Political Attitude Congruence between Politically Active Parents and College-Age Children: An Inquiry into Family Political Socialization

Abstract

One parent and a college-age child were interviewed from sixty white uppermiddle-class families, in which the parent was highly politically active and identified with either liberal or conservative social causes. The sampte contained approximately equal numbers of mothers and fathers and sons and daughters. An analysis of dyadic political attitude agreement suggested that mothers had slightly greater influence on both daughters and sons. An analysis of the association of six independent family variables with parent-child attitude congruence indicated significant association of measures of family political climate with attitude congruence for all dyads except mother-son, with father-son dyads showing the greatest association. The reasons for the apparent discrepancies were discussed, along with the suggestion that symbolic interactionist theory provides a useful theoretical framework for political socialization research.