Kids These Days…
Tracking high school faculty family status and
educator attitudes about teenagers
Mr. Kryczka & Mr. Rodriguez,
researchers
Sociological Question:
• What is the relationship between a
teacher’s family status and their
attitudes about teenagers?
Literature Review
• Marge Scherer in Educational Leadership
of Sept 2002 summarizes the current state
of student attitudes about their
commitment to school. Most of the data
cited describes a downward trend in
enthusiasm for school among American
students.
• Penny Travlou in her 2005 study of teenage
interaction with urban spaces, identified
that the adults with the least amount of
interaction with teens were the most likely
to hold negative attitudes about young
people.
Hypothesis
• We hypothesized that those teachers
who had children who were currently in
elementary or high school would hold
more conservative and judgmental
opinions about teenagers in general
and specifically about those here at
Von Steuben.
Research Model
SURVEY:
• We designed a 10 question survey that asked
faculty about their attitudes on several topics:
– Teen sexual behavior
– Teen substance abuse
– Teen attitudes toward school
• We also tracked demographic variables
including:
- family status - gender - age
- years teaching - number of children
(over & under 21)
The Survey
Administering the Research Model
• We passed out over 120 surveys, depositing
them in the mailboxes of all teachers,
administrators, and educational support
personnel.
• Faculty filled out surveys on their own time,
returning surveys to Mr. Rodriguez’s
mailbox.
• After one week, we had received 46 surveys
back from respondents, and we began our
data analysis.
Data and Analysis
Sample of respondents: family status
Teachers
with
adult
children Teachers
13% without
children
38%
Teachers
with
children
under 21
49%
Tabulating the Data
7. Which of the following statements best describes
your attitude toward teen sexual behavior?
(circle)
A.Teens should not involve themselves in dating
whatsoever.
B. Teens can date, but ought to be chaperoned to
avoid any physical contact.
C.Teens ought to date, but should be strictly taught
to save sexual contact for marriage.
D.Teens ought to date, but ought to understand that
sexual contact automatically carries the
commitment of a monogamous relationship.
E. Teens ought to date freely, but be well-informed of
the risks and consequences associated with sexual
behavior.
F. Teens are at their sexual prime and ought to
experience their sexuality in the least restrictive
environment available.
Teacher Attitudes on Teen Sexual Behavior
8. Which of the following statements best describes your
attitude about teenage substance abuse? (circle).
A.Teens should never be in an environment where drugs
and alcohol are consumed.
B. Although teens may be exposed to an environment
with drugs and alcohol, they should never partake in
those substances.
C.Teens may partake in alcohol or drugs in moderation
in the presence of family members.
D.Teens may partake in alcohol or drugs only in
moderation and only if they are responsible.
E. Teens should experiment with substances as much as
possible in the least restrictive environment.
Teacher Attitudes on Teenage Substance
Abuse
9. Which of the following teenage cultural attitudes
would you associate with the majority of students at
Von Steuben: (circle)
A.Commitment to academics as essential to success in
life.
B. Intellectual curiosity as a motivating force in life.
C.Attaining the bare minimum to get out of high school.
D.Completely delusional about the realities surrounding
academic and career goals.
E. Obsessed with the social lives of their peers with little
or no interest in academics or career goals.
F. Totally apathetic about academic and social life.
G.Outwardly confrontational or resistant to all aspects of
the school setting.
Teacher Impressions of the Majority of Von
Students
"I can't wait for my next A.P.
7 7 class"
6 6 "Reading Weber really helped
broaden my philosophy"
5 5 5
"What I gotta do to get a D?"
4 4
"I'm gonna be a mega-
millionaire rapper basketball
3 star beauty queen when I
3 grow up"
2 "What/who did you do this
weekend?"
1 1 1 1 11
"School sucks, my peers
suck, the world sucks"
0 0 000 000 00 0
Teachers Teachers Teachers "#$%& you, Mr.
w/o kids w/kids w/kids Rodriguez/Mr. Kryczka!"
under 21 over 21
Is Von a place for your kids?
•We also asked teachers to rank their hypothetical
comfort level with Von Steuben as a potential setting
for their kids (whether real or imagined).
•We generally received middle of the road answers, but
the majority of staff rated Von Steuben on the positive
end of the spectrum (meaning more teachers reported
feeling comfortable as opposed to uncomfortable at the
prospect of their children attending Von).
•We asked faculty to rank their feelings with regard to:
sexual mores, substance abuse, and academic
motivation.
•We noted no large differences between those teachers
with or without kids, except that those with kids
seemed more uncomfortable with regard to the use of
drugs at Von.
Conclusions
•Hypothesis NOT supported: Although we originally
predicted that teachers with young children would be
more critical of teenage culture, our data revealed the
opposite to be true for this sample of respondents.
•Instead, the teachers with no children were more likely
to favor a completely drug-free environment for
teenagers and were far more likely than other teachers
to judge Von Steuben students as under-achievers.
•One slight difference in sexual attitudes that we noted
was that the teachers with children were more likely to
link sex with marriage rather than simply monogamy,
while the teachers without kids responded more
favorably to monogamous sexual relationships as
opposed to marriage.
Conclusions
Successes of Project:
•Questions seemed well-designed to spur
thoughtful and honest responses from
faculty (it was a valid mechanism).
•The data adjusted our perceptions about
the effects of having children on people’s
impressions of youth culture.
•Provoked interesting discussion and
further questions on various topics.
Conclusions
Problems:
• Because we relied on voluntary anonymous responses
from faculty, we had no way of knowing whether we
had obtained a representative sample with regard to
the family status categories that we tracked.
• Many surveys were not returned, while others were
faulty or incomplete, further limiting our sample.
• Our field project was valid, but extremely unreliable.
Advice for Future Research:
• To correct the errors in representation, we advise
conducting a preliminary demographic study to create
accurate percentages for the relevant categories (with
kids, without kids, etc.). This data could then serve as
a way of producing a second, more reliable study.