Is war a good or a bad thing? The attitudes of

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much more important than the average European ado- lescent. The study did not ... ``There won't be any more wars when I grow up''. (.48). The scale was ...
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY, 2000, 35 (6), 241± 257

Is war a good or a bad thing? The attitudes of Croatian, Israeli, and Palestinian children toward war Gordana Kuterovac Jagodic University of Zagreb, Croatia

It has been documented that children’s basic attitudes to social issues such as war and peace are formed during the early school-age period. The aims of the study were threefold: (1) to examine the attitudes of Croatian school-age children toward war and peace; (2) to explore the relationship between these attitudes and children’s gender, age, and amount of experience with war and violence; and (3) to compare the attitudes of Croatian children toward war and peace with the attitudes of Israeli and Palestinian children examined using the same scale 18 years earlier. The sample consisted of 230 children aged 11± 14 years who attended school in Zagreb. The results indicate that Croatian children generally have a negative attitude toward war, but strongly support the ® ght for the freedom of their nation. A relationship was found between the children’s gender, age, and war experiences and their attitudes toward war. A comparison between Croatian, Israeli, and Palestinian children showed that nationhood had an in¯ uence on attitudes toward war. However, there is greater similarity in the attitudes of today’s Croatian and former Israeli children than between today’s Croatian and former Palestinian children, and between Israeli and Palestinian children 18 years ago. Les attitudes des enfants envers les questions sociales comme la guerre et la paix se forment durant les deÂbuts de la scolarisation. Cette eÂtude a trois objectifs: (1) analyser les attitudes envers la guerre et la paix chez des enfants croates d’aÃge scolaire; (2) explorer la relation entre ces attitudes et le sexe, l’aÃge des enfants ainsi que leur expeÂrience ve cue de la guerre et de la violence; (3) comparer les attitudes des enfants croates envers la guerre et la paix avec celles d’enfants israeÂliens et palestiniens ayant eÂte soumis aux meà mes eÂchelles 18 ans plus toÃt. L’eÂchantillon se compose de 230 enfants aÃge s de 11 aÁ 14 ans et freÂquentant une eÂcole de Zagreb. Les reÂsultats indiquent que les enfants croates ont ge neÂralement une attitude neÂgative envers la guerre mais endossent fortement la lutte pour la liberte de leur nation. La comparaison avec les enfants israeÂliens et palestiniens montre que la nationalite a une in¯ uence sur les attitudes envers la guerre. Cependant, il ya a une plus grande similitude entre les attitudes des enfants croates d’aujourd’hui et les enfants israeÂliens interrogeÂs il y a 18 ans qu’entre les enfants croates d’aujourd’hui et les enfants palestiniens interrogeÂs il y a 18 ans ou entre les enfants israeÂliens et palestiniens.

Growing up in conditions of war and political unrest results in a wide range of psychological consequences that vary from clinical syndromes such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to the more subtle effects on cognitive development and on moral and political socialization. War is a social phenomenon that involves relations and interactions between people and groups of people, and children therefore conceptualize war as part of their social world and social knowledge. The war concept becomes an especially important part of children’s social knowledge and concern when they personally suffer from it. The threat of war or nuclear war has been present on children’s worry or fears lists throughout the world (Eisenbud, van Hoorn, & BergerGould, 1986; King et al., 1989). The development of war conceptualization has been studied from the developmental point of view, and from the angle of the political socialization model.

Studies dealing with the development of children’s conceptions of war and peace indicate that comprehension and a verbal articulation of the concept of war precedes the concept of peace by several years (Oppenheimer, 1996). The ® rst studies concerning children’s attitudes toward war and peace appeared in the 1930s when Droba (1931) developed a Paci® sm-Militarism Scale for that purpose. He was followed by researchers who studied this issue during the Second World War (Bender & Frosch, 1942; Eliot, 1942; Preston, 1942) and during the Vietnam War (Cornell, 1971; Tolley, 1973). Later on children’s political development was studied both in societies at war, like Israel (Spielmann, 1986), and in peaceful societies like Australia and England (Cooper, 1965). Generally, the results of those studies indicate that children begin to speak about war and peace at the age of 6. Until the age of 8 war is mainly de® ned through its concrete aspects (i.e., objects of war

Requests for reprints should be addressed to G.K. JagodicÂ, Faculty of Philosophy, Dept of Psychology, University of Zagreb, I. LucÏicÂa 3, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia (Tel: +385 1 6120 100; Fax: +385 1 6120 037; E-mail: [email protected]). The author wishes to thank Raijaa-Lena PunamaÈki and Ivo Goldstein for helpful comments on an earlier version of the article.

© 2000 International Union of Psychological Science http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/pp/00207594.html

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and war activities). After the age of 8, children increasingly begin to recognize the negative consequences of war (Hakvoort, 1996). The data concerning attitudes toward war are less clear. Droba (1931) and Preston (1942) both con® rmed that despite their scant knowledge and information about the nature of a speci® c war, children did not hesitate to express strong attitudes toward war and its participants. Hess and Easton (1961) showed that the relationship between knowledge about war and attitudes toward it was negative: They noted that the less knowledge children had, the more eager they were to take sympathetic or antagonistic stands toward the parties in the war. Attitudes are learned evaluative responses, directed at speci® c objects, which are relatively enduring and in¯ uence behaviour in a generally motivating way (Lippa, 1990). It has been shown that attitudes can be formed through standard learning processes such as classical and operant conditioning, and observational learning or modelling (e.g. Basow, 1986; Insko, 1965; Staats & Staats, 1958). A personality approach to attitude formation suggests that attitudes develop in order to serve the conscious and unconscious needs of a person’s personality, such as relieving feelings of inferiority, insecurity, or anxiety (Lippa, 1990), whereas logical inference theories state that attitudes and beliefs that already exist may be the source for building new attitudes (e.g., Fishbein, 1963). The majority of social psychologists were mostly concerned with attitude formation and change in adults, while the developmental aspects of the issue were neglected. Reviewing research on the development of prejudices in children, Brown (1995) concludes that the effects of parents, peers, media, and other socializing agents on children’s stereotypes, although undeniable, are seldom straightforward. Political socialization includes ``those developmental processes through which individuals acquire political orientations and patterns of behaviour’ ’ (Allen, 1989). Although political socialization is an integral part of socialization in general, it is also a unique phenomenon because it represents the process whereby a person is integrated into politics, which is a speci® c dimension of society. Indirect forms of political socialization, such as interpersonal relations transfer, apprenticeship, and generalization, prevail during childhood, whereas direct forms, such as imitation, political education, and political experience, predominate during adolescence (VujcÏ ic , 1993). By indirect political socialization children acquire predispositions that are not political in nature (attitudes, views, reactions), but that can in¯ uence the development of political attitudes and political culture. A relationship is assumed between political socialization and both internal variables such as cognitive ability and gender, and in¯ uences from the social environment that include the effects of primary groups such as family and peers, educational system (type of school and education, teachers, pupils), and the media. It seems that children with a lower level of intelligence tend toward a stronger personi® cation and idealization

