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What makes up democracy? Meanings of democracy and their correlates among adolescents in 38 countries
Abstract
Several studies investigate the meanings of democracy among the adult population. In contrast, less is known about young citizens’ ideas of democracy, and which individual and contextual characteristics are associated with them. This article contributes to the literature by uncovering the meanings of democracy and their correlates among adolescents in 38 countries. Using the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study 2009, the article shows that meanings of democracy vary among adolescents. These meanings are the results of how adolescents find various aspects of democracy, as the rule of law, freedoms, rights, pluralism, or equality, constitutive of it. Then, the article assesses whether socialization agents and personal characteristics account for the different meanings of democracy to adolescents. Finally, the analysis addresses the role that larger contexts—democratization and human development—have in the formation of concepts of democracy among adolescents.
... This finding is consistent with other studies using data from the United States and Europe (Torney-Purta et al., 2001;Husfeldt & Nikolova, 2003) that have found that liberal, generic, plural, participatory, communitarian, and social welfare views of democracy may be related to different democratic traditions and levels of national development. In this way, young people who live in established democracies are more likely to have a more complex understanding of democracy (Quaranta, 2019). Contrary to what one might think, the experience of an authoritarian regime in countries with a democratic history-like many Latin American countries-does not have a noticeable effect on attitudes towards democracy (Sandoval-Hernández et al., 2019). ...
... However, some European countries also show low adherence to the democratic complexity standard, like Norway (20%) and Malta (25%). Thus, other factors should be considered, besides democracy longevity, including civic participation, the role of schools in students citizenship development, the effect of peers, or even students' personal characteristics (Quaranta, 2019). ...
... In most countries, there are statistically significant differences between students of the anomic profile and the socially engaged, and to a lesser extent between the monitorial and the students of the socially engaged profile. The difference between profiles could occur because young people with greater civic participation are exposed to more political concepts and ideas, so that their conception of democracy is more complex (Quaranta, 2019). Table 2.3 presents the percentage of adherence to gender equality attitudes by profile, where it is possible to observe a similar pattern to the index of democratic complexity. ...
Using the largest and most recent comparative study on youth citizenship, the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (Schulz et al., 2016), we analyze how different patterns of civic norms endorsement are related to four civic dispositions: multiculturalism, gender equality, patriotism, and respect for democracy, using data from 91,153 students from 24 countries in Europe (56,627 students), Latin America (25,319 students), and Asia (9,207 students). In this way, the national and global trends of these citizen attitudes are explored to study the common patterns and differences between these countries and regions. By doing so, the chapter inquires as to how young people endorse different civic norms, thus allowing us to discuss the trends of change in these turbulent contemporary times.
... Extending research on the meanings of democracy measured on an individual level (Schedler and Sarsfield, 2007;Shin, 2017;Frankenberger and Buhr, 2020;Osterberg-Kaufmann et al., 2020;Quaranta, 2020;Davis et al., 2021), this paper discusses the possibility of measuring attitudes of democracy on an individual level using quantitative methods. This reflection realized in a survey conducted between July and December 2020 to test different methodological elements. ...
... Measuring democracy, or more concretely, attitudes toward democracy, has a long tradition; however, what has been analyzed has changed more and more. Notably, the "meanings of democracy" approach to its measurement demands better measurement of the way democracy is perceived (Schedler and Sarsfield, 2007;Shin, 2017;Frankenberger and Buhr, 2020;Osterberg-Kaufmann et al., 2020;Quaranta, 2020;Davis et al., 2021). Amidst growing criticism, notably of the famous "satisfaction with democracy" question in international surveys (Canache et al., 2001;Shin, 2017), new measures are developed in an effort to differentiate between different understandings of democracy. ...
... It illustrates well the influence of, for example, electoral democracy definitions, in which the control dimension is overrepresented and the equality dimension under-represented. Other researchers therefore relied on either the World Value Survey (Shin, 2017;Davis et al., 2021) (Quaranta, 2020). I add carefully, that according to each scholar's definition, other scholars might subsume the question of equal treatment before courts under equality rather than freedom. ...
The article addresses the methodological challenges in measuring democratic ideals on an individual level in quantitative studies. Building upon own empirical research, the study identifies several difficulties in assessing individuals' attitudes on democracy. In addition to a discussion of quantitative measures on individual-level data such as the ESS module on democracy or the Afrobarometer measures, the study assesses the possibility of other endeavors and what these look like. The study identifies multidimensionality, the association between elements, as well as problems in aggregating concepts, as important elements to be addressed in research. In the last step, certain quantitative measures are tested through a survey to show possible solutions to the issues.
