Values of Ethnic Russians and the Indigenous Population in North Caucasus Republics of the Russian Federation: An Exploratory Three-Generation Comparison

Abstract

This paper examines intergenerational differences and similarities in value preferences among three generations of the Russian ethnic minorities in two North Caucasus republics of the Russian Federation. It also compares them with value preferences of three generations of Russians in the Central Federal District around Moscow and those of indigenous North Caucasus residents. The sample included 479 grandparent–parent–adolescent triads. Data were obtained using Schwartz’s Revised Portrait Values Questionnaire. Scores for Schwartz’s four higher-order value types (Openness to Change, Self-Enhancement, Conservation, and Self-Transcendence) were calculated. Analyses of variance showed that intergenerational differences were strongest for Openness values. For the three other values, preferences of grandparents and parents differed less than did preferences of parents and their offspring. Repeated measures analyses of covariance, controlling for differences in age, gender, and educational attainment in the five cultural groups, showed that intergenerational differences were moderated by cultural context. Intergenerational differences were consistently widest in the Central Federal District. Generally, value preferences of contemporary adolescents, their parents, and their grandparents are drifting apart in the most “modern” part of the Russian Federation, whereas in the periphery, the generations are staying more closely together, largely regardless of people’s ethnic belonging.