THE ETHNIC INFLUENCE IN THE PROCESS OF LAW INTERNALISATION

Daniela Pirro

<<All citizens stand potentially in two kinds of relation to the law. The first is a relation of constraint: the law requires from them certain duties of obedience. The second involves the rights of the citizen: the law extends to the citizen a degree of protection against victimisation by others and offers redress should victimisation occur>> (Emler, 1990, p. 45).

In a multicultural society, especially in those who recently meet with the multicultural phenomena, such as Italy from the nineties, autochthonous people live together with ‘acquired’ citizens, migrated for different reasons, but especially economic ones, in a land and, more over, in a culture not of their own. This situation makes them live a sort of split between the types of Emler’s relationships with law, so that they can live just duties and obligations sometimes not shared, often not even understood. This situation is often the reason of immigrant deviance, sometimes just a consequence of a hard overlapping of different cultures.

Migrated people unconsciously transmit the sense of confusion and loneliness they feel to other members of the family, also to the youngest ones, that together with the whole of values, beliefs and laws inherit also a feeling of diversity and uncertainty in their everyday life. Frighi (1997) underlines the importance of institutions such as family organisation, educational system and religion in the process of transmission and internalisation of rules by the members of a society. During this process of transmission – in the author’s opinion – it is really important that ‘process of continuously latent impregnation’ that makes every culture use to elaborate a ‘basic personality’ made up of all psychological characteristics shared by all the members of a community and by their own way of life, act and react (Frighi, 1997, p. 32).

Some authors that have dedicated their studies to moral development, state that is not possible to explain attitude toward authority just cognitively, because there are important affective and emotional components to consider.

Law acceptance it is not determined just by the comprehension of actual legal order, but also by the development of positive feelings toward authority; morality and legality are the result of a process of progressive construction and rationalisation of attitudes and values inside of abstract, articulated and internally coherent conceptual scheme (Borri, 1994).

In this direction is evident, also in the process of law internalisation, the contribution given by the family in which the child grows up.

Our research investigate the most important differences and resemblances in the ways of socialisation of different ethnic groups. The intention is to find out the influence of cultural differences on the process of individual identity and personality construction and, consequently, on law internalisation and on the construction of a moral system inside the individual.

The research intends to look at some important expression of the process of socialisation such as the play, emotional expression, the relationship with authority (teachers and parents) and with laws, the relationship with children of different ethnic groups, religion in some pre-schooler (2/5 years old) to find out some peculiarity and some constant factors of analysed ethnic groups and to find out the possible cultural influences.

The main hypothesis is that also in younger children it is possible to find out the peculiarity and cultural constants that will sign the ethnic membership.

The research analysed 40 questionnaire completed by nursery schools teachers. They were asked questions about the most important differences and resemblances among the above mentioned variables for each ethnic group present in their school. The people interviewed have an average age of 37 years and an average seniority as teacher of 16 years. From the interviews we have found out 131 observations about 22 different ethnic groups (see Graphic 1).

Graphic 1 – Percentage distribution of each ethnic group

For this purpose we used a semi-structured and auto-administered questionnaire made up of 11 open questions to collect the personal report of the teachers about what was possible to notice in the children of their classroom.

There were children of many different ethnic groups: the most numerous were Philippines, Egyptians, Chinese and Japanese so we could find out general considerations just about them.

The results obtained are different and complex; now it is interesting to underline the results about children’s behaviour toward authority and about the process of law internalisation living together with different ethnic groups and sharing different cultures.

The most important differences are among Japanese, Egyptians and Albanians children; in detail Japanese children resulted very respectful toward teachers, rules school-mates; they were also faithful to their duties and submissive; another interesting result is their great closure in the expression of feelings. This is evident, for instance, in the way of cover their face if they feel to cry or to laugh; this is explainable if we look at the Japanese tradition that gives a great importance to values such as discretion and respect. On the contrary Egyptian children resulted more lively and curious, particularly authoritative toward little girls to whom they leave all the duties of tiding up and cleaning. This attitude is the direct consequence of their education in which the masculine figure is the hinge of the family, superior to woman both physically and intellectually. This is also confirmed by the fact that during the initial period little boys don’t address to teachers because they are women: Egyptian culture, in fact, is not used to see female teachers because the main duty of women is to look after home and family. A sign of great respect of a typical Egyptian rule is, also, the absolute respect for Ramada also in so little children. This fact is particularly interesting because in arabian cultures Ramada is not only a religious whole, but a real model of life. The fact that so young children refuse to eat foods contrary to their religion or to participate to feasts not shared it’s a clear sign of the importance and of the conditioning force of the culture of belonging internalised.

Finally Albanian children resulted particularly undisciplined and really difficult to approach.; for instance they often don’t respect common rules and school mates. This is probably a consequence of the very grave social situation in their birthplace. Finally they usually don’t repress emotions, freely expressing whatever they feel.

A further difference concerns play: Egyptian children prefer typical masculine games in which force is required, and also prefer open and large spaces. On the contrary Japanese children prefer individual games of physical movement or parlour games that they consider as a sort of exercise to do in a precisely and conscientiously way.

The results obtained reveal the importance of the laws transmitted to these children by their parents and by family links. These children haven’t yet defined the process of internalisation of cultural diversities, but the anchorage to the dictates of their own culture, sometimes, makes them resist to the internalisation of common laws proposed by the teachers inside the nursery school. Some questions of the research, in fact, reveal, for instance, that Egyptian children refuse to eat food contrary to their religion, don’t participate to Christmas celebrations while stay home and show great participation during Ramada period. Another instance is the fact that Albanian children don’t want to sleep during the afternoon because <<...they are not used to sleep at home>>. Philippines, instead, are the most quiet and collaborative ones confirming in this way the hypothesis of an influence of familiar laws on the acceptance of the rules necessary to the nursery school live. In fact a lot of studies reveal this aspect also in Philippine adults that live in Italy: people very quiet and collaborative to live together and to integration.

In conclusion it is then possible to find out a hard link and a hard impact of culture and laws before internalised also in so young children, fact that underline the great correlation between membership culture and law internalisation and the consequent difficulty in doing of their own, rules, customs and laws of a culture different from their own one. The hypothesis to be confirmed is that of the influence of multicultural cohabitation to solve the problems of immigrants integration.

BORRI, M. (1994), Esperienza della legge tra legalità e moralità – Prospettive cognitiviste, Psicologia e Società – XXIII (XLIV), 3, 105-120.

EMLER, N. (1990), Rules, reputations and authority: legal socialisation in childhood and adolescence, Categorie psicologiche e Categorie giuridiche, Congresso nazionale, S.I.Ps, Milano.

FRIGHI, L. (1997), Il percorso psicologico dell’emigrante tra lutto e desiderio, Attualità in Psicologia, Anno XII, 29-34.