Table 3. Means for Relative Frequency of Hopes and Fears by Status and Country (Statistically significant differences) OverAll Hopes
At school
Unemployed
Fin
Swe
Ita
Engl
P
Fin
Swe
Ita
Engl
P
Occupation
29.62
24.42
24.04
33.44
17.16
0.05
36.51
38.05
37.99
33.28
ns.
Education
14.52
23.31
13.31
8.03
16.09
0.05
15.30
19.54
14.82
0.86
0.001
Property
14.22
7.65
24.98
1.79
8.12
0.001
16.33
15.00
2.56
31.95
0.01
Leisure
3.90
1.76
4.00
5.82
10.06
0.01
1.33
3.28
2.64
3.74
ns.
Health (own)
1.98
4.74
0.49
5.05
0.69
0.05
0.00
1.25
1.54
0.00
ns.
Parents
1.26
0.00
0.00
3.82
2.94
0.001
0.36
0.00
3.02
2.13
ns.
Friends
0.65
0.50
0.00
2.55
0.00
0.01
1.00
0.00
2.20
0.00
0.05
Health
0.52
0.43
0.00
2.98
0.00
0.01
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
ns.
(parents) Fears Occupation
24.88
34.74
19.07
33.57
14.51
0.05
28.40
5.17
21.41
34.20
0.001
Property
9.67
7.56
12.84
2.98
10.03
ns.
8.93
6.90
3.85
21.55
0.01
Global
6.89
4.61
8.33
1.19
6.94
ns.
9.33
17.53
10.38
0.00
0.05
Parents
0.85
0.00
0.98
0.00
4.31
0.01
0.00
0.00
0.00
2.01
ns.
What is also interesting, is how the unemployed and school-attending adolescents differed from each other in each country. In Italy, there were no statistically significant differences found between those two groups. In the Swedish sample the only difference was that school-attending adolescents were interestingly more worried about future occupation than the unemployed group. In the Finnish sample, schoolattending adolescents had significantly more hopes concerning family, education and own health than the unemployed group. In the English sample, unemployed adolescents had significantly more hopes concerning occupation and property than school attending adolescents who had clearly more hopes for education. One point that is interesting in this study is the way how property and money were represented in adolescents’hopes and fears. Is it influencing of the current market economy and materialistic thinking? The importance of property compared to other softer values, such as friends, seemed also a bit frightening. The results also show that the adolescents in European countries are interested in the same areas of life and directing their future into the ”adult-world”. Why the unemployment young people hopes of the future differ from school attending young people’ s? What is the main question in this issue? Is the point, for example with English young persons as simple as their socio-economic positions? In hopes of English unemployment young people emphasize occupation and property, so their hopes consist the wishes about better economic situation now and in future. And hopes of those who are at school are concerning family and education. The education is equipment to gain economic safety, so they can orientate to other areas of life. From this point of view it seems that young people still trust for education and qualification, which it gives.
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