Farzaneh Sheibani Tezerji - Department of Demography, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran

The present study was conducted to compare the attitudes towards aging in children of Iranian ethnicity of Fars, Kurd, Turk and Baloch. The target statistical population consisted of all children residing in Isfahan (Fars), Sanandaj (Kurd), Zahedan (Baloch) and Tabriz (Turk) and the sample consisted of 800 students (400 girls and 400 boys) selected by availability as the convenience sampling. Research tool included a self-made questionnaire of attitude towards aging. Validity of the questionnaire was determined by exploratory factor analysis and its reliability was determined by Cronbach s alpha at a satisfactory level. To test the hypotheses, two-way ANOVA test was used between the groups. The results showed a significant difference between children of different ethnic groups in attitudes towards aging (p <0/05). Also, the effect size was examined to study the differences in ethnic groups that the Eta square was equal to 0.601. This size effect shows that the observed difference is great. Scheffe post hoc test results showed that the attitude of the Fars ethnic group is more positive than other groups, and then the attitudes of Kurds, Turks and Baloch are in the next rates. The attitude of Baloch ethnic group has been more negative than the other groups. The results also showed that there is no significant difference between attitudes to the elderly between girls and boys in every tribe (p> 0.05). The results of this study showed that the children s attitudes to aging are affected by many factors, the most important of which is the ethnicity of children and the position of the elderly in the society.

Attitudes Towards Aging, Children, Ethnicity, Iran