of the government and state, a lower level of political ef® cacy, and a lower interest in politics. However, a basic attachment to the nation and obedience of laws are not associated with the child’s intelligence (VujcÏ icÂ, 1993). Gender is an important factor in political socialization. It was shown that school-age girls acquire political attitudes later than boys (Hess & Torney, 1967), and that school-age boys are better informed about politics and more interested in national news (Greenstein, 1965). Girls and women of all ages are less supportive of war and killing and approve less of aggression in general (e.g., Bendyna, Finucane, Kirby, Odonnell, & Wilcox, 1996; Cooper, 1965; Lester, 1994; PunamaÈ ki, 1996; Tolley, 1973; Wilcox, Hewitt, & Allsop, 1996). In a recent study of 14-year-old adolescents, Pakaslahti and Keltikangasjarvinen (1997) found gender differences in the moral approval of aggression: Boys were more prone to approve aggression using relativism (the need to consider different aspects when judging aggression) and legitimization (the approval of aggression as a way of coping with social problems, using existing ``excuses’ ’ ), whereas girls scored higher on absolutism (totally negative attitude toward aggression) and everyday morality (belief that aggression is an unacceptable way of coping with con¯ icting social situations). Although girls tend to be generally less supportive and less knowledgeable about war than boys (e.g., Miljevic -RidicÏki & Lugomer-Armano, 1994), they, however, seem to grasp the concept of peace earlier and conceptualize it in a more sophisticated manner than boys (Hakvoort & Oppenheimer, 1993). In spite of gender differences in the attitude toward aggression and war, girls and boys do not differ in loyalty to their nation (VujcÏ icÂ, 1993). Socioeconomic family backgrounds and styles of child-rearing have been among the most studied factors of political socialization. Reviewing research on correlation between parental and children’s political attitudes and orientations, Sears (1975) concluded that correlation was the highest for issues that were obvious or concrete in nature (presidential candidates, wars, and the nuclear threat). In his study of familial correlates of pro-war (``hawkish’ ’ ) attitudes toward war, Lewis (1971) concluded that families that held conservative values and stressed conformity in the parent± child relationship were more prone to transmit to their young attitudes that were more accepting of national violence. A more current opinion is that the family is not unconditionally an agent of political socialization. Barner-Barry and Rosenwein (1985) suggested that the family can be an important agent of political socialization only if both parents share the same political views, if politics are important to both of them, and ® nally, if the child perceives that politics are important to them. It is considered that political socialization in the family is rarely direct, but is more often exercised through subtle forms of socialization such as listening to parental conversation, asking questions about political issues, listening to stories and songs about national history, or being named after historical or current political leaders or fallen

IS WAR A GOOD OR A BAD THING?

heroes (Clark, 1986; Dawes, 1990; Greenstein, 1965, 1969; Kuttab, 1988). The socioeconomic family background was proved to strongly in¯ uence youth political preferences (e.g. Chaffee, Morduchowicz, & Galperin, 1997; Villaroel, 1998). Although the direction of the relationship is not consistent, a low socioeconomic family status is often found in association with less democratic political attitudes. Lewis (1971) found that students with pro-war attitudes were more frequently from a lower-class or rural origin. Bynner and Ashford (1994) also found strong links between a working-class family background and a lack of interest in politics and in voting. School plays an indirect role in the political socialization of children through general atmosphere, relationships between teachers and pupils (level of participation in the educational process) and the style of education (authoritarian or democratic), through the socioeconomic level of school classes (heterogeneous or homogenous) and the local society, and level of school politicization (e.g., Banks & Roker, 1994; Hess & Torney, 1967; Langton, 1969). School also plays a more direct role in political socialization, because it teaches children about political issues through different courses belonging to the sociohumanistic and speci® c political curricula. In their longitudinal study of the political socialization of commerce and social-science students, Guimond and Palmer (1996) found that peers had a generally conservative effect on the sociopolitical orientation of students of both orientations, whereas professors and courses had a liberal effect, but only on students of social sciences. However, in contrast to the family, which has a strong in¯ uence on the affective component of political thinking, school is predominantly tuned to the accumulation of knowledge about politics and reasoning about political issues (VujcÏic , 1993). Sociopolitical context and nationhood also in¯ uence attitudes toward war (e.g. Covell, 1996). Exploring the attitudes of Middle East children before and after President Sadat’s 1977 Peace Offer to Israel, Spielmann (1986) found that this dramatic change in the social atmosphere in¯ uenced their attitudes toward peace. McLernon, Ferguson, and Cairns (1997) compared the attitudes of young people toward war, peace, and con¯ ict resolution before and after the 1994 cease-® re announcements in Northern Ireland. They identi® ed signi® cant shifts in the perception of war (from the de® nition of war as a struggle between national leaders to a more general view of war in terms of war activities and their negative consequences), perception of peace (shift toward a more abstract de® nition of peace in terms of freedom, liberty, and justice), and willingness to suggest strategies to attain peace. Tolley (1973) reported that television and the other media have more in¯ uence on accumulating information about war issues, whereas personal contacts with family and teachers in¯ uence children’s differences in opinions about war. Investigating Canadian children’s concerns about nuclear war, Goldberg et al. (1985) found that

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television was the leading source of infor mation about the topic (74%). Newspapers and magazines were the second source (60%), leaving parents as informants about war and peace far behind (29%). Researchers also found that children can be encouraged to use media sources for their political socialization, and that they prefer the electronic media as a source of information (Chaffee et al., 1997; Simon & Merrill, 1997). Rare longitudinal studies indicate that the attitudes a child forms between the ages of 6 and 10 reliably predict his/her subsequent political behaviour in adolescence and partially in adulthood as well (PunamaÈ ki, 1987; Sears, 1975). In that period children acquire basic affective attitudes toward social questions and their parents are the main socializing agents. Cognitive aspects of attitudes are acquired later and are based on knowledge and beliefs learned at school, through the media and in interaction with peers. It is considered that a positive attitude toward the child’s nation develops very early and probably represents one of the ® rst forms of political socialization (VujcÏ ic , 1993). Positive feelings toward one’s own nation are at ® rst unconditional and exclusively emotional, and later become reciprocal and include acquired knowledge about the nation. A recent longitudinal study of political participation and political actionorientation in the transition from adolescence to early adulthood (Krampen, 1998) points to the high prognostic value of the adolescents’ self-concept of political competence and political knowledge for their political participation and voting behaviour in early adulthood, and stresses the necessity of early interventions in political socialization. Although the effects of early political socialization can be recognized in the attitudes and political behaviour of adults, political socialization is also considered a lifetime process during which many modi® cations of political attitudes and identities take place (Sears, 1975; Wasburn, 1994). Cairns (1996) differentiates between two schools of thought about how war experiences affect children’s socialization and attitudes toward war. According to him, one school believes that children who are growing up in a society based on violence and the denial of human values cannot be successfully socialized to love and solidarity. This school is represented by PunamaÈ ki, who believes that children learn more from their own experiences and the perception of reality than from abstract moral principles and norms. This point of view is in concordance with the results of Gillespie and Alport (1955), who studied college students from 10 different countries after the end of the Second World War, and Janis’s (1951) assumption that attitudes supportive of war tend to increase when people experience bombing, losses, and other traumatic war experiences. Another school of thought argues that children growing up in an atmosphere of political violence may develop negative attitudes toward war. According to the ® ndings of Ziv, Krulanski, and Shulman (1974), McKernan (1980), Dodge (1990), and Liddell, Kemp, and Moema (1993), children of countries torn by war