... Latent class analysis (LCA) is an optimal technique for investigating this sort of latent theoretical concept, as it enables the identification of subsets of respondents who share high scores on some indicators (e.g., engaged norms), while simultaneously scoring low on other indicators (e.g., duty-based norms) (Hagenaars and McCutcheon 2002;McCutcheon 1987). Various types of latent class modeling approaches have become more prevalent in empirical research across the social sciences in recent years, including research on student assessment and satisfaction (Bacci & Gnaldi, 2015;Gnaldi & Bacci, 2016), response style behavior (Kieruj & Moors, 2013;Moors, 2003), political behavior (Alvarez et al., 2017(Alvarez et al., , 2021Oser, 2017Oser, , 2022, and political attitudes (Bertsou & Caramani, 2022;Bonikowski & DiMaggio, 2016;Davis et al., 2021;Quaranta, 2020). ...
The evolution of citizenship norms is considered a driving force behind changing political processes in contemporary democracies. Competing expectations have emerged on this topic: a ‘citizen engagement’ argument anticipates an increase in norms that emphasize engaged and expressive values, while a ‘democratic erosion’ argument expects an increase in traditional and even authoritarian values. With a theoretical focus on individual-level citizenship norms, we analyze uniquely high-quality cross-national data on adolescents in 14 diverse countries in 1999, 2009 and 2016. We integrate recently developed innovations in latent class analysis that have not yet been implemented in applied research by using a two-step estimator for multilevel latent class models with measurement equivalence testing. The findings confirm expectations of the existence of both ‘engaged’ and ‘duty-based’ citizenship norms, but the stability in the prevalence of these norms contrasts expectations in the literature. The findings also identify additional normative types that do change in prevalence over time—namely, decreased prevalence of a ‘mainstream’ norm that parallels mean societal scores, along with increased prevalence of both a ‘maximalist’ high-scoring group and a ‘subject’ low-scoring group. The results regarding over-time change provide partial support for both the citizen engagement and democratic erosion arguments, and highlight the importance of robust measurement of these concepts to contribute to the debate of evolving global trends in citizenship norms. We conclude by discussing how the multilevel latent class modeling approach used in this article can be applied to related topics to better understand changing relationships between citizens and democratic systems.
... Despite this emphasis, research regarding adolescents' use of new social media remains scarce. Several researchers have investigated media use as an individual characteristic to show the relationship between adolescents' attitudes (e.g., Chaux & León, 2016;Keating, 2016) and their value beliefs (e.g., Quaranta, 2020). Civic and citizenship education is more significantly associated with the societal and cultural atmosphere than other ILSAs. ...
This study investigated research trends in civic and citizenship education by systematically reviewing research regarding international frameworks for civic and citizenship education. We focused on major international largescale assessments – specifically, the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study, and its predecessor, the Civic Education Study. Using four electronic databases, we analyzed 135 peer-reviewed journal articles. The analysis showed that differences among countries in research interests might be linked to different cultural backgrounds. It also showed
that the greatest number of articles were published in social science disciplines, education research in particular. The results highlight the necessity of investigating principals’ and teachers’ perceptions of civic and citizenship education. Future research could focus on understudied variables such as adolescents’ civic participation, and home and peer civic education contexts, utilizing diverse variables from the ICCS 2016 data. By summarizing and discussing research trends, this study provides a blueprint for future research in the field of civic and citizenship education.
... La adhesión al autoritarismo es problemática, en particular, para las formas complejas de democracia, las cuales no solo contemplan la participación en elecciones (versión minimalista), sino que incluyen la igualdad política y la deliberación como dimensiones fundamentales (versión compleja) (Boese, 2019;Quaranta, 2019). Conferir excesivas licencias a la autoridad gubernamental es problemático porque las democracias requieren figuras de balance, contestación y limitación del poder del gobierno (Coppedge et al., 2008). ...
El autoritarismo como creencia ideológica, consiste en la adhesión irrestricta a la autoridad. Esta creencia es problemática para el apoyo a democracias deliberativas, donde las autoridades están sujetas a mecanismos de rendición de cuentas. Se sabe que los estudiantes de familias con padres de menor escolaridad tienden a presentar una mayor adhesión al autoritarismo, debido a que estas familias no pueden brindar espacios de socialización política adecuados para el desarrollo del conocimiento cívico. En este escenario las escuelas adquieren un rol compensatorio. Este capítulo investiga cuán efectivas son las escuelas para mitigar la adhesión al autoritarismo por parte de los estudiantes. Para ello analizamos datos del Estudio Internacional Educación Cívica y Formación Ciudadana, que corresponden a muestras representativas de los estudiantes que en 2009 y 2016 cursaban el octavo grado en Chile. Los resultados sugieren que el nivel de aprobación de prácticas autoritarias por parte de los estudiantes se explica en 13% por diferencias entre escuelas y en el 87% restante por diferencias entre estudiantes. Adicionalmente, encontramos que, entre las prácticas escolares, la discusión abierta sobre temas políticos y sociales en la sala de clases reduce las probabilidades de que los estudiantes acepten prácticas autoritarias. En la parte final del capítulo discutimos las posibilidades y limitaciones que posee esta práctica escolar como factor de efectividad para la formación ciudadana de los estudiantes chilenos.
