Strangers, Powerless and Hopeless in their Own Town: Alienation among Adolescents in Times of Recession
Gina Tomé *
Department of Mental Health, NOVA Medical School, Faculdade de Ciências Médicas, Instituto de Saúde Ambiental, University of Lisbon, Portugal.
Margarida Gaspar de Matos
Faculdade de Motricidade Humana, Instituto de Saúde Ambiental, University of Lisbon, Portugal.
Inês Camacho
Faculdade de Motricidade Humana, Instituto de Saúde Ambiental, University of Lisbon, Portugal.
Celeste Simões
Faculdade de Motricidade Humana, Instituto de Saúde Ambiental, University of Lisbon, Portugal.
Paulo Gomes
Reference Foundation for Science and Technology SFRH / BD / 70590 / 2010/, Faculdade de Motricidade Humana, Instituto de Saúde Ambiental/University of Lisbon, Portugal.
José Caldas de Almeida
Department of Mental Health/NOVA Medical School, Faculdade de Ciências Médicas, NOVA University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
The present work aims to make use of a national survey in order to propose an analysis of all the available indicators theoretically associated with the construct of alienation, and then validate a tool enabling not only to estimate alienation and its components in Portuguese adolescents, but also to identify associations regarding other demographic variables present in the survey. Participants were a group of adolescents that answered the Portuguese survey of Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC). The Portuguese survey included students from grades 6, 8 and 10 within the public education system. For this study, only adolescents from the 8th and 10th grades were included in the sample, comprising 3494 students.
The results show a good adequacy of the CFA model. This model has retained 4 scale proposals - Social Isolation, Normlessness, Powerlessness and Meaninglessness, and a full scale – Alienation.
The good fit of the data allowed the use of the scale and its sub-scales in the study of alienation among adolescents, enabling researchers to identify demographic correlates and to propose tailored preventive actions because in fact some gender, grade (as a proxy for age) and socio economic status differences are highlighted.
Keywords: Adolescents, alienation, mental health, socio-economic status.