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and political violence like Israel, Ireland, Uganda, Sudan, and South Africa condemned violence, dreamed about peace, had more negative attitudes to violence following direct exposure to it, and developed plans for the future without a desire for revenge. Moreover, Engle (1944) reveals that those who suffered most are more ready than others to seek a compromise for peace. A longitudinal study of preschool children in Croatia showed that after the outbreak of war children’s aggressive behaviour did not change, and manifestations of prosocial behaviour increased (Raboteg-SÏ aricÂ, ZÏuzÏul, & KerestesÏ, 1994). Besides these two extreme positions about the effects of political socialization in turbulent societies, a third one is also plausible. Children socialized in wartime may learn to hate war and at the same time develop favourable attitudes toward the ® ght of their own nation, particularly toward the soldiers of their country. Sometimes children may even express a willingness to join the soldiers in order to obtain peace. PunamaÈ ki’s recent research indicated that experience of violence increased children’s ideological commitment (operationalized as glori® cation of war, patriotic involvement, and de® ant attitudes toward the enemy), but that this commitment in turn had a protective role for children’s psychosocial wellbeing in situations of political violence (PunamaÈ ki, 1996). Trying to help those in need during the war against Croatia, most researchers and clinicians naturally focused their efforts on the impact of war on children’s emotional life and mental health. There were no studies in Croatia aimed at examining children’s attitudes toward the war other than a study that examined their conceptions of war and peace (Miljevic -Rid-icÏ ki & LugomerArmano, 1994). It can be argued that those attitudes may help children ® nd a meaning for war experiences and offer them a tool to incorporate those war experiences in their life experiences. The main purpose of the present study was to examine attitudes toward war of Croatian children who had experienced war against their country. Although the worst ® ghting in Croatia took place in 1991± 1995, in 1997, when the study was performed, some parts of the country were still occupied by the Serbian paramilitary and the ``peaceful reintegration’ ’ of Eastern Slavonia was in process. The relationship between age, sex, amount of war experiences, and attitudes toward war were also examined, since earlier studies gave inconclusive results for those factors. Earlier research on children’s attitudes toward war and peace often used different methodology and instruments, making it dif® cult or even impossible to compare data from different studies. Since children’s attitudes were studied using the Attitude Scale Toward War and Peace used in earlier studies in the Middle East, the third goal was to compare the attitudes of Croatian children with those of Israeli and Palestinian children in 1979 (PunamaÈ ki, 1987). The main rationale for the comparison was that children in both areas experienced organized violence in the

form of war. Although every war has its own distinctive characteristics, it can be argued that all wars can be subsumed under the same basic de® nition of an armed con¯ ict, and that the psychological effects of war or warlike situations are universal. Any detailed comparison between the wars in the two areas would require political and historical analysis that is beyond the scope of this paper, and therefore only a few main features of the situation in the two areas could be mentioned here. Both the Middle East and the area of former Yugoslavia were involved in con¯ icts that were primarily political, although religion and ethnicity were important as well. The birth of both the state of Israel in 1948, and the state of Croatia in 1991/1992, were followed by a struggle for survival, and ethnic tension between the ethnic majority (Jews, Croats) and the ethnic minority (Palestinians, Serbs) appeared in both states. However, the duration of con¯ ict in the two areas is not comparable: The con¯ ict in the Middle East has been going on for decades, whereas armed con¯ ict in Croatia lasted from 1991 to 1995, and complete territorial integrity of the country was ® nally established in 1998. The geopolitical position of the two areas, as well as the involvement and interest of the international community in them, are also incomparable. In addition, the three nations compared also represent three different religions, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim, which can also complicate the comparison. Socialization patterns inspired by the three religions may in¯ uence children’s opinions about many things, including their political attitudes. For example, a cross-cultural comparison of concepts of death among Muslim, Druze, Christian, and Jewish children in Israel showed that Jewish and Christian children internalized a scienti® c concept of death more than Muslim and Druze children (Florian & Kravetz, 1985). A recent extensive comparative study on historical consciousness and political attitudes among European adolescents indicated that today’s Croatian, Israeli, and Palestinian adolescents are both alike and different in some life values and certain political attitudes (Angvik & Von Borries, 1997). Similarities found in that study may argue in favour of the comparison attempted in this study and indicate that certain similarities could also be found in attitudes toward war and peace. On the other hand, the fact that the two studies were performed at different times might result in the hypothesis that the changes connected with the passage of time can contribute to cultural and political dissimilarities of the two areas. The results about important life values in the crosscultural study of European adolescents were summed up under three constructs: importance of sociocentrism/ ethnocentrism (country, ethnicity, faith), importance of privatism (family, friends, own hobbies, and personal interests), and importance of solidarity (peace at any cost, solidarity with the poor in own country and in the Third World, welfare and social security, environmental protection) (Von Borries, 1997). Analysis indicated that the three national groups under observation

IS WAR A GOOD OR A BAD THING?

here can be classed with the group of European nations that give the highest importance to country, ethnicity, and religion. In the factor of privatism Israeli adolescents were above the European average, whereas Croatians and Palestinians, particularly the latter, were below that average. In the importance of solidarity Palestinian, and especially Israeli adolescents, were below the European average, whereas Croatian adolescents found these values much more important than the average European adolescent. The study did not establish a de® nite relationship between adolescents’ interest in politics and the security situation in a country (Kindervater & Von Borries, 1997). Palestinian and Jewish adolescents had the highest interest in politics in Europe, whereas Croatian adolescents, together with those from Slovenia, showed the strongest aversion toward politics. SÏiber (1997) summarized a number of deviations from the European mean on different variables analyzed in the same study and concluded that the countries most similar to Croatia are Italy, Greece, Spain, and Portugal. Jewish Israeli adolescents, together with Arab Israeli and French adolescents, belonged to a second group of countries equally as deviant from the European average as Croatia. Palestinian adolescents (as well as Polish and Turkish adolescents) had only one deviation from the European mean, in the direction opposite to Croatian adolescents, whereas Norway, Scotland, Finland and Great Britain had the highest number of such deviations.

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that explain 23% of the total variance. The subscales and their items (with their loadings) are: 1. Moral judgement of war in general: ``War is always a bad thing’ ’ (.52), ``Everyone suffers in war’ ’ (.49), ``War sometimes has good effects’’ (.43), ``Participating in war is an exciting experience’ ’ (.34), ``War is sometimes necessary’ ’ (.50). 2. Justi® cation of one’s own nation’ s ® ght: ``War has harmed our people’ ’ (.46), ``My people had no options but to ® ght’ ’ (.47), ``Peace came only because our people were strong’ ’ (.33), ``War has united our people’ ’ (.33), ``War is good when Israel / the Palestinians beat their enemy’ ’ (.41), ``War has brought good things to our people’ ’ (.42). 3. Personal loyalty and the sense of duty in a state of war: ``I admire soldiers’ ’ (.51), ``It is an honour to die for one’s country’ ’ (.35), ``Orders of which you do not approve must be obeyed in time of war’ ’ (.38), ``I would like to be a defender of our country when I grow up’ ’ (.39), ``I would like my father to be a war hero’ ’ (.47). 4. Attitudes to the possibility of peace: ``It is possible to stop outbreaks of war’ ’ (information missing), ``No one of us wants to ® ght any longer’ ’ (.33), ``There will always be war in the world’ ’ (.68), ``Our enemies will always be our enemies’’ (.38), ``There won’ t be any more wars when I grow up’ ’ (.48).

