Nurturing Pillars of Society: Understanding and Working with the Young Generation in Hong Kong

2 - Understanding Young People: A System Perspective

2 Understanding Young People: A System Perspective Normally, everyone is born into a family with both parents. Usually a person will stay in the family for about two to three years before entering the formal education system by way of a nursery. A child or young person (aged 2 to 22) then remains in the system for nearly 20 years before finishing college. He or she thus passes through the adolescent stage while acquiring a formal education. He or she also develops a peer system during these years. Family, school, and peers are thus the three main social systems to which a young person is exposed. Employing a system perspective, each social system has its own internal dimensions, perceived as subsystems, that affect its functioning to fulfill an individual’s needs and expectations (Lee and Ip, 2003). As noted, the family is first responsible for nurturing personalities, teaching rules, norms, and problem-solving skills, and for fulfilling the need for intimacy. Prior to the child’s entry into school, the family also provides material and emotional support, discipline, guidance, and so on. If a person’s expectations of family are not met, negative perceptions of the family further deteriorate when he or she enters school and has less time in the family. School is an important system, wherein individuals acquire confidence and build up self-esteem through positive experiences. These are paramount in the growth of young people. During the transitional period—that is, when youngsters enter secondary school—they face varieties of stress brought about by the new environment, such as coping with new interpersonal relationships with classmates and teachers, a new school curriculum, etc. Thus, it is important for school to be a supportive agent so as to engender positive feelings. If students constantly face setbacks that contribute to academic and interpersonal failures, negative perceptions of school will result. This greatly reduces their motivation to study while also gradually eroding their confidence. Ultimately, their commitment to schooling 12 Nurturing Pillars of Society fades, and they express their dissatisfaction by way of truancy or dropping out. Self-esteem and self-confidence are damaged when they fail to meet academic requirements. Thus, school may become a negative social system, wherein young people are most familiar with failure and frustration. To promote positive aspects of the schooling experience is important so that students are encouraged to stay and learn within the system. If such aspects are not promoted, when another, more approachable system emerges (e.g., the peer system), young people will be easily attracted to it and they may consider leaving school to disengage from the negative aspects they have experienced (Lee and Ip, 2003). Diagram 1 The push-pull theory of youth problems Family School Peers Young person Specialised groups Mass media Pulling force Pulling force Pulling force Pulling force Pulling force Understanding Young People: A System Perspective 13 Peers are the most significant and influential force upon adolescents. They are probably the young person’s only positively felt social system (Lee, 2002b). Peers fulfill expectations that are not satisfied by family and school. In their experiences with peers, young people have a sense of belonging, freedom, and power that makes them feel respected, happy, understood, and supported while having fun and sharing, which are essential for young people (Lee, 2002a; Steinberg, 2004). The peer system enhances young people’s self-esteem and self-confidence. Positive feelings among peers gradually take on an important role in the adolescent’s world. When young people have problems or difficulties or decisions to make, they listen and value their peers’ opinions most. To articulate the influences of these systems on young people, we say that family, school, and peer systems respectively exert distal, predisposing, and immediate effects on the predisposition among young people to drop out of school (Lee and Ip, 2003). With reference to the different social systems to which a young person is exposed, including family, school, peers, mass media, and negative specialised groups such as triads, I have elsewhere proposed a push-pull theory accounting for youth problems, in which social systems play a significant role (Lee, 2002b). An uncaring and unsupportive family atmosphere, coupled with inadequate parental supervision and unrewarding and frustrating experiences in school, create “push” forces that predispose young people to escape from these social systems. In turn, emotional and tangible support from peers, the seductions of the mass media, and the attraction of...