Serbian public opinion on child imagination and its correlates

Abstract

Child imagination is considered in developmental theories as a desirable precondition for later creative production, though in everyday use, imagination is viewed as fantasy, unreal, not practical and not important. The topic of interest in this paper is public opinion of imagination as the quality that can be encouraged to learn at home and the factors which influence this opinion. The data for the analysis were collected from the Third and Fourth Wave of World Values Survey. The findings suggest that imagination has a very low status among other child qualities which have to be supported. The increase in interest for imagination in the world and in Europe between the Third and Fourth Wave of the survey can indicate larger compliance with the actual demands of educational reform for democratization of education and encouragement of creativity of the young. Stagnation of child imagination status in the opinion of Serbian respondents is understandable in the framework of social crisis which happened at the time when the survey was conducted. The preference of imagination is positively correlated with respondents' postmaterialist orientation and educational level, but negatively with their age. The implications of findings for nurturing creativity in formative period are discussed. It is concluded that the school is invited to offer special programs to compensate for public opinion effects.

Dok se u razvojnim teorijama dečija mašta tretira kao poželjan preduslov za kasniju kreativnu produkciju, u svakodnevnoj upotrebi ovaj termin se odnosi na fantaziju, nešto nerealno, nepraktično i neznačajno. Predmet interesovanja u ovom radu su stavovi javnog mnjenja o tome u kojoj meri maštovitost deteta može da se podstiče u kući i faktori koji utiču na te stavove. Analizirani su podaci koji su prikupljeni u Trećem i Četvrtom talasu Svetske studije vrednosti. Nalazi ukazuju da maštovitost ima vrlo nizak status među osobinama dece koje treba da budu podržane. Porast vrednovanja maštovitosti na nivou svetskog i evropskog uzorka između Trećeg i Četvrtog talasa može se pripisati većem uvažavanju zahteva za demokratizacijom obrazovanja i podsticanjem kreativnosti mladih koji su sadržani u obrazovnim reformama. Zadržavanje niskog statusa maštovitosti na uzorku Srbije razumljivo je u okviru društvene krize koja se dešavala u vreme izvođenja ispitivanja. Preferiranje maštovitosti je pozitivno povezano sa postmaterijalističkom orijentacijom ispitanika i nivoom njihovog obrazovanja, a negativno sa njihovim uzrastom. Diskutovane su implikacije nalaza za podsticanje kreativnosti u formativnom periodu. Zaključeno je da je škola pozvana da ponudi posebne programe za prevazilaženje efekata iskazanih stavova.