METHOD Participants The participants were 230 children aged 11± 14 years who attended school in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. During the war Zagreb was exposed to air raids and certain parts of the city were shelled and rocketed by the Yugoslav army and Serbian paramilitary troops, forcing the citizens to go into shelters and cellars. The sample consisted of 109 girls and 121 boys. The sample of Middle East children to whom the Croatian results were compared was studied by PunamaÈki (1987), and it consisted of 313 children (185 Israeli and 128 Palestinian). The proportion of girls was 53%. The age ranged from 9 to 13, and the majority of children (88%) were 11 years old.

Measures The study was part of a pilot study for a larger project concerning the long-term effects of war on children’s psychological health and development. A somewhat revised Attitude Scale Toward War and Peace was used in order to assess children’s attitudes. The scale was constructed by PunamaÈ ki and used in the research on Israeli and Palestinian children (PunamaÈ ki, 1987). The original scale consists of 21 items clustered in 4 subscales

The scale was translated from English into Croatian and then translated back into English by a different translator to ensure comprehensibility and comparability. In order to adjust the scale to the purpose of the study, one item from the scale (``I would like my father to be a war hero’ ’ ) was excluded since it was more appropriate for an ongoing war situation than for the post-war situation in which this study was performed. The item ``War is good when Israel / the Palestinians beat their enemy’ ’ was rephrased into ``War is good when we are victorious’ ’ . In addition, wishing to make the assessment of attitudes more sensitive, the original 2-point answering scale (``Yes, I agree’ ’ Ð ``No, I disagree’ ’) was changed to a 3-point scale (``I fully agree’ ’ , ``I partially agree’ ’ , ``I disagree’ ’ ). In one of her studies PunamaÈ ki (1993) asked children to explain their responses but offered only preliminary categorizing dimensions, so the participants in our study were not asked to give explanations for their answers. Children’s war experiences were examined with the Questionnaire on Children’s Stressful and Traumatic War Experiences (Franc, Kuterovac, & Stuvland, 1993), which consists of 19 items and, according to the results of previous research and factor analysis (Kuterovac, 1993; Vizek-Vidovic , ArambasÏ ic , Kuterovac, Franc, & Bunjevac, 1994), encompases ® ve groups of war experiences that explain 45.7% of the total variance. The subscales and their items (with their loadings) are:

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1. General war operations: ``Air and general raids’ ’ (.84), ``Being in a shelter or cellar’ ’ (.85), ``Exposed to close range shooting’ ’ (.60), ``Has been in a lifethreatening situation’ ’ (.42). The eigenvalue of the factor is 3.20 and it accounts for 16% of the total variance. 2. Displacement and separation: ``Loss of beloved things and animals’ ’ (.64), ``Separation from family longer than 3 weeks’’ (.65), ``Displacement’ ’ (.78). The eigenvalue of the factor is 1.88 and it accounts for 9.4% of the total variance. 3. Witnessing killing, wounding, and torture: ``Witnessing wounding or killing’ ’ (.64), ``Witnessing torture’ ’ (.49), ``Physical contact with the dead and wounded’ ’ (.66), ``Has seen someone who was wounded or killed’ ’ (.74). The eigenvalue of the factor is 1.54 and it accounts for 7.7% of the total variance. 4. Victimization of family members: ``Family members on the front line’ ’ (.58), ``Family member injured’ ’ (.59), ``Family member in detention or missing in action’ ’ (.55), ``Family member killed’ ’ (.67). The eigenvalue of the factor is 1.21 and it accounts for 6.1% of the total variance. 5. Personal victimization: ``Deprivation of food or/ and water’ ’ (.61), ``Has been wounded’ ’ (.59), ``Held in detention or in a camp’ ’ (.64). ``Has lived without shelter’ ’ (.59). The eigenvalue of the factor

is 1.32 and it accounts for 6.6% of the total variance. Both questionnaires were administered in classrooms together with other questionnaires (that data will be reported elsewhere) in the Spring of 1997. The children were asked to express their feelings and thoughts about the war after the war in Croatia had ended.

RESULTS Croatian children’s attitudes toward war Table 1 shows frequencies, means, and standard deviations for all items and subscales of the Attitudes Scale Toward War and Peace for Croatian children. Full agreement with an item scored 2 points, partial agreement 1 point, and disagreement 0 points. Six items marked with an ``a’ ’ were later recoded in the opposite direction for the purpose of constructing sum variables on the four subscales. According to the means, the items could be grouped into three groups: a group of statements with which children agreed completely (mean higher than 1.5), a group of statements with which children agreed partially (mean in the range from 1.49± 0.51), and a group of statements with which children disagreed (mean lower

TABLE 1 Frequencies, means, and standard deviations for items and subscales of the Attitude Scale Toward War and Peace for Croatian children Level of agreement Subscale

Full

Partial

Disagree

Mean

SD

Moral judgement of war in general War is always a bad thing. Everyone suffers in war. War sometimes has good effects. a Participating in war is an exciting experience. a War is sometimes necessary.a

78.1 64.5 5.7 8.3 5.7

11.0 29.8 32.2 23.6 18.3

11.0 5.7 62.1 68.1 76.0

8.16 1.67 1.59 0.44 0.40 0.30

1.78 0.66 0.60 0.60 0.64 0.57

Justi® cation of own nation’ s ® ght War has harmed our people.a My people had no options but to ® ght. Peace had come only because our people were strong. War has united our people. War is good when we are victorious. War has brought good things to our people.

84.7 63.9 44.3 29.2 16.2 8.3

14.0 28.6 39.5 42.9 36.2 25.2

1.3 7.5 16.2 27.9 47.6 66.5

3.85 1.83 1.56 1.28 1.01 0.69 0.42

1.70 0.41 0.63 0.73 0.76 0.74 0.64

Loyalty and the sense of duty in war I admire soldiers. It is an honour to die for one’s country. Orders of which you do not approve must be obeyed in time of war. I would like to be a defender of our country when I grow up.

51.3 42.6 27.2 18.4

37.4 41.3 46.5 37.3

11.3 16.1 26.3 44.3

4.42 1.40 1.27 1.01 0.74

2.02 0.68 0.72 0.73 0.75

Attitudes to the possibility of peace It is possible to stop outbreaks of war. No one of us wants to ® ght any longer. There will always be war in the world.a Our enemies will always be our enemies. a There won’t be any more wars when I grow up.

68.1 66.2 44.1 27.0 15.3

27.1 25.4 44.1 41.7 36.7

4.8 8.3 11.8 31.3 48.0

5.59 1.63 1.58 1.32 1.04 0.67

1.84 0.57 0.64 0.68 0.76 0.73

a

Items were inverted during scoring: Full agreement 5

0, Partial agreement 5

1, Disagreement 5

2.

IS WAR A GOOD OR A BAD THING?

than 0.50). Most Croatian children fully agreed that the war had harmed the Croatian people, that war was always a bad thing, and that it was possible to stop outbreaks of war. They also mainly agreed that everyone suffers in a war, that the Croatian people had had no options but to ® ght, and that nobody in Croatia wanted to ® ght any longer. The second group of statements, those with which children only partially agreed, consisted of 10 items. Four items from the subscale of Loyalty and sense of duty in war (admiration of soldiers, honourable to die for one’s country, obedience during wartime, wish to be a defender of the country) seem to be the most controversial. The other six items with which the children only partially agreed were from the subscale of Attitudes to the possibilities of peace (inevitability of wars, optimism about future without wars, and future status of present enemies) and from the subscale Justi® cation of the national ® ght (peace came only because of the strength of the Croatian people, war has united the Croatian nation, war is good when Croatia is victorious). Most Croatian children disagreed that wars were necessary, that they could bring good things to the people or have good effects, and that participation in a war was a desirable experience. All the items in this group, except for ``War has brought good things to our nation’ ’ were from the subscale that indicated moral condemnation of war in general.

