ATTITUDES TOWARD INSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITIES AMONG ABORIGINAL SCHOOL-CHILDREN IN AUSTRALIA

Previous studies on attitudes toward authority among non-Aboriginal sc hool children in Australia have provided some support for the notion t hat attitudes toward parents influence the development of attitudes to ward other institutional authorities, and that school children have ge nerally positive attitudes toward such authorities. The cross-cultural validity of these propositions was tested with a sample of 46 Austral ian Aboriginal school children who completed reliable Likert-type scal es measuring attitudes toward parents, the police, the law, and teache rs. Principal components analysis of the scale scores indicated that, unlike results previously obtained with non-Aboriginal children (Rigby , Schofield, & Slee, 1987), attitude toward parents was factorially di stinct from attitudes toward the other authorities. Although the child ren in the Aboriginal sample were not, as a whole, negatively inclined toward the authorities, they were significantly less positively dispo sed toward parents and the police than the children in the non-Aborigi nal comparison group were.