... Recente internationale studies laten vergelijkbare trends zien (bijv. Quaranta, 2019). Dit is reden om goed te kijken naar de manieren waarop de opvattingen van jongeren over democratie invulling krijgen en 4 of die voldoende rechtdoen aan de gelaagdheid van de betekenis van democratie, waarbij verschillende, soms tegengestelde principes meegenomen worden. ...
Het ‘maatschappelijk opgroeien' van jongeren is er de afgelopen jaren niet gemakkelijker op geworden. Adolescenten moeten een wereld proberen te begrijpen die steeds complexer aan het worden is. Niet alleen moeten jongeren in de huidige tijd leren zich te verhouden tot een groot aantal ingewikkelde vraagstukken (zoals klimaatverandering, Europese samenwerking en terrorisme), zij moeten ook leren om berichtgeving op waarde te schatten en te bepalen welke bronnen zij om welke redenen betrouwbaar achten. Dat is geen eenvoudige opgave, omdat opiniemakers en journalisten die door de ene groep gezien worden als betrouwbaar, door een andere groep als ‘deugers’ of verkopers van nepnieuws gezien worden. Kijk maar eens op de Twitter-tijdlijn van De Telegraaf-journalist Wierd Duk of RTL Nieuws-correspondent Erik Mouthaan, en de tegenstellingen worden duidelijk. Polariserende berichtgeving en toename aan nepnieuws op sociale media zou er volgens sommige auteurs toe leiden dat de democratische gezindheid van nieuwe generaties jongeren onder druk komt te staan (zie bijv. Mounk, 2018).
Om deel te kunnen nemen aan deze complexe maatschappelijke en politieke omgeving hebben, jongeren veel competenties nodig. Zij hebben kennis en vaardigheden nodig om mediaberichtgeving te begrijpen, nepnieuws te herkennen en framing te duiden. Dit zijn onderdelen van wat mediawijsheid wordt genoemd. Daarnaast is het belangrijk dat jongeren democratische gezindheid ontwikkelen. In een gepolariseerde samenleving is het belangrijk dat jongeren inzien dat er altijd (zeer) uiteenlopende perspectieven op maatschappelijke vraagstukken zullen zijn, dat tolerantie belangrijk is en dat onderlinge uitwisseling noodzakelijk is.
Maar hoe staat het er in Nederland eigenlijk voor met de competenties van jongeren op deze thema’s? En krijgen zij de mogelijkheid in het onderwijs om deze competenties te ontwikkelen? In dit hoofdstuk besteed ik aandacht aan deze vragen. Ik zal laten zien dat het verstandig is om bescheiden verwachtingen te hebben over de mediawijsheid van jongeren. Tegelijkertijd is er reden om juist optimistisch te zijn over de democratische gezindheid van jongeren. Verder zal ik laten zien dat het primair onderwijs, voortgezet onderwijs en middelbaar beroepsonderwijs een rol kunnen spelen bij de stimulering van mediawijsheid en democratische gezindheid en burgerschap, maar dat het Nederlandse onderwijsbeleid wat meer op discipline dan emancipatie gericht is. Daarmee stimuleert het jongeren slechts in beperkte mate om media, samenleving en democratie kritisch te analyseren.
... Daarnaast hebben jongeren een relatief beperkt idee waar democratie precies over gaat. Zo kunnen grote groepen jongeren slechts een enkel element van democratie noemen, zoals vrijheid van meningsuiting, verkiezingen of meerderheidsbesluitvorming, maar noemen de meeste jongeren niet meerdere, laat staan conflicterende aspecten van democratie, zoals meerderheidswens en rechtsstaat of minderheidsrechten (Quaranta, 2019;Nieuwelink et al., 2017;Munniksma et al., 2017). Jongeren zeggen verder ook beperkt geïnteresseerd te zijn in politiek en, dat is natuurlijk niet verrassend, nemen amper deel aan politieke activiteiten (Geboers et al., 2015;Neundorf et al., 2013). ...
... Daarnaast hebben jongeren een relatief beperkt idee waar democratie precies over gaat. Zo kunnen grote groepen jongeren slechts een enkel element van democratie noemen, zoals vrijheid van meningsuiting, verkiezingen of meerderheidsbesluitvorming, maar noemen de meeste jongeren niet meerdere, laat staan conflicterende aspecten van democratie, zoals meerderheidswens en rechtsstaat of minderheidsrechten (Quaranta, 2019;Nieuwelink et al., 2017;Munniksma et al., 2017). Jongeren zeggen verder ook beperkt geïnteresseerd te zijn in politiek en, dat is natuurlijk niet verrassend, nemen amper deel aan politieke activiteiten (Geboers et al., 2015;Neundorf et al., 2013). ...
In this article, the central question is how the relationship between democracy and education can be understood in terms of civic literacy. By taking as a point of departure John Dewey’s basic understanding of democracy in terms of communication and experience, which also forms the basis for the pragmatist knowledge concept of transactional realism, this study explores transactional realism in relation to how this concept of knowledge can promote a democratic stance in the teaching of different school subjects. Thus, the focus is on how a democratic stance is an important part in the selection of teaching content and teaching activities in the classroom in a time when democracy is challenged from different angles. The concept of civic literacy is here understood as developing knowledge about the world, learning to act responsibly in the world and realising oneself in the world. Civic literacy is both about knowledge of facts and events and about a classroom discourse opening for responsible and reflective conversations outwards from the subject, towards the social and physical environment.