Relations between sex, age, amount of war experiences, and attitudes toward war In order to examine whether children’s sex, age, and war suffering are related to their attitudes toward war, the 2 3 2 3 2 (Sex 3 Age 3 Number of Experiences) ANOVA was performed for cumulative results in each of the four scales. Table 2 shows the structure of war experiences of children from the capital of Croatia. Children were divided in two age groups: a group of younger (5th and 6th graders, N 5 114), and a group of older children (7th and 8th graders, N 5 116).

The mean of the total number of war experiences was 3.42 (SD 5 1.55). The children were classed in two subgroups according to the median of the total number of war experiences, which was 3. There were 59.4% children with 3 and fewer war experiences, and 40.6% with more than 3 war experiences. Results in certain items were recoded so that higher results indicated a more negative attitude toward war in general, more positive attitudes toward the national struggle and loyalty in war, and a more optimistic view of the possibility of peace. Table 2 gives the means and standard deviations of the different subgroups for each of the four subscales. The ANOVAs performed for the subscales showed signi® cant main effects of sex on two subscales. Boys were more ready than girls to justify their nation’s ® ght, F(7, 206) 5 9.03, p , .003, and to feel responsibility and demand loyalty in the state of war, F(7, 213) 5 24.79, p , .001. The ANOVAs further showed a signi® cant main effect of age on attitudes to loyalty in war, F(7, 213) 5 8.10, p , .005, and to possibilities of peace, F(7, 211) 5 7.20, p , .008. Younger children in the Croatian sample (age 11± 12) were more prone than older children to see war in a more romantic way, i.e., to admire soldiers, glorify suffering, support loyalty, and express the wish to become defenders of their country. Younger children were also more optimistic than older children toward the possibility of future peace. The main effect of the amount of war experiences was not signi® cant for any of the subscales. However, the amount of war experience had signi® cant interaction effects with sex and age on the subscale of Justi® cation of loyalty and responsibility in the situation of war, F(7, 213) 5 8.30, p , .004, and F(7, 213) 5 5.00, p , .03, for sex and age respectively. Concerning the interaction of sex and amount of war experience, Figure 1 indicates that the association between war experiences and personal loyalty and sense of duty in a state of war is different for boys and girls. The more war experiences girls had, the more loyalty

TABLE 2 Means and standard deviations for the subscales of Children’s Attitudes Scale Toward War and Peace according to sex, age, and the amount of war experiences Subscale Disapproval of war in general Group Sex Boys Girls Age Younger Older Amount of war experiences Less experiences More experiences

247

Justi® cation of national ® ght

Justi® cation of loyalty in war

Optimism toward prospect of peace

N

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

121 109

7.94 8.40

1.81 1.72

5.55 4.60

2.03 2.00

4.99 3.78

1.94 1.91

5.76 5.44

1.76 1.92

114 116

8.35 8.01

1.70 1.84

4.93 5.27

1.93 2.18

4.70 4.17

1.92 2.09

5.94 5.30

1.99 1.63

125 105

8.28 7.97

1.75 1.81

4.84 5.49

1.89 2.26

4.31 4.59

2.04 2.01

5.70 5.49

1.89 1.74

248

JAGODICÂ TABLE 3 Intercorrelations between subscales of the Attitude Scale Toward War and Peace Subscale

1

2

1. 2. 3. 4.

±

2 .39** ±

War in general Own nation’s ® ght Personal loyalty in war Possibilities of peace *p,

.05;

** p ,

3 2 .12 .43** ±

4 .15* 2 .19* .01 ±

.001.

Children who experienced more victimization in their family had more positive attitudes toward their nation’s ® ght and supported loyalty during wartime more than those who had fewer such experiences.

Figure 1.

Children’s justi® cation of personal loyalty and responsibility in the state of war as a function of sex and the amount of war experience.

they showed, whereas, on the contrary, the more war experiences boys had, the less loyalty they expressed. The second interaction effect shows that the children’s age affects the association between war experiences and attitudes of loyalty toward their nation (Figure 2). Among older children, those with more war experiences showed a higher level of personal loyalty than those with less war experience. No association between war experiences and loyalty was found among younger children. The relationship between the ® ve groups of war experiences and different aspects of attitudes toward war was explored by the mean of correlations. Only two signi® cant, but rather low, correlations were found between the level of victimization of the child’s family members and attitudes toward their nation’s ® ght (r 5 .14, p , .04) and loyalty in war (r 5 .15, p , .02).

Relations among different aspects of attitudes toward war Table 3 shows the intercorrelations of cumulative results on the four subscales of the Attitude Scale Toward War and Peace (PunamaÈ ki, 1987). The highest correlation was between children’s attitudes toward the ® ght of their nation and their attitudes toward the need of loyalty during wartime. Children who had positive attitudes toward their nation’s ® ght tended to support feelings of duty and loyalty in a state of war. However, those children also tended to have a more pessimistic view of the prospects of peace. Stronger disapproval of war in general resulted in a negative attitude to the justi® cation of a particular war of the child’s nation, and the child’s optimistic view of the possibility of peace. However, there was no signi® cant correlation between general attitudes toward the goodness or badness of war and attitudes toward personal loyalty in war, nor between the latter and attitudes toward prospects of peace in the world and in the particular country.

Comparison of Croatian, Israeli, and Palestinian children’s attitudes toward war and peace

Figure 2.

Children’s justi® cation of personal loyalty and responsibility in the state of war as a function of age and the amount of war experience.

Before comparing the attitudes of children from Croatia and from the Middle East, it was important to explore their war experiences. The three samples were not easy to compare due to the different data collected about their experiences. However, Table 4 gives a comparison of the data that were equivalent for the two samples. There was a signi® cant difference in the active participation of their family members in war among the children of different ethnicities. Family members of the Croatian and Palestinian children were active war participants less often than family members of the Israeli children. There were also signi® cant differences in the casualties suffered by the families of the three subsamples; Palestinian and Israeli children experienced more losses than children in the capital of Croatia. The family members of children from the Croatian sample were injured less often than those of Israeli and Palestinian children.

IS WAR A GOOD OR A BAD THING?

