Political Socialization Process Research Articles

Een vaderland om te beminnen ?: Het nationale bewustzijn van Vlaamse laatstejaarsscholieren

The political socialization of a sense of national belonging is problematic in a socio-political environment where children are confronted with multiple national identities. A survey was administered to a diversified sample of 1000 Flemish secondary school pupils, aged 17-18. The data show that most Flemish preadults,when asked, hesitate between the Flemish and the Belgian identity, which they moreover hardly consider as contradictory. This lack of a single evident fatherland somehow results in an absence of genuine patriotism. Significant in this respect is the fact that identification with the local community takes preference over allegiance to the nation. In addition, Flemish youth adopt a low-profile attitude towards both Flanders and Belgium. The political socialization process apparently does not effect an emotional attachment to either the Flemish or the Belgian political system . Obviously, respondents who vote fora Flemish-nationalistic party,or whose parents do so, tend to prefer the Flemish identity.

Teaching the Modern Presidency

The need to recognize institutional limits on presidents' abilities to translate their campaign promises into concrete public policy is a central theme characterizing much of the presidency literature during the past decade (Barger, 1984; Cronin, 1980; Hinckley, 1985; Light, 1983). Scholars have argued that the so-called “text-book presidency” (Cronin, 1980) paints an unrealistic picture of presidential power within the confines of a Madisonian framework of separated powers and checks and balances. Others have said that this unrealistic vision has contributed to the “cult of the presidency” (Hinckley, 1985), which is reinforced by the political socialization process and the media, thus leading to the “no-win” (Light, 1983) or “impossible” (Barger, 1984) presidencies. The notion of a plural executive, whose powers are fragmented throughout our Madisonian system has grown in popularity (King and Ragsdale, 1988). As a part of their recommendations for reform, virtually all of these authors emphasize correctly the potential role to be played by educators in imparting a more realistic understanding of the limitations of presidential power and outlining the potential consequences of hero worshipping for the occupant of the Oval Office. This article suggests an approach to teaching the presidency that rejects the notion that the president is the most important actor in the American political system. Instead, I will argue that we need to ask our students to consider the President as one actor in a highly fragmented political system, and to develop a more realistic view of both the sources and uses of presidential power within the broader context of democratic accountability and the development of citizenship.

Political Generation and Protest Behavior :

For political society in Japan, late 1960's is the age of confrontation politics represented by a lot of conflicts between radical youth protesters and severe social control power. The peak of national-wide university conflicts is located during 1968 and 1969. The generation which experienced such a confrontation politics in their youth has a chance of leaning rebellious political culture. This paper analyzes the continuance of political socialization on this generation up to the present. “Have those who were politically socialized by confrontation politics of late 1960's been engaging in radical protest behavior?” “At present, social movements are supported by their protest energy?” Three hypotheses, hypothesis of political generational unit, hypothesis of social movement participation by political experiences in the same age, hypothesis of protest engagement by social movement participation, are presented for answering to previous two questions in this paper. These hypotheses have reference to a theoretical model of generational political socialization proposed by the author. The data derived from protest constituency as a source of social movements support three hypotheses, and guarantee the validity of theoretical model of generational political socialization. This paper proves that the generation of 1968-69 has oriented to confrontation politics and engaged in protest behavior, through generational political socialization process consists of the radicalization of university conflicts in youth and their experience of social movement participation.

Political Socialization in Elementary Schools

Preparing students for intelligent political participation is a central function of social studies programs in elementary schools. 25 years of political socialization research have documented the relation between elementary school instruction and political socialization outcomes: schools and schooling appear to be independent variables in the child's acquisition of political content and attitudes. However, political socialization research has not been able to account for the low levels of political efficacy and participation, and it does not explain why political attitudes become increasingly negative with age. This article argues that our understanding of the ways in which children think about the political aspects of their lives-for example, power, partisanship, authority, justice, fairness-has been limited by functionalist views of schooling and positivist research paradigms. In order to understand the process of political socialization, research should focus on the ways in which individual children appropriate information from their home, neighborhood, and school experiences and use it to construct personal political realities.

The Political Acculturation of Mexican American Adolescents

The political orientations of 150 Mexican American parochial high school students, between the ages of 16 and 18, were examined. Three dimensions of political orientations, affective, cognitive and behavioral, were examined within the context of both the American and Mexican political systems. Results indicate that acculturation plays an important role in mediating affective and cognitive political orientations. The profile of a low acculturated adolescent can be described as someone expressing more loyalty to the Mexican political system, less satisfaction with the United States' social achievements relative to Mexico, and less absolute satisfaction with the United States. A lower level of acculturation is also associated with more political knowledge about Mexican historical events and leaders. In regard to the behavioral component, affective experiences such as feelings of political inefficacy, absolute and relative satisfaction with the United States' achievements are good predictors of political orientations. This study challenges the assumption that political socialization follows a normal linear progression along an age continuum, irrespective of cultural allegiances and suggests the need to examine the effects of affective symbols on the political socialization process.