Las concepciones de docentes y estudiantes sobre la democracia influyen en las actitudes, las expectativas y las posibilidades de esta forma de gobierno, por ello resulta fundamental conocerlas. El objetivo de esta investigación es describir las concepciones de democracia en el centro educativo que tienen docentes y estudiantes en España. Para ello se realizó una investigación fenomenográfica cuyos participantes fueron 15 profesores y 15 alumnos de centros educativos españoles. Los resultados sugieren tres concepciones sobre la democracia en el centro escolar, aunque con ligeras diferencias entre ambos grupos. En primer lugar, una concepción elitista que reduce la democracia a la libre competencia y elección de centro por parte de las familias, cuyos discursos jerarquizados resultan afines a la filosofía neoliberal. Una representativa que enfatiza el voto como mecanismo de decisión. Las principales diferencias entre docentes y estudiantes se encuentran bajo esta concepción, ya que mientras el profesorado tiende a desestimar el poder real del estudiantado, el alumnado llega a reclamar injerencia en decisiones trascendentales del centro. Finalmente, una concepción participativa que se caracteriza por la horizontalidad y la toma de decisiones consensuada. Promover esta concepción participativa resulta fundamental para fomentar el pensamiento crítico y la intervención de todas las personas en los asuntos comunes, avanzando así hacia sociedades más justas y equitativas.
Research on meanings and understandings of democracy is growing. But besides useful theoretical and empirical insights, this research produces open questions concerning the conceptualization and the measurement of meanings of democracy. This special section—and especially this introductory paper and the different contributions—reflect on several key challenges and thereby go beyond the debate about advantages and disadvantages of open and closed questions measuring meanings of democracy in surveys. Both conceptualization and measurement have different challenges which researchers should take into account when developing research designs, specifically by doing cross-cultural comparisons. Other challenges are connected to the debate on universalism versus relativism and the usage of various terms, which are often not clearly defined. This paper offers an analytical framework to distinguish between meanings and understandings of democracy, thereby integrating comparative political theory and empirical democracy research through inductive and deductive approaches. And it gives an overview of the contributions of this special section. In sum, research on meanings and understandings of democracy is needed to gain a better picture of political cultures around the world.
What do citizens think democracy is and what factors contribute to its meaning? Previous works on the public understanding of democracy have shown that, overall, citizens see democracy in “minimal” terms. However, advanced democracies are complex and encompass several elements other than elections and freedoms. This article uses the European Social Survey module “Europeans’ understandings and evaluations of democracy” and multilevel item response theory models to build a measure of the meaning of democracy in terms of multiple attributes and to account for individual- and country-level variation. The findings show that the meaning of democracy can be seen as a continuum, and that middle-aged educated men who are interested in politics, have extreme ideological positions, and are engaged in civic organizations include more elements in their idea of democracy, and that the cross-country variation in the meaning of democracy mostly depends on democratic performance.
This study analyzes reinforcing spirals between news media use and two manifestations of political engagement: political interest and participation intention. Drawing on a three-wave panel study among adolescents, we test the Virtuous Circle Thesis (VCT) in both an online and an offline setting, by distinguishing between selection effects and media effects as key ingredients of the VCT. Overall, the findings lend mixed support to the general argument. While the relationship between specific forms of news media use and political interest appears to be driven primarily by selection effects, reciprocal relations were found mainly between television news and participation intention. The VCT assumption of reciprocal influences was supported most clearly when adolescents’ total news media use was considered. Taken together, virtuous circles appeared to operate rather similarly online and offline.
Research shows adolescents to be positively oriented towards democracy, but little is known about what it actually means to them and what their views are on decision-making in both everyday situations and political democracy. To gain insight into these aspects of adolescents’ democratic views, we have interviewed 40 Dutch adolescents from second grade of different types of high school. Potential conflict between various democratic principles prevalent in everyday life situations was discussed and compared to how they view decision-making in political democracy. The results of our qualitative study showed that adolescents’ views on issues concerning collective decision-making in everyday situations are quite rich and reflect different models of democracy (majoritarian, consensual, and deliberative). Moreover, how adolescents deal with tensions between democratic principles in everyday life situations varies. While some adolescents combine several principles (for instance, majority rule as a last resort after trying to find broader consensus), other adolescents tend to strictly focus on only one of these principles. Adolescents’ views on political democracy, however, are rather limited and one-dimensional. Those adolescents who seemed to have a more explicit picture of political democracy often preferred a strict focus on majority rule, neglecting minority interests.
