This symposium focuses on value development from early adolescence to adulthood and on the vertical transmission of values between adults and younger generations. Viewed as desirable abstract goals that apply across situations, values are used to characterize individuals and societies, and to explain the motivational bases of attitudes and behaviors (Schwartz, 2005). Theories of developmental aging suggest that patterns of value priorities and of value influences between adults and children change across the life cycle. In particular, research is consistent in showing that children become very sensitive to parental value messages in adolescence, more than at any earlier time during childhood. One controversy in the literature instead concerns the degree of parents’ influence on children’s values from the period of young adulthood, during which the parent-child relationship becomes less asymmetric and children are faced with further sources of influence (Barni et al., 2013; Roest et al., 2009).

As a whole, the three studies of this symposium provide a developmental and context-sensitive picture of socialization and transmission of values. They showed the unstable nature of early adolescents’ value priorities and analyzed the transmission processes between, on the one hand, teachers and adolescent students and, on the other hand, ageing parents and adult children in conditions of rapid and deep sociocultural change (i.e., migration context).

Adolescence is the formative period of values. Nevertheless, longitudinal research on adolescents’ value priorities is scarce. The present study aims to fill this gap in the literature by examining value change from early to middle adolescence. 329 Estonian adolescents were asked to fill out a 21-item version of the Portrait Values Questionnaire in three consecutive years: in the beginning of 7th, 8th, and 9th grade (aged 13, 14 and 15 respectively). The results showed that adolescents’ value hierarchy differs considerably from that of adults (see Bardi, Lee, Hoffmann-Towfigh, & Soutar, 2009), but differences seem to decrease as adolescents grow older. In 7th and 8th grade adolescents considered hedonism – value type that is on 8th place in the pan-cultural value hierarchy – the most important. By the start of 9th grade, however, hedonism had become less important and ranked as the second most important value type. Benevolence – value type that is on the top of adults’ value hierarchy – increased significantly in importance over the years and moved from being on the third place to the first place. Compared with 8th grade, the importance of self-direction and security had also increased by the start of 9th grade. Similarly to adults, adolescents considered power the least important in all three years. Furthermore, during all three assessments boys considered power more important than girls. Girls, in turn, rated stimulation and benevolence higher than boys. The results of the longitudinal study highlight the unstable nature of early adolescents’ value priorities.

In Western countries adolescents spend a lot of time at school, daily in contact with their teachers and classmates. Although models of socialization at school are not well developed, researchers consistently consider the school as a significant social context providing adolescents with experiences of plurality, consistent or discrepant with respect to what they have learned within their family. The school provides social interactions that represent a level of stimulation and negotiation that may not be available from parents at home, and teachers hold a key position in determining the activities and discussions in the classroom (Kiousis & McDevitt, 2008; Wentzel & Looney, 2007).

Relying on Schwartz’s Value Theory (1992), this study aims at analyzing teachers’ socialization values (i.e., the values they would like their students to endorse) and their teaching styles (authoritarian vs. authoritative), as well as their students’ personal values. It involved 122 high school teachers and 677 students (41.6% males; aged between 14-18), selected from 39 classes of 15 different high schools in Italy. In particular, we tested a mediation model with teaching style as a single mediator between teachers’ socialization values and students’ personal values.

Data analysis is still in progress, and results will be discussed in relation to teacher-student relationship and socialization processes. Indications to implement values education in the school will be also provided.

Most studies on intergenerational value transmission in migrant families have focused on adolescents, whereas not much is known about value similarities and differences between adult children and their ageing parents in the acculturation context. Earlier research has shown that adult children and their parents become in general closer in their value orientations as they share similar life situations and roles as adults; however, intergenerational gaps in value orientations might increase due to intergenerational differences in status or educational attainment, and this might be especially pronounced between first and second generation in migrant families.

The present study focusses on a sample of n = 65 couples of Luxembourgish and n = 66 couples of Portuguese adult children and their parents, all living in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Portuguese adult children were born resp. had grown up in Luxembourg. General value orientations, perceived value similarity and the motivation to transmit or take over parental values were assessed by use of a standardized questionnaire. Our data structure allowed taking into account both perspectives of adult children and their ageing parents.

First analyses show similarities between Luxembourgish and Portuguese families with regard to intergenerational value congruence; however, results suggest different mechanisms in Portuguese migrant compared to Luxembourgish families with a more prominent role of motivational processes in the transmission of values in the acculturation context. Gender, age and socio-demographic factors will be taken into account.

Results will be discussed within an integrative framework on intergenerational relations in the light of migration and ageing.