Models of Effective Teaching

Probably the fundamental criticism within the discipline concerning conventional classroom interaction dynamics comes from our sister subsidiary, political socialization. This criticism takes two forms. One version focuses on the teacher's classroom role behavior. Dawson and Prewitt, for example argue that the democratic or authoritarian leadership style of an instructor is the one aspect of the teacher's role considered most important to the political socialization process. The instructor may or may not stress “disciplined learning of the material presented, rigid adherence to rules, and a deferential attitude toward himself as the authority figure.” The authors continue: The crucial notion for political socialization is that these conditions affect the political outlook of the students. Democratic leadership by the teacher fosters attitudes and skills consonant with democratic values. The authoritarian teacher induces his charges to think according to hierarchy and deference to power.

Information and Maturation in Children's Evaluation of Government Leadership During Watergate

^N v 'EARLY a decade has passed since Watergate first emerged in the headlines. For most Americans, Watergate is indeed behind them. Still, it is instructive to return to Watergate, for it provides a good laboratory for examining the contribution of mass mediated political information to the political socialization process. Few events so pervaded the news media for so long. Now, with data emerging on the long-term implications of Watergate for the political system (Sigel and Hoskin, 1980), political scientists should investigate the roots of these implications as children, whose political values were largely shaped during the Watergate period, enter the voting population. In this paper, I shall examine which children were most affected by Watergate at the time-and who may have been scarred politically-by exploring the relative contributions of mass media information and personal maturation to the evaluation of the President during the crisis. In the past decade, researchers in both political science and communications (summarized by Kraus and Davis, 1976) have found the mass media to be important agents in the political socialization of children. Beyond providing express images of law enforcers, political figures, or even general power relationships through fictional programming, for example, television provides data on the real world in the form of news. Even where the news itself is used little by the politically maturing child, it often provides a stimulus for dinner-time discussion of political issues, concepts, or personalities. Beyond whatever role the news media play in setting the adult political agenda (Shaw and McCombs, 1977), they play a role as a source of political information in the news flow from parents to children. With respect to Watergate, studies by Hawkins, Pingree and Roberts (1975) and Chaffee and Becker (1975) demonstrated that children's exposure to news media had identifiable effects on young people's evaluations of the President. At the same time that researchers were demonstrating an interest in the role of mass media in the political socialization process, others were searching for theoretical explanations of the dynamics of political socialization. In particular, scholars from both political science (Bennet, 1975; Best, 1973; Friedman, 1977; Merelman, 1969; Patterson, 1979; Riccards, 1973) and communication (Becker, McCombs and McLeod, 1975) considered several psychological development theories as explanatory of the processes through which children come of age politically. These researchers argued that increments in the quantity and quality of political understanding are linked to progress along one or several psychological developmental continua; i.e., to advances made by the child in terms of cognitive skills, moral reasoning, or personality development and ego strength. Unfortunately, the recent interest in both mass media effects and the use of psychological concepts grew as separate strands of thought. Fresh insights into the political socialization process can be found by weaving these two

Theological Crucibles: Social Movements in and of Religion

By their nature, religious organizations are deeply involved with theological and ideological beliefs about the relation of individuals and groups to each other, to society, and to the good and just life. Changes in belief systems in the larger society are bound to enter the internal life of denominations, and, in turn, beliefs developed within religious organizations become the basis for action in the larger society. This paper examines the social movement and political processes that are the carriers through which changes in beliefs are implemented. First, we examine the relation of the rise and fall of classes and groups in a world economy to social movements. Then, building upon a general framework for the analysis of social movements in organizations, we discuss the causes and forms of different kinds of social movements in denominations. The focus is upon mass movements and small scale insurrections in different church polities. Religious denominations evidence a variety of political structures and processes and are especially suitable sites for this kind of analysis.

Social values and the choice of careers in industry

This paper reports the results of a questionnaire survey of students at Bath University. Those doing social science were more anti‐industrial in their social values than students of management, engineering and economics. Social science students tended to prefer non‐industrial jobs congruent with their values. Anti‐industrial values were highly correlated with career choice after controlling for degree course. It was concluded that choice of course and career choice may be explained as part of the process of political socialization and hence rooted in experiences in early adolescence.

Civil religious orientations and children's perceptions of political authority

Previous studies concerning the influence of religious variables in the political socialization process have been inadequate because they employed crude operational measures of religious beliefs. This study utilizes the presence of civil religious orientations as an alternative conceptualization of religious beliefs and finds that civil religious orientations among children are highly related to early perceptions of political authority. Moreover, the data suggest that the presence of these civil religious orientations are far more important than the nature of early perceptions of the president in the development of support for the political system.