This book demonstrates that people’s basic values and beliefs are changing, in ways that affect their political, sexual, economic, and religious behaviour. These changes are roughly predictable: to a large extent, they can be interpreted on the basis of a revised version of modernisation theory presented here. Drawing on a massive body of evidence from societies containing 85 percent of the world’s population, the authors demonstrate that modernisation is a process of human development, in which economic development gives rise to cultural changes that make individual autonomy, gender equality, and democracy increasingly likely.
Works on the quality of democracy propose standards for evaluating politics beyond those encompassed by a minimal definition of democracy. Yet, what is the quality of democracy? This article first reconstructs and assesses current conceptualizations of the quality of democracy. Thereafter, it reconceptualizes the quality of democracy by equating it with democracy pure and simple, positing that democracy is a synthesis of political freedom and political equality, and spelling out the implications of this substantive assumption. The proposal is to broaden the concept of democracy to address two additional spheres: government decision-making - political institutions are democratic inasmuch as a majority of citizens can change the status quo - and the social environment of politics - the social context cannot turn the principles of political freedom and equality into mere formalities. Alternative specifications of democratic standards are considered and reasons for discarding them are provided.
Evidence suggesting that the growth of civic roots in adolescence may be crucial to the long-term development of citizenship has stimulated research into factors that might influence civic development during this time. One interesting finding to emerge from that exploration is the apparent importance of discussion to the development of civic competence. Adolescents who discuss politics and current events with their parents, peers, or teachers tend to score higher than other youth on measures of civic behaviors, attitudes, and skills. They develop higher levels of political knowledge, show greater intention to vote in the future, and do better on a range of civic outcomes from petitioning and boycotting to raising money for charities and participating in community meetings (Torney-Purta et al. 2001; Andolina et al. 2003).
This study measures support for the basic rights, liberties, and practices associated with polyarchy in 12 Latin American democracies. Specifically, it identifies five profiles of support for polyarchy’s core values and norms—public contestation, inclusive participation, limits on executive authority, and institutional checks and balances. Although citizens who fit the polyarch profile accept all of polyarchy’s principles, those who fit one of the four mixed support profiles (power constrainer, power checker, power delegator, power restrainer) accept only some of them while rejecting other core democratic principles. Long-run factors emphasized by modernization and cultural theories (e.g., education, wealth, political engagement) are closely associated with the polyarch support profile. However, short-range performance factors (e.g., economic perceptions; crime, discrimination, and corruption victimization; voting for losing presidential candidates; presidential approval) may better explain why citizens fit one particular mixed profile over another and particularly explain willingness to delegate authority to the executive at the expense of other institutions.
This research examines the role of the mass media in young people's disengagement from politics. In a nationally representative telephone survey (N = 1,501), young people (ages 14 to 22) reported their habits for 12 different uses of mass media as well as awareness of current national politics and time spent in civic activities. Following Putnam's hypothesis about the beneficial effects of civic ties on political involvement, the authors predict and find that civic activity is positively associated with political awareness. Contrary to Putnam, they find that media use, whether information or entertainment oriented, facilitates civic engagement, whereas news media are especially effective in promoting political awareness. Although heavy use of media interferes with both political and civic engagement, the overall effect of media use is favorable for each outcome. The results are discussed in regard to the potentially greater use of the media to build community engagement in young people.
▪ Abstract The field of political socialization is often stereotyped in terms of some of the earliest work in the field and is neglected outside certain areas of American political behavior. However, the continuing and vibrant stream of work in political socialization holds potential for addressing many critical issues across American, comparative, and international politics. This article discusses three themes: the construction of a more genuinely comparative field of political socialization, a reconsideration of the relevance of childhood to politics following its virtual abandonment by the field for many years, and the importance of understanding the origins of preferences. Cidadania não tem tamanho/Tamanho não é documento. You don't have to be big to be a citizen/Size is not important. Augusto Sérgio Suares Dutra, a 10-year-old Brazilian, quoted in Guerra 2002, p. 77
The open-ended responses of 701 7th to 12th graders to the question “What does democracy mean to you?” were analyzed. In logistic regressions, age, parental education, political discussions, and participation in extracurricular activities distinguished youth who could define democracy (53%) from those who could not. Case clustering revealed three emphases in youths’ definitions: individual rights (30%), representative rule (40%), and civic equality (30%). These clusters did not vary by parental education or ethnicity, but several values that youth endorsed varied by parental education. Controlling for parental education, there were significant differences in adolescents’ reports of familial and personal values in the three clusters. Scheffe tests revealed that the equality cluster endorsed less materialism than other clusters, more environmental responsibility than the individual rights cluster, and more social responsibility than the representative rule cluster. In contrast, the individual rights cluster was most likely to report that social vigilance was emphasized in their families.
