may have affected their responses. There was no attempt, other than in a qualitative way, to rank order or address the relative degree of their concern about the nuclear issue to other concerns.
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From page 416... ...
in While there is an increase in those who agree with the statement about nuclear or biological annihilation, nonetheless, in 1982, for example, slightly more than 15 percent of all high school seniors indicated that they disagreed with this statement. Similarly, the majority of seniors surveyed in 1982 responded that they agreed or mostly agreed with the statement: "The human race has come through tough times before and will do so again." The larger study provides clear evidence on another point of interest.
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From page 417... ...
. Those who worried about nuclear issues did not have a specific profile-that is, they were not different from the rest of the sample with respect to gender, race, or socioeconomic status; nor did this group differ on measures of idealism, coping abilities, drug abuse, or delinquency.
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From page 418... ...
The chief sources of information were television, school, and newspapers, with parents much less frequently being a fourth source. Surprisingly, 42 percent reported that they felt they had not been given sufficient information about nuclear issues in school.
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From page 419... ...
They used a questionnaire with 103 items in which the nuclear questions were embedded in other questions about other areas of concern in order to minimize bias. It was administered to over a thousand students in six public schools in metropolitan Toronto.
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From page 420... ...
It is in this group that the students express the most helplessness and show the least interest in planning for their own future."6 New Zealand Gray and Valentines have reported about the knowledge and attitudes of New Zealand's secondary school children toward nuclear war based on a survey of 876 fifth, sixth, and seventh form students. This questionnaire dealt solely with the nuclear issue.
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From page 421... ...
Only 17 percent of the sample felt that adults were very worried, and 46 percent thought that adults were very little concerned. Of the teenagers surveyed, 67 percent stated that they received insufficient information or none at all, and 63 percent of those sampled seldom or never talked to anyone about their worries.
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From page 422... ...
QUALITATIVE STUDIES While quantitative published reports of relatively large numbers of subjects provide important evidence, so do qualitative studies. There is increasing anecdotal evidence that at least some children under the age of 11 are seriously concerned about the possibility of nuclear war.
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From page 423... ...
Although some students reported that they try not to dwell on it, while others claimed that they worry about it constantly, all of the 31 adolescents asserted that the existence of nuclear weapons impinges on their lives on a daily basis. They reported that they are reminded of the arms race when they read the papers or watch television and that there is a constant worry in the back of their minds.
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From page 424... ...
Nonetheless, Coles' work emphasizes the importance of in-depth interviews over time and of understanding the full context of the child's experience in trying to understand the impact of the threat of nuclear war. DISCUSSION All of the quantitative studies discussed above concur in demonstrating that a significant number of youngsters report serious concern about the threat of nuclear war.
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From page 425... ...
Understanding these difficulties should assist further research, but it should also give a broader perspective on why so little work has been done.8 In terms of the specific limitations of the current studies that have been described above, while questions about the representativeness of the samples have been adequately addressed in the survey studies, for example in Bachman's efforts,9 they have been less well addressed in some of the international studies. Goldenring and Doctor's impressive findings ~4 are based on systematic sampling, but in a very limited number of school systems in one area of the country, and thus require replication in other areas.
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From page 426... ...
Such factors are the growth of technology itself, the changing patterns of family structure, broad disillusionment with the political system as evidenced by decreasing rates of voter participation, declining American prestige at home and abroad, and economic woes. It is difficult in studies to separate the role of the nuclear threat from these other social problems, but it is important to do so insofar as it is possible.
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From page 427... ...
These areas are the characteristics of the nuclear issue, the feelings engendered in those who become involved, and the implications for education. Characteristics of the Nuclear Issue The nuclear issue is an issue which reflects intense conflict among experts.
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From page 428... ...
For all of us, another part of the difficulty in achieving full awareness of the nuclear issue is the pain of realizing that one is potentially both victim and perpetrator of nuclear violence: victim because there is so little control over the weapons; perpetrator because those of us who are U.S. or Soviet citizens are members of countries that are spending huge amounts in tax dollars to build instruments of destruction whose sole possible use is to annihilate large portions of the human race.
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From page 429... ...
They are often visually dramatic. This does not provide any systematic overview of the problems of nuclear issues; nor does it transmit to young people any sense of how to deal with nuclear issues, how to discuss them with others, or how to understand them.
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From page 430... ...
It is no accident that the Educators for Social Responsibility program, under the leadership of Roberta Snow in Boston, was developed from a program in the Brookline Public Schools for Teaching History in Ourselves, which dealt with the question of the Holocaust.33 Teachers found that they could not teach students about the Holocaust, without some preparation and support for themselves, because it is so horrifying an historical subject. Likewise, teachers have found that such preparation is necessary for teaching students about the threat of nuclear war.
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From page 431... ...
Yankelovich,48 Offer, 49 and others have argued that the current generation of adolescents is considerably less hopeful and more pessimistic than previous ones and that this is not confined to any one social class. While it is difficult to quantify and neatly parcel out the relative effects of these various forces that lead to this pessimism, the nuclear threat and the immense amounts of energy and money expended on the nuclear arms race is a fundamental part of our society and surely contributes substantially to an overall sense of hopelessness and pessimism.
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From page 432... ...
1986. Normal adolescents' concern with nuclear issues.
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From page 433... ...
1981. Nuclear war: The knowledge and attitudes of New Zealand secondary school children.
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From page 434... ...
Pp. 6~82 in Behavioral Science and Human Survival, M
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