The elephant (and donkey) in the room: Parents’ approaches to political socialization surrounding the 2020 US election

Abstract

AbstractThe current study examined parents’ attitudes toward political socialization and political socialization messages related to the 2020 United States presidential election, using a sample of 185 parents of 6‐ to 12‐year‐old children from across the United States. Overall, parents viewed political socialization as somewhat important. However, a meaningful number of parents indicated beliefs that political socialization was not important, that their children were too young to learn about politics, or a desire to shield their children from knowledge of politics. Parents reported engaging in a variety of socialization practices, but reported higher levels of indirect approaches to socialization (e.g., watching political news while the child was present) compared to more direct approaches (e.g., reading books about politics with the child). As with frequency, the content of parents’ socialization messages varied widely, including explicit endorsement of candidates and policies, messages about the importance of respecting all opinions, and messages related to negative partisanship. Parents’ political interest, engagement with politics, and extremity of political ideology predicted their approaches to socialization. Community‐level factors (e.g., heterogeneity of voting patterns) were largely unrelated to parents’ attitudes and practices.