The developmental correlates of diffuse support for the polity and civic commitments were explored in a survey of 1,052 students (mean age = 14.96 years) from African American, Arab American, European American, and Latino American backgrounds. Results of structural equation modeling revealed that regardless of their age, gender, or ethnic background, youth were more likely to believe that America was a just society and to commit to democratic goals if they felt a sense of community connectedness, especially if they felt that their teachers practiced a democratic ethic at school. Discussion focuses on the civic purposes of education in inculcating a sense of identification with the polity in younger generations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This chapter focuses on the mediating institutions of civil society in the social incorporation of younger citizens. Lay theories about the polity and the tenets of the social contract that bind states and citizens take shape via participation in the routine cultural practices of those institutions. Children's lay theories are refracted through groupways (the social class, caste, racial/ethnic, religious, and gender groups to which they belong). The practices of mediating institutions tend to reinforce dominant narratives and thus stabilize the political system. But civil society also provides free spaces in institutions where citizens can challenge the state and thus contribute to social change.
We use longitudinal data incorporating three generations of Americans to reevaluate the character and consequences of political socialization within the family. Findings about parental influence based on youth coming of age in the 1990s strongly parallel those based on youth socialized in the 1960s. As expected on the basis of social learning theory, children are more likely to adopt their parents’ political orientations if the family is highly politicized and if the parents provide consistent cues over time. The direct transmission model is robust, as it withstands an extensive set of controls. Early acquisition of parental characteristics influences the subsequent nature of adult political development.
"This book demonstrates that people's basic values and beliefs are changing, in ways that affect their political, sexual, economic, and religious behavior. These changes are roughly predictable: to a large extent, they can be explained by the revised version of modernization theory presented here. Drawing on a massive body of evidence from societies containing 85 percent of the world's population, the authors demonstrate that modernization is a process of human development, in which economic development gives rise to cultural changes that make individual autonomy, gender equality, and democracy increasingly likely. The authors present a model of social change that predicts how value systems are likely to evolve in coming decades. They demonstrate that mass values play a crucial role in the emergence and flourishing of democratic institutions."--BOOK JACKET.
The recent trend toward democratization in countries across the globe has challenged scholars to pursue two potentially contradictory goals. On the one hand, they seek to increase analytic differentiation in order to capture the diverse forms of democracy that have emerged. On the other hand, they are concerned with conceptual validity. Specifically, they seek to avoid the problem of conceptual stretching that arises when the concept of democracy is applied to cases for which, by relevant scholarly standards, it is not appropriate. This article argues that the pursuit of these two goals has led to a proliferation of conceptual innovations, including numerous subtypes of democracy – that is to say, democracy "with adjectives." The articles explores the strengths and weaknesses of alternative strategies of conceptual innovation that have emerged: descending and climbing Sartori's ladder of generality, generating "diminished" subtypes of democracy, "precising" the definition of democracy by adding defining attributes, and shifting the overarching concept with which democracy is associated. The goal of the analysis is to make more comprehensible the complex structure of these strategies, as well as to explore trade-offs among the strategies. Even when scholars proceed intuitively, rather than self-consciously, they tend to operate within this structure. Yet it is far more desirable for them to do so self-consciously, with a full awareness of these trade-offs.
In this article we wanted to shed light on the intergenerational transmission and the formation of cultural orientations in adolescence. The intergenerational transmission was analyzed in different age groups in a longitudinal design (orientations of parents and their adolescent children were measured twice, with a time lapse of 3 years). Results clearly revealed that late adolescence is the “formative phase” for the establishment of cultural orientations and suggested that psychological processes such as internalization are guiding this formation. This internalization was found for all investigated orientations. In addition, as adolescents grew older, their susceptibility to parental orientations diminished, but, in contrast, parents did not become more susceptible to their children's orientations. No age effects in sociocultural influences were found. It was concluded that the investigated sociocultural influences should be seen as providing a structural context within which the formation of orientations in adolescence takes place.
The persistence of adolescents’ political attitudes and behaviors into adulthood is a perennial concern in research on developmental
psychology. While some authors claim that adolescents’ attitudinal patterns will remain relatively stable throughout the life
cycle, others argue that the answers of adolescents in political surveys have but a limited predictive value for their future
attitudes and behaviors. In this article, we tackle this question on an aggregate level, by comparing survey data for 14,
18 and 18 to 30year old respondents from eight European countries (n=resp. 22,620; 20,142 and 2800). We examine political trust, attitudes toward immigrants’ rights and voting behavior. The
analysis suggests that country patterns with regard to political trust and attitudes toward immigrant rights are already well
established by the age of 14. We find less indications for stability in the relation between intention to vote (for 14 and
18years olds) and actual voting behavior (for young adults). The latent structure of the political trust scale was found
to be equivalent for the three age groups we investigated. We close by offering some suggestions on why attitudinal stability
seems stronger than behavioral stability.
Continuing to emphasize numerical and graphical methods, An Introduction to Generalized Linear Models, Third Edition provides a cohesive framework for statistical modeling. This new edition of a bestseller has been updated with Stata, R, and WinBUGS code as well as three new chapters on Bayesian analysis. Like its predecessor, this edition presents the theoretical background of generalized linear models (GLMs) before focusing on methods for analyzing particular kinds of data. It covers normal, Poisson, and binomial distributions; linear regression models; classical estimation and model fitting methods; and frequentist methods of statistical inference. After forming this foundation, the authors explore multiple linear regression, analysis of variance (ANOVA), logistic regression, log-linear models, survival analysis, multilevel modeling, Bayesian models, and Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods. Using popular statistical software programs, this concise and accessible text illustrates practical approaches to estimation, model fitting, and model comparisons. It includes examples and exercises with complete data sets for nearly all the models covered.