Political Continuities in French Families: A New Perspective on an Old Controversy

Much dispute has characterized topic of transmission of political orientations within family.' In one domain, however, consensus has prevailed. The influence of family on formation of partisan orientations seemed unquestionable. This was a major finding because it was key to explaining stability of party system and of regime over time according to a very simple causal model: partisan transmission by parents ---+-continuity of partisan preferences from one generation to next ---+-stability of partisan orientations ---stability of party systems --and so forth. This schema certainly seemed true in United States and, by extension, in a number of other Western nations. France was typically offered as a counter example, as 1958 study by Converse and Dupeux apparently demonstrated.2 Converse and Dupeux were not primarily interested in political socialization processes; rather, they wanted to explain instability of French party system when compared with stability of American one. They were struck, however, by fact that only a minority of their French respondents (45 percent of those who did not refuse to answer question) expressed any attachment to a given party or broad They were equally impressed by fact that even fewer of respondents could characterize even approximately partisanship of their fathers. Among French only 26 percent (against 86 percent in United States) could link their father with any party or with the vaguest of tendance. They then concluded, Where socialization processes have been same in two societies results in current behavior appear to be same, in rates of formation of identification. The strong cross-national differences lie in socialization processes.z The major difference stems from fact that the French father is uncommunicative about his political behavior before his children,4 from

The Impact of Candidate's Sex On Voter Choice

fices held by women, the proportion of women compared to men in elective office is small and decreases with the status of the office.1 Among reasons cited for this is the reluctance of the public to vote for a female candidate. The results of public opinion polls, and psychological and sociological research lend support to this proposition by demonstrating the public's perception of women as less capable or less desirable as leaders than men.2 While this does not prove that sex is a factor in voter choice, it does suggest that such discrimination may exist. Several recent studies have examined directly the effects of candidate's sex on voter choice using actual election returns.3 Among these is a study of congressional voting by Darcy and Schramm,4 who found that the average percent of vote received by female candidates when incumbency and party were controlled was not substantially different from that received by their male counterparts. The sex of the candidate did not seem to be a factor in voter choice in congressional contests. The authors conclude that the lack of significant female representation in Congress is largely a function of the absence of female candidates rather than sex discrimination at the polls. Darcy and Schramm's conclusions are valid only if the average voter appeal of male and female candidates is identical except for the one variable, sex. This is difficult to demonstrate considering the different political socialization and recruitment processes experienced by males and females. Life experiences (including education, employment history, military service record, etc.) of the average male and the average female are hardly similar! If the average female candidate is better qualified for office than the average male, then the Darcy and Schramm finding of no difference in the percent of votes received is actually indicative of discrimination against female candidates. Conversely, if the males are actually better candidates, then equality in votes received indicates bias against the male candidates. Only when sex of candidate is the single element of difference in electoral contests can the effects of sex on voter choice be discerned.

The Sex Gap in Political Persuading: Where the "Structuring Principle" Works

Sex differences in political behavior have decreased significantly over the last 25 years. One of the few remaining differences is in the area of trying to persuade others how to vote. This paper explains this difference from a socialization perspective, arguing that the greater reluctance of adolescent females to express attitudes is a precursor of the greater reluctance of adult females both to express attitudes and to try to persuade others how to vote. The success of this explanation shows that the structuring principle can be usefully applied if the link between preadult and adult attitudes and behavior is sufficiently well-specified. As a field, political socialization has been severely hampered by its failure to address directly the question of how preadult political orientations are linked to adult attitudes and behaviors. Although some researchers (e.g., Easton and Dennis, 1969) have theorized about the impact of childhood on important adult political variables such as diffuse support, they have implicitly assumed, rather than tested, the proposition that childhood attitudes persist and structure later attitudes. The theoretical importance of such tests is obvious. They would specify the conditions under which, and the mechanisms through which, early learning affects adult political variables. We could then specify and study those aspects and periods of the political socialization process which are the most significant for adult attitudes and behaviors. One of the first critics to emphasize the importance of the child-adult link was David Marsh (1971). Marsh, however, had no data with which to test this link, and the problem continued to be ignored for the most part. In fact, Donald Searing and his colleagues (Searing, Schwartz, and Lind, 1973; Searing, Wright, and Rabinowitz, 1976), writing in the 1970s, were unable to find any coherent model of the ways in which early learning either struc

The American School in the Political Socialization Process

This review addresses the question: What is known from empirical studies about the effects of schooling on the political socialization of American youth? School-level and classroom-level attributes are related to four political socialization outcomes: political knowledge, political attitudes and values toward society and politics, attitudes toward political participation, and participation in political or quasi-political affairs. The school curriculum is found to be effective in transmitting knowledge but not in influencing attitudes; social status of students influences these relationships. Classroom climate and student participation in school activities, and the school organizational climate were main factors found related to student political attitudes.