249

TABLE 4 Percentage of children who lived through different war experiences by national group National group War experience Experienced air and general raids.a Has been in shelter or cellar. a Close range shooting.a Has been in a life-threatening situation.a Loss of things and animals she/he has loved.a Separation from family longer than 3 weeks. a Displaced from home.a Has seen someone who has been wounded or killed.a Has seen others being beaten or tortured.a Carried or had been in touch with dead and woundeda Witnessed wounding or killing.a Family member has been on the front line. Family member has been injured. Family member in detention or missing in action. Family member killed. Sometimes during the war suffered from hunger and thirst. Has seen or heard explosion, terror act, or shelling incidentb Has been involved in violent confrontation with soldiersb Neighbour or friend wounded in war/war-like event.b Neighbour or friend lost in war/war-like event. b

c

2

Croatian

Israeli

Palestinian

97 94 45 24 11 9 7 11 4 2 1 36 4 2 1 1 ± ± ± ±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

±

± 76 21 ± 29 ± 45 ± 35 36

± 26 39 67 37 ± ± 87 45 40

± 55.86** 70.43** 187.17** 84.86** ± ± ± 2.87 0.56

a

War experiences recorded only among Croatian children. War experiences recorded only among Middle East Children (PunamaÈki, 1987). ** p , .001. b

Data about detention or missing family members were available only for Croatian and Palestinian children, and the difference was substantial. Palestinian and Israeli children did not signi® cantly differ in respect to how many of their neighbours or friends were wounded or killed in the war. Since the answering formats in the two studies differed (two vs. three categories), in order to compare the attitudes of children belonging to the three nationalities we summed up the answers of Croatian children indicating full and partial agreement. The one-way ANOVAs performed for all the items in the three nations yielded signi® cant F-values for all items but one, i.e., ``It is an honour to die for one’s country’ ’, F(2, 540) 5 2.49, p , .08. Due to the differences in answering format, and the two items that were adapted, it was not possible to make a comparison on the sum variables or subscales. The post hoc Scheffe tests showed that children of the three nations differed signi® cantly in ® ve items. Two items were from the subscale on children’s Attitudes toward war in general: item ``Everyone suffers in war’ ’ , F(2, 540) 5 38.15, p , .0001, and item ``War is always a bad thing’ ’ , F(2, 540) 5 38.11, p , .0001. The other three items in which the children of the different nationalities differed were one from each of the following subscales: from the Attitudes toward one’s own nation’s ® ght in the item ``My people had no options but to ® ght’’ , F(2, 540) 5 52.36, p , .0001; from the Attitudes toward loyalty in war in the item ``I would like to be a defender of my country’ ’ , F(2, 540) 5 47.92, p , .0001; and from the Attitudes toward prospects of peace in the item ``It is possible to stop outbreaks of war’’ , F(2, 540) 5 381.72, p , .0001.

Palestinian and Israeli children had similar attitudes, which differed from the attitudes of Croatian children, in four items: two items from the subscale on the general view of warÐ ``War sometimes has good effects’’ , F(2, 540) 5 72.54, p , .0001; ``War is sometimes necessary’ ’ , F(2, 540) 5 99.12, p , .0001Ð and two items from the subscale on attitudes toward prospects of peaceÐ ``There won’ t be any more wars in my country when I grow up’ ’ , F(2, 540) 5 15.84, p , .0001; ``There will always be wars in the world’ ’ , F(2, 540) 5 23.97, p , .0001. Croatian children shared opinions about war with Israeli children (and both differed signi® cantly from Palestinian children) in eight items. Croatian and Israeli children agreed in one item from the scale Attitudes toward war in general: ``Participating in war is an exciting experience’ ’ , F(2, 540) 5 76.03, p , .0001; in four items from Attitudes toward own nation’s ® ght: ``War has united our people’ ’ , F(2, 540) 5 19.76, p , .0001; ``War has brought good things to our people’ ’ , F(2, 540) 5 11.05, p , .0001; ``War has harmed our people’ ’ , F(2, 540) 5 38.08, p , .0001; ``War is good when we are victorious’ ’ , F(2, 540) 5 40.45, p , .0001; in one item from Attitudes toward loyalty in war: ``I admire soldiers’ ’ , F(2, 540) 5 5.47, p , .0004; and in two items from Attitudes toward prospects of peace: ``No one of us wants to ® ght any longer’ ’, F(2, 540) 5 74.97, p , .0001, ``Our enemies will always be our enemies’’ , F(2, 540) 5 45.80, p , .0001. Finally, Croatian children shared an opinion with Palestinian children, but not with Israeli children, in only one item, and that belonged to the subscale Attitudes toward loyalty in war: ``Orders must be obeyed in war . . .’ ’ , F(2, 540) 5 10.76, p , .0001.

250

JAGODICÂ

Moral judgement of war in general

Justi® cation of one’s own nation’s ® ght

The ® rst subscale in the Attitude Scale Toward War and Peace refers to whether warfare is good or bad and to the consequences of war. Figure 3 depicts percentages of Croatian, Israeli, and Palestinian children who have favourable attitudes to war in general. Children of the three nations differ signi® cantly from one another in two out of ® ve items on this subscale. Croatian children considered least often that everyone suffers in war (6%), followed by Palestinian children (19%), and Israeli children who were of that opinion most often (38%). The smallest number of Croatian children were convinced that war is not always a bad thing (11%), followed by twice as many Palestinian children (22%) and more than four times as many Israeli children (49%) who held that opinion. The Israeli and Palestinian samples were similar, and signi® cantly different from the Croatian sample, in the proportion of children who agreed that war was sometimes necessary (72% and 81% vs. 24% respectively) and that war sometimes had good effects (80% and 86% vs. 38%, respectively). The number of Croatian children who disagreed with these statements was much lower than the number of Palestinians and Israeli children. Israeli and Croatian children agreed about the excitement of war. The children of those two ethnic groups were less convinced than Palestinian children that war was an exciting experience (32% and 32% vs. 87% respectively).

The attitudes toward the child’s own nation’s struggle in war re¯ ect an acceptance and justi® cation of those efforts and their consequences. Figure 4 depicts the favourable attitudes of children of the three nations toward their national struggles. Children of the three nations signi® cantly differ from one another in their opinion of whether their nation had other options except war. The greatest number of Croatian children supported the decision of their nation to ® ght (93%), Palestinian children gave less support but it was still great (71%), while Israeli children were the most divided on that issue (52%). Croatian and Israeli children agreed with one another, and disagreed with Palestinian children, in the four other items of the subscale that indicates support for the national ® ght. Croatian and Israeli children were more convinced than Palestinian children that war had united their nations (72% and 71%, vs. 42%, respectively), and less convinced that war had brought good things to their people (34% and 25%, vs. 50%, respectively), that it had not harmed their people (1% and 8%, vs. 28%, respectively), and that war is good when their nation won (52% and 53%, vs. 94% respectively). Comparison of the three nations for the item ``Peace has come only because our people were strong’ ’ , which also belongs to this subscale, was not possible because PunamaÈ ki did not present it in her study.

Figure 3.

Favourable attitudes of Croatian, Israeli, and Palestinian children toward war in general.

IS WAR A GOOD OR A BAD THING?

Figure 4.

Favourable attitudes toward one’s own nation’s ® ght among Croatian, Israeli, and Palestinian children.

Loyalty and sense of duty in war This subscale consists of items that describe patriotism on one hand, and the practical responsibilities of a child’s own involvement in the ® ght on the other. As Figure 5 shows, all the children held generally positive attitudes toward the loyalty of citizens during wartime.

Figure 5.

251

The children of the three nations demonstrated their unquestionably high degree of support and emotional involvement in the national struggle. Croatian, Israeli, and Palestinian children did not differ in their opinion that death for the country was an honour (84%, 87%, and 92%, respectively). On the other hand, they differed in their wish to become defenders when they grow up.

Favourable attitudes toward loyalty and responsibility in war among Croatian, Israeli, and Palestinian children.