Although previous research has suggested the existence of a positive association between the political activities of parents and children, little is known about other forms of civic engagement. In particular, the literature lacks an international comparative study on the intergenerational transmission of civic involvement. Using Bayesian multilevel models on data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) 2006 special module on social participation, this article tests hypotheses on the patterns of civic engagement of parents and children in 18 European countries with different political legacies. Our results show a positive association between the participation in associational activities of parents and children in all the considered countries, above and beyond individual and contextual characteristics. In particular, we do not find an evident East–West gap in the socialization process, suggesting that the Communist past of Eastern and Central European countries has little influence on what can be considered a basic mechanism of civic learning.
A large body of electoral studies and political party research argues that the institutional context defines incentives that shape citizen participation and voting choice. Based on the unique resources of the Comparative Study of Electoral System surveys, this volume provides the first systematic comparative analysis of how and why cross-national differences in political institutions and party systems shape individual citizens' attitudes and political behavior, including voter turnout, campaign participation, and vote choice. An international team of electoral scholars finds that countries' formal institutional characteristics and party systems have only a modest impact on citizen political choices compared to individual level factors. Furthermore, the formal institutional characteristics of electoral system that have been most emphasized by electoral studies researchers have less impact than characteristics of the party system that are separate from formal institutions. Advanced multilevel analyses demonstrate that contextual effects are more often indirect and interactive, and thus their effects are typically not apparent in single nation election studies. The results have the potential to reshape our understanding of how the institutional framework and context of election matters, and the limits of institutional design in shaping citizen electoral behavior.
This article discusses political socialization, focusing on the major turning points and developments in the field. It addresses the issue of the bull and bear markets of political socialization research and looks at the recent renewed interest in the dynamics of socialization. The role of the family as the main agent of socialization is examined as well. The article includes a discussion on the relevant contextual features that attend the socialization process. It concludes with several comments on a few missed opportunities to study the socialization processes and outcomes of pre-adults, as well as possible future fields of research.
The impressionable years thesis asserts that early adulthood is accompanied by increased attitudinal vulnerability. Although there is tentative empirical evidence to support this idea, it remains unclear whether this sensitivity is due to exposure to change-inducing circumstances, typically encountered in early adulthood, or due to the weight attached by young people to new information. I address this question, focusing on a political eventthe Watergatethat offers a test of youth's heightened susceptibility, holding exposure constant. The results confirm the impressionable years thesis and shed light on how it is most likely to be manifested empirically.
A review of the main theoretical findings in the literature on democratic changes prompts the author to propose an empirical definition of democracy, to discuss the main existing normative definitions and to suggest a new type of regime, the hybrid regime, which is also empirically analysed. The second and third parts of the book cover three geopolitical areas (Southern and Eastern Europe and Latin America) and present the main theoretical results of the empirical analysis on transition towards democracy and installation, consolidation and crisis, deepening and worsening of qualities with all related connections and hypotheses. The analysis reveals two new and relevant results. First, how the different macro-processes should be explored in different ways and with different theoretical ends: only a framework when transition and installations are considered; more precise hypotheses when consolidation and crisis are under scrutiny; connections and theoretical hypotheses when qualities and deepening are studied. Second, the empirical research makes it possible to single out three core sub-processes and a key mechanism. When dealing with transition and democratic installation the core sub-process is the unfolding of a learning process at elite and mass levels towards democratic legitimation. When consolidation and crisis are considered, domestic anchoring and external anchoring are the two core sub-process that should be mentioned. In the macro-processes of deepening or weakening of qualities, the core mechanism is mutual convergence of qualities. This mechanism emerges from the empirical analysis of existing connections between the procedures, contents, and results of democracy.
This article highlights ordinary young citizens’ understanding of democracy. In a system based on rule of the people, it is surprising how little attention scholars have paid to common-sense views of democracy. The article is based on focus group interviews with young Swedes. Their views of democracy are analyzed in the context of democratic theory. The results show that there is massive support among the youths for the democratic idea, that they see elite democracy as a self-evident form of democracy and that they consider democracy to be a problematic good, emphasizing their doubts about human capacity, limited ruling opportunities and problems around inequality and risky principles. References to research on Swedish education show that the conceptualizations in several respects reflect how democracy and citizenship are framed in Swedish schools. It is suggested that the results of the study can influence both the form and content of civic education.
