ADOLESCENT ALIENATION - ITS CORRELATES AND CONSEQUENCES

This research is into the experience of alienation amongst British ado lescents. The study had three major aims: firstly to investigate poten tial differences across various dimensions of alienation on the basis of gender, ethnicity and religion. Secondly, to establish a relationsh ip between alienation, self-esteem and selected undesirable school beh aviours. Finally, there is an attempt to evaluate the use of alienatio n scales as a research tool in education. The study involved 254 parti cipants aged between 13 and 15 years attending large, multi-ethnic com prehensives. The findings show that reported levels of alienation were influenced by religious orientation but only minimally by gender or e thnicity per se. Reported alienation negatively correlated with self-e steem but was positively associated with truancy, exclusion and disrup tive behaviour. The authors conclude that, whilst alienation remains a useful concept for educational research, it is unhelpful to see it as an inevitable consequence of deprivation or membership of certain soc ial groups.