252

JAGODICÂ

Whereas almost all Israeli children (94%), and most Palestinian children (80%) wished to ® ght for their nation in the future, Croatian children were not so interested in being active in the defence of the country (56%) as adults. In spite of that, Croatian and Israeli children similarly admired soldiers (89% and 87%), but less than Palestinian children admired their freedom ® ghters (98%). Croatian children and Palestinian children were less supportive of obedience of all orders in a war (74% and 66%) than Israeli children (87%).

Attitudes toward the prospects of peace This subscale consists of attitudes toward possibilities of peace in the world and in the children’s country. Figure 6 shows the pessimistic attitudes of children of the three nations toward prospects of peace. Children of the three nations signi® cantly differ in their belief that it is possible to stop outbreaks of war in the world. Palestinian children were the most pessimistic (88%), Israeli children much less pessimistic (13%), and Croatian children the least pessimistic (5%). Croatian and Israeli children agreed with each other, and disagreed with Palestinian children, in their willingness to continue ® ghting (8% and 9% vs. 52%, respectively), and in their belief that today’s enemies would be enemies forever (69% and 70%, vs. 25%, respectively). Croatian children were signi® cantly less pessimistic in their attitude to prospects of peace in their country (48%) than both Israeli and Palestinian children (68% and 74%

Figure 6.

respectively). It is the opposite in the children’s attitudes toward possibilities of peace in the world: Croatian children are signi® cantly more pessimistic (88%) than Israeli and Palestinian children (60% and 71% respectively).

DISCUSSION The major purpose of this study was to examine the attitudes of Croatian children toward war and to reexamine the in¯ uence of gender, age, war experiences, and nationhood on children’s attitudes to warfare. The results con® rm a middle course of opinions concerning the in¯ uence of political socialization in violent circumstances. Croatian children who underwent the experience of war in their country had negative attitudes towards war in general and towards the sufferings of people during a war, but strongly supported the ® ght of their nation. The study shows that children do not think and feel about all the aspects of war in a black-and-white manner. They are aware that some things about war are relative. For example, they only partially agreed with the need for obedience during wartime, with the power of war to unify the nation, with the opinion that today’s enemies would be enemies forever, etc. In addition, the study showed that children’s attitudes towards war vary according to factors like sex, age, and exposure to war hazards. Although Croatian boys and girls both despise ® ghting and killing in general, boys approved of some aspects of war more than girls. Croatian boys approved of the national ® ght more than

Pessimistic attitudes toward prospects of peace among Croatian, Israeli, and Palestinian children.

IS WAR A GOOD OR A BAD THING?

girls. They perceived war in a more romantic way, as a situation in which one can express one’s noble feelings of loyalty, courage, strength, and honour. The results for the Croatian sample correspond to those obtained by Tolley (1973), who found that American boys were more favourably inclined toward the Vietnam war and showed more enthusiasm than girls when it comes to their own involvement and responsibility during wartime, as well as to the ® nding that Israeli/Palestinian boys glori® ed war more than girls (PunamaÈ ki, 1996). Also, the results are in accord with some of the results obtained by Covell (1996). Boys in Covell’s study, similarly to Croatian boys, rated war as signi® cantly more exciting, showed more support for obedience in war, and wanted to participate in the army more than girls. The results obtained are, however, contrary to Covell’s results on sex differences in the case of agreement with statements that war is sometimes necessary and that war is good if you (your nation) win. While American and Canadian boys showed stronger agreement with those statements than girls, in the Croatian sample no sex differences were found. The results of our study were not in accordance with those shown by Palestinian and Israeli children in PunamaÈ ki’s earlier study (PunamaÈ ki, 1987), where no dissimilarities were found in the attitudes of boys and girls in any of the four subscales. Our results were also discordant with PunamaÈ ki’s more recent ® nding that boys are more pessimistic toward prospects of peace and that there are no sex differences in children’s patriotic involvement (PunamaÈ ki, 1996). Studying the mental health function of war attitudes among Middle East children, the same author found more favourable war attitudes of boys only among Palestinian, but not among Israeli children (PunamaÈ ki, 1993). The differences observed between boys and girls in the different countries might be explained by differences in gender and political socialization in various societies. Israeli boys and girls are equally involved in military training and service, and Palestinian children of both sexes are encouraged very early to participate in their nation’s ® ght, whereas military training in Croatia is still an area reserved exclusively for adult males. On the other hand, the views about war among Canadian and American adolescents may re¯ ect the role of their countries on the world scene, which is completely different to the role of a small country such as Croatia. In addition, the predominant life values and religious orientation of different societies may promote or discourage particular ways of perceiving, interpreting, and coping with events (passive, active, fatalistic, etc.). Our results indicate age differences only in attitudes toward loyalty in war. In the Croatian sample younger children were more prone than older children to look on war in a romantic way, i.e., to admire soldiers, glorify suffering, support loyalty, and express the wish to become defenders of their own country. This ® nding con® rms the results of researchers who concluded that children’s attitudes toward war become more critical with age (e.g., Hess & Easton, 1961; Preston, 1942; PunamaÈ ki,

253

1993). They are also on the line of knowledge about the political socialization of children’s attitudes toward their nation, which were found to be unconditionally very positive at an early age (VujcÏ ic , 1993). However, other researchers did not ® nd a similar tendency with increasing age (Cooper, 1965; Tolley, 1973). The sample of Middle East children in 1987 was too homogenous to study age differences (PunamaÈ ki, 1987), and in her more recent study the author did not ® nd age differences among children aged 10 to 13 (PunamaÈ ki, 1996). However, another study by the same author (PunamaÈ ki, 1993) showed that Palestinian children become more critical about war issues with increasing age, whereas a ``U’ ’ shape pattern of correlation between age and war attitudes was found among Israeli children, with the most favourable attitudes toward war and the national struggle among the youngest (10± 11 years) and the oldest (14± 15 years) children. An explanation for younger children’s more af® rmative attitudes toward war might be that their developmental level does not allow them to understand the ideological dilemma of war, i.e. the dilemma between the basic human value of preserving human life and the patriotic demands for ® ghting and killing in war. For older children, however, favourable attitudes toward war and national struggle may serve different functions, e.g., the function of mastering war experiences and feelings associated with those experiences (fear, anger, grief). In our study the main effect of the amount of children’s war experiences was not signi® cant for any subscale. However, the amount of war experiences had signi® cant interaction effects with sex and age on the subscale of Justi® cation of loyalty and responsibility in the situation of war. Girls with more war experiences justi® ed loyalty in times of war more than girls with less war experience. More experienced boys, on the other hand, were not so convinced about the need for responsibility and loyalty during wartime as those who had not experienced many war stresses and traumas. It may be that contact with the real consequences of violence has a sobering effect on boys’ romantic view of war. They seem to realize that being a soldier is not only about courage and glory, but also about fear, pain, and responsibility for life and death. For girls, who generally tend to be less aggressive and more oriented toward cooperation and prosocial behaviour, an encounter with violence may also have a sobering effect, but in the opposite direction. They may realize that it is sometimes important to strike back and that one has to respect those who are sacri® cing their life for that reason. Older Croatian children who had more war experiences showed a higher level of personal loyalty and responsibilty during wartime than their peers with less war experience. No association between level of experience and loyalty was found among younger Croatian children. The results obtained are in accordance with ® ndings showing that exposure to violence increases ideological commitment among children and adolescents (e.g., Dawes, 1990; PunamaÈ ki, 1996; Ziv et al., 1974).