Schools achieve the best results in fostering civic engagement when they rigorously teach civic content and skills, ensure an open classroom climate for discussing issues, emphasize the importance of the electoral process, and encourage a participative school culture. Schools whose students do not plan to attend college and have few educational resources at home face a special challenge. These are among the conclusions of the IEA Civic Education Study in which 90,000 14-year-olds in 28 countries were tested on knowledge of civic content and skills and were surveyed about concepts of citizenship, attitudes toward governmental and civic institutions, and political actions.
This paper reframes our inquiry into voter turnout by making aging the lens through which the traditional resource and cost measures of previous turnout research are viewed, thereby making three related contributions. (1) I offer a developmental theory of turnout. This framework follows from the observation that most citizens are habitual voters or habitual nonvoters (they display inertia). Most young citizens start their political lives as habitual nonvoters but they vary in how long it takes to develop into habitual voters. With this transition at the core of the framework, previous findings concerning costs and resources can easily be integrated into developmental theory. (2) I make a methodological contribution by applying latent growth curve models to panel data. (3) Finally, the empirical analyses provide the developmental theory with strong support and also provide a better understanding of the roles of aging, parenthood, partisanship, and geographic mobility.
Demands for the inclusion of children, the youngest citizens, in democratic decision making are increasing. Although there is an abundance of empirical research on the political orientations of adolescents, there is a paucity of research on younger children's orientations. Our panel study of more than 700 children in their first year of primary school shows that these young children already exhibit consistent, structured political orientations. We examine the distribution and development of political knowledge, issue orientations, and notions of good citizenship. We find achievement differences between subgroups at the beginning of the school year, and these differences do not disappear. Children from ethnic minorities and lower socioeconomic residence areas show relatively less developed political orientations, and they do not improve as much over the school year as other children. Furthermore, normative political orientations and cognitive orientations differ in their development.
The attitudinal or behavioral outcomes of media use can be expected to influence selection of and attention to media content. This process can be conceptualized in terms of mutually reinforcing spirals akin to positive feedback loops in general systems theory. This reinforcing spirals perspective highlights the need for longitudinal modeling of mutually influencing media selection and effects processes; study of the impact of such processes in youth and adolescent identity development, and analysis of social and psychological factors that control, dampen, or eventually extinguish the influence of such spirals. This perspective may also, more speculatively, be extended to address the maintenance of social identity for political, religious, and lifestyle groups. The relevance of a reinforcing spirals model to theories including spiral of silence, agenda-setting, framing, cultivation, selective attention, and uses and gratifications is also discussed.
Overview Empirical example: Positive health behaviors Preparing to conduct LCA with covariates LCA with covariates: Model and notation Hypothesis testing in LCA with covariates Interpretation of the intercepts and regression coefficients Empirical examples of LCA with a single covariate Empirical example of multiple covariates and interaction terms Multiple-group LCA with covariates: Model and notation Grouping variable or covariate? Use of a Bayesian prior to stabilize estimation Binomial logistic regression Suggested supplemental readings Points to remember What's next
The recently completed IEA Civic Education Study collected data from 140,000 adolescent students in a total of 29 countries. A recent examination of the work of Nevitt Sanford shows that many aspects of the IEA Civic Education Study are parallel to methods and conclusions of his research from the 1950s through the 1970s and partake in the spirit of his work as well as extending it. These parallels include the use of a contextualized approach in the study of adolescents’ socialization and the value of studying groups with extreme response patterns.
Past research on civic education suggests that students' performance is largely influenced by individual socioeconomic background and motivational factors. There has been little attention to the effects of school and classroom ideological and social attributes, such as the socioeconomic make-up of the school or classroom, or how interested in politics are a student's classmates. The results of the present study support the contention that contextual effects play a vital role in determining students' civic knowledge scores. Analysis of Israeli 11th graders' performance on the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) civic knowledge test shows that while individual backgrounds and motivations play a significant role, school and classroom contexts greatly contribute to civic knowledge acquisition.
Does civics instruction have an impact on the political engagement of adolescents? If so, how? Analysis of data from CIVED,
a major study of civic education conducted in 1999, finds that an open classroom climate has a positive impact on adolescents’
civic knowledge and appreciation of political conflict, even upon controlling for numerous individual, classroom, school,
and district characteristics. Furthermore, an open classroom environment fosters young people’s intention to be an informed
voter. Results further show that exposure to an open classroom climate at school can partially compensate for the disadvantages
of young people with low socioeconomic status.
Insights into the development of civic values, attitudes, knowledge, skills and behaviours are greatly demanded by adults worried about a seemingly steady decline in the societal interest of their offspring. Hence, the collection of studies in this special issue on civic engagement in adolescence is not only timely and enlightening, but it also has the potentials to contribute to research in different disciplines on various dimensions, mechanisms and normative models of civic engagement. The studies reveal some promising attempts to bring civil themes into the field of adolescent development. However, to overcome some conceptual, methodological and empirical shortcomings, future developmental studies in the area need to be substantially improved by considering cultural and institutional conditions, by focussing on processes across various everyday life contexts, by merging theories from different disciplinary fields, by conceptualizing adolescents as changeable subjects, and by delineating untested and unwarranted normative assumptions.