The American School in the Political Socialization Process

This review addresses the question: What is known from empirical studies about the effects of schooling on the political socialization of American youth? School-level and classroom-level attributes are related to four political socialization outcomes: political knowledge, political attitudes and values toward society and politics, attitudes toward political participation, and participation in political or quasi-political affairs. The school curriculum is found to be effective in transmitting knowledge but not in influencing attitudes; social status of students influences these relationships. Classroom climate and student participation in school activities, and the school organizational climate were main factors found related to student political attitudes.

On Pierre BourdieuReproduction in Education, Society and Culture.Pierre Bourdieu , Jean-Claude Passeron , Richard NiceOutline of a Theory of Practice.Pierre Bourdieu , Richard Nice

On Pierre Bourdieu<i>Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture.</i>Pierre Bourdieu , Jean-Claude Passeron , Richard Nice<i>Outline of a Theory of Practice.</i>Pierre Bourdieu , Richard Nice

Social Networks and Political Processes in Urban Neighborhoods

In a comparative case study of six urban neighborhoods and their community organizations, interviews were conducted with all active members of the neighborhood associations and with random samples of community residents. Paradoxically, residents with close-knit neighborhood friendship ties were relatively unlikely to be informed about community associations, and their associations did a relatively poor job of representing their interests. Residents of close-knit neighborhoods, however, were more likely than others to exhibit a capacity for regulating their neighborhoods informally. The paper concludes that as neighborhoods in modem cities become less villagelike, the nature of their political capacities changes. But it is not necessarily true, as some have suggested, that their political capacities diminish.

Homogeneity of Political Party Preferences between Spouses

RESEARCH ON THE POLITICAL socialization process has well documented the significant impact of parents on the formation of political party preferences in offspring. A causal model of the political socialization process by David Knoke demonstrated that the best single predictor of an individual's party preference is the preference of his parents.' In addition, a good deal of the research on the party identifications of spouses has shown that husbands and wives frequently have the same party preference. Langton and Jennings2 found that 72 percent of all spouses had similar preferences, while Macoby, et. al.3 discovered a 77 percent rate of agreement. Together, these results seem to imply that spouses have similar party

Women as Political Animals? A Test of Some Explanations for Male-Female Political Participation Differences

While many suggestions have been offered to explain why American women tend to participate in political activities slightly less than men, seldom have these explanations been subjected to a rigorous examination. Here, three plausible explanations drawn from prior research are discussed: first, the political socialization process that discourages women from playing an active political role; second, the family responsibilities that keep some women at home and out of the work force (the explanation), and third, the overrepresentation of women in demographic groups that have low participation levels (the explanation). The latter two explanations are tested directly using data from the SRC election studies of 1952, 1964, and 1972. Once situational and structural variables are controlled, there are no systematic differences in levels of male-female participation. In light of these findings, the validity of the political socialization explanation is discussed.

Education and Political Development

COLEMAN, WRITING IN 1965, CONSIDERED EDUCATION (primarily formal education) to perform important functions in the political system.' These functions included (a) the socialization of children and youth into the political culture, (b) the selection, recruitment, and training of political elites, and (c) the political integration or nation building of groups of people. Massialas further elaborated on the relationship between education and the political order by examining specific works in comparative theory and research.2 In these works it is proposed that a political system, in order to survive, needs support from its citizens. Education has often provided this support through the process of political socialization. If the political orientations of the citizens, trained in a nation's schools, were congenial to the system, the system may have maintained its existence and continuity. If the orientations imparted by education or other social agencies (e.g., the family, the church, the peer group) were not supportive of the system, the system either collapsed or changed in order to meet the new demands arising out of new orientations and expectations. (The student movement of the late '60s in the United States regarding the war in Vietnam and the change in administrative policy may provide an example of partial system responsiveness to demands.) In a similar way education may contribute to system change or maintenance through its function as a recruiting agent for the system. Especially in developing countries, education plays a pivotal role in selecting and training potential leaders. If nationals of a country do not have the proper credentials (often regardless of what they actually know or the content of the school program under which they were taught) they do not have a chance in the competition for key positions in the government and in the civil service. When schools are captured by a governing elite they tend to use selective criteria for admission, criteria which will keep undesirable elements out of school. Conversely, there is a natural inclination in these schools to recruit those who are sympathetic to the government, i.e., the offspring of people occupying important positions in the system. Thus, in some countries, education tends to accentuate the elite-mass gap or, if used in a more open way, it may close the gap. When we talk about political integration of a nation, the elite-mass gap constitutes only one of the dimensions. Another major dimension is what Coleman refers to as the