254

JAGODICÂ

Strong ideological beliefs (e.g., strong patriotism, strong glori® cation of war) can in return be bene® cial for children’s psychological wellbeing, particularly if the experiences are not too traumatic and personally devastating (PunamaÈ ki, 1996). The results indicating that war experiences in¯ uence children’s tendency to manifest loyalty in a war situation are compatible with those of Palestinian children in PunamaÈ ki’s 1987 study. However, this author also found signi® cant differences associated with war experiences on the subscales of Attitudes toward war in general, and Attitudes toward their nation’s ® ght, which were not found among Croatian children. Comparing the attitudes of children from low- and high-tension areas in Israel, in her recent study PunamaÈ ki found that children from low-tension villages expressed higher glori® cation of war and were more pessimistic toward prospects of peace than children from both high-tension towns and villages and low-tension towns (PunamaÈ ki, 1996). Other studies show different results. Bender and Frosh (1942) and Janis (1951) concluded that those who underwent more war developed increasingly supportive attitudes toward war. In their study about the impact of political violence on moral reasoning in school-age children subjected to varying degrees of political violence and economic advantage (Israeli Jewish, Israeli Bedouin, and Palestinian West Bank), Elbedour, Baker, and Charlesworth (1997) found that children’s moral reasoning is a function of perceived conditions and circumstances. In purely hypothetical conditions all children used higher levels of moral reasoning than in real-life conditions (reasoning about political dilemmas in the Middle East con¯ ict). The ® ndings of that study and general knowledge about children’s moral development and situational in¯ uences on moral reasoning may also be extrapolated to reasoning about the war. It is well documented that potentially negative consequences on a person lower his or her levels of moral reasoning (e.g., Leming, 1978; Sobesky, 1983). It may be that exposure to war violence constrains children’s moral reasoning and their reasoning about the badness of war, resulting in greater readiness to support more concrete actions that might bring about a solution of the con¯ ict, i.e., to admire soldiers, think that it is an honour to die for the country, support obedience in war, and wish to be defenders when they grow up. Since younger children have not yet reached a higher level of moral reasoning, war experiences cannot have such a regressive in¯ uence on their moral reasoning as in the case of older children. An analysis of the relationship between type of war experiences and attitudes toward war showed that the only relevant kind of experience was victimization of child’s family members. Children whose family members actively participated in the war, or were injured, killed, or captured during wartime, were more supportive of their national ® ght and felt more personal loyalty than children with fewer experiences of this kind. This ® nding is in concordance with the results of Palestinian children

who lost family members in war or whose family members were imprisoned (PunamaÈ ki, 1987), but not with data for the Israeli subsample, in which no connection was found between losing a family member and attitudes toward war and ® ghting. Since most of the children from the Croatian sample were from the capital of Croatia, which was less affected by the war than some other parts of the country, for more valid conclusions it would be interesting, in future research, to compare children who were traumatized by war in a different way and more personally. The major ® ndings in cross-national comparison showed that children’s attitudes toward war also vary according to the political ideology and cultural characteristics of the society that was at war. The comparison of Croatian, Israeli, and Palestinian children on 19 items of the Attitude Scale Toward War and Peace showed that the children from the 3 nations agree on only one thing, and that is that it is an honour to die for one’s country. The children of the three nations disagreed about some aspects of the nature of war (war is bad, everyone suffers in war), about the possibility of stopping an outbreak of war, in their attitude toward justifying the beginning of the national ® ght (my people had no options but to ® ght), and in their wish to engage in defence when they become adults. It should be noted that the differences observed might be explained not only by differences in political ideology and religious orientation of the three countries, but also by differences in children’s war experiences and the time lag between the two studies (1979± 1997). However, a number of differences in attitude of Croatian children on one hand, and Middle East children on the other, does not con® rm this conclusion. Moreover, such differences were observed on only four items (21%). Croatian children were less convinced than Middle East children that war can have good effects, and that it is sometimes necessary, and were more convinced that there will be no more wars in their country when they grow up. Furthermore, Croatian children were more pessimistic than Middle East children in their belief that there will always be wars in the world. These differences would seem to re¯ ect differences in the nature and duration of armed con¯ ict in the two regions. Although it brought enormous destruction to the country, the full blow of the war in Croatia lasted for 4 years, whereas the con¯ ict in the Middle East has been going on for decades and has not yet been resolved. The greater similarity between contemporary Croatian and Israeli children than between contemporary Croatian and Palestinian children, found in the recent comparative study on historical consciousness and political attitudes of European youth (Angvik & Von Borries, 1997), was con® rmed in the comparison of today’s Croatian children with Middle East children who lived almost two decades ago. The reasons for the observed similarities between the Israeli and Croatian sample might be found in the similarity of time passed after the long period of heaviest ® ghts, and the political

IS WAR A GOOD OR A BAD THING?

climate of optimism connected with peaceful negotiations in the two wars. Namely, the data for both samples were collected 6 years after the most intensive periods of wars (in Israel in 1979, 6 years after the Yom Kippur War in 1973; in Croatia in 1997, 6 years after 1991, during which a great part of the country was occupied). Also, after those worst periods peaceful processes were accelerated (Washington’s Agreement since 1994, and Sadat’s Peace Offer in 1977). In addition, Croatian and Israeli samples were both predominantly from urban and relatively slightly disturbed areas, whereas the Palestinian sample consisted of children from the West Bank who mostly lived in refugee camps and under conditions of military occupation. Croatian and Israeli children agreed, and disagreed with Palestinians, on eight (42%) items. In contrast to Palestinian children, most Croatian and Israeli children did not consider participation in war a very exciting experience and they admired soldiers somewhat less. Croatian and Israeli children agreed in almost all things concerning their national ® ghts. The children of the two nations were more convinced than Palestinian children that war had united their nations, but that it had in general harmed their people and that it had not brought them good things. Croatian and Israeli children agreed that war was not so good, even when their nations win, whereas Palestinian children approved a war in which they would win. Furthermore, Croatian and Israeli children believed that their nations were tired of ® ghting, whereas just over half of the Palestinian children believed that their people are not ready to continue ® ghting. On the other hand, while only a quarter of the Palestinian children believed that today’s enemies will continue to be enemies forever, almost two thirds of the Croatian and Israeli children hold that opinion. These results support the ® ndings of Elbedour et al. (1997), that children’s moral reasoning is a function of perceived conditions in their life, such as experience with violence and limited resources in the society. The only thing about which Croatian and Palestinian children agreed and disagreed with little Israelis, was the attitude to obedience in war. Fewer Croatian and Palestinian children supported unconditional obedience in wartime than Israeli children. The result may be interpreted in terms of the traditional role that the army plays in Israel and the general feeling of personal responsibility of each citizen for their national fate. To conclude, the factors that in¯ uence children’s attitudes towards war require further investigation. Whereas relations may seem to be clearer concerning demographic variables such as sex and age, the link with direct war experiences is still blurred. Furthermore, even the children who live in war-torn societies seem to differ although they suffer from similar physical and psychological wounds. Therefore, future studies of children’s war attitudes should use a comparable scale of measure, include cross-cultural samples from different peaceful and troubled countries, and explore how attitudes toward war differ between children on different sides of

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the same con¯ ict. More systematic research on this subject is needed since war attitudes play an important role in children’s efforts to make sense of war experiences that are often incomprehensible to adults. Manuscript received June 1998 Revised manuscript accepted May 1999

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