This study investigated the relationship of authoritarianism and teachers' attitude toward their pupils of graduate students in the Middle East. It was found that those individuals scoring high on authoritarianism had less positive attitudes toward pupils. Further, Moslems were more authoritarian and had less positive attitudes toward pupils than Christians. The sex of the respondent was not related to his or her attitude.
Previous studies completed a t the American University of Beirut demonstrated that the social pattern of control in the Middle East is authoritarian and that living in an authoritarian culture affects authoritarian ideology (Diab, 1954; Melikian, 1956; Prothro & Melikian, 1953). The authoritarian personality is characterized by a number of specific and consistent traits. He has a general hostility toward mankind and he approves of aggressive techniques to control deviations from the existing value and custom systems. The authoritarian personality believes in extreme dimensions such as strong-weak leaders or followers and is apt to be superstitious, leaving his fate in the hands of supernatural forces. He subscribes without question to the existing middle-class value system and submits uncritically to the dominant authority figure in the culture (Adorno, Frankel-Brunswick, Levinson, & Stanford, 1950).
Cook, Leeds, and Callis (1952) believe that attitudes are the key factor for effective teacher-pupil rapport and that teacher attitude largely determines the classroom social atmosphere. Teachers' attitude toward pupils in the school context is due to many related factors. Some of these factors are academic and general knowledge, different values and teaching strategies, social abilities, and personality characteristics.
Research on authoritarianism and teacher attitude shows that there is a moderately strong relationship between the two (Aleyama, 1971; Del Popola, 1960; Kingston & Newsome, 1960; Vacchiamo, Schieffman, & Areta, 1966). The study conducted by Aleyama on a sample from Bangalore, India, demonstrated a moderate relationship between teachers' attitudes as measured by the Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory (MTAI) and authoritarianism as measured by the F Scale.
Further, female teachers were more authoritarian than male teachers, and non-Christian teachers were more authoritarian than Christian teachers.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between authoritarianism and teachers' attitudes in the Middle East. Further, the study was designed to investigate whether there were any sex and/or religious differences in authoritarianism and teacher attitudes.
METHOD
Sample
The sample consisted of male and female education graduate students attending the American University of Beirut. The 80 students who comprised the sample came Requests for reprints should be sent to