The Impact of Conflict on Children's Ideas About Their Country

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Abstract
To test the hypothesis that national conflict will influence children's levels of national loyalty and that this in turn will lead to a greater awareness of national identity and related issues, approximately 100 boys and 100 girls at each age level—9, 12, and 15 years—who at the time the data were collected (1979–1980) lived either in a society directly involved in conflict (Jordan or Northern Ireland) or in a society on the fringe of conflict (Iraq or Southern Ireland)—were asked to write an essay entitled “My Country.” Content analyses of these essays revealed few age and sex differences, suggesting that although the children in areas of conflict were aware of conflict, as shown by their more frequent references to violence, those children in areas on the fringe of conflict expressed greater national identity and showed more awareness of politics. Overall, the results also suggest that the impact of conflict was not independent of its cultural setting.

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