Sigel. (1970). School Children's Reaction to the Death of a President.

Sigel, Roberta S. “An Exploration into Some Aspects of Political Socialization: School Children’s Reactions to the Death of a President.” Learning About Politics. 1970.

Sigel looks children’s reactions to the assassination of President Kennedy --assessing the nature & stability of their faith in political authority, attitudes towards authority figures, & understanding abstract concepts. She concludes that political socialization begins at an early stage in life—children @ younger ages were able to comprehend more than parents thought & were able to distinguish between the person of the president & the institution of the government. Political orientation had an impact of grief.
Idealized Image of President

Father-figure hypothesis—president is benevolent, competent, powerful; a source of personal identification for child
School learning—texts, books, teachers increase pride in president
American political culture—optimistic & trusting of presidency
Absence of personal observation—able to maintain idealized notion of president

Assumptions re: how child relates to the gov’t thru the president:

President’s death is a threat to child’s own security—incomplete socialization of child can’t separate president from gov’t as a whole
More the child identifies w/ the president as person who meets need, the more grief & worry child shows
Death of president alters child’s image of political authority as omnipotent
Death of president elicits feeling so grief, shock, horror
Feeling of hostility & anger toward perpetrator

The study looks at:

A comparison of children & adult reaction to assess socialization development & also a comparison across child ages
Children attitudes re: omnipotence /benevolence of political authority
Child understanding of abstract concepts—i.e. justice, due process, distinction between president & government institutions

Methods:

Written questionnaire to primary & secondary students; N=1349
Grades 4, 6, 8, 10, 12—with attempted representation of all social classes, & white & black students
Hess-Easton instrument—measures presidential competence, power of the president
National Opinion Research Center (NORC)—measures reaction to Kennedy’s assassination
Author constructed instrument—measure abstract concepts i.e. conception of presidency in relation to governmental structure, justice, due process, view of Ruby/Oswald affair—also included open-ended answers

Results

Comparison of children & adult reaction
Emotional reactions are very similar
Political interpretations & reactions differ
Parents tend to underestimate extent to which children were affected
Most salient emotion across all ages was shock & disbelief; sadness was next
Younger children reacted emotionally similar to adults, but there was a decrease in similarity as children got older—increased age (teens) were less emotional
Children (especially younger ones) worried more than adults—greater dependency needs, more personally shaken when authority structure is shaken
Children less likely to see conspiratorial plots re: assassination (Cuba, Communists), suggests a lack of sophisticated knowledge, particularly among the younger students
Younger children were less likely to be upset that due process was obstructed w/ Oswald’s murder

Political Orientation--**you may have noticed pg 164 & 165 were missing from the reader—I believe dealing w/ the political orientation variables. Here are the bits I got from the reading.
Children oriented towards the Democratic party reported more emotional responses & feelings of aggression toward Oswald
African-American children more upset than white or Republican children
Partisanship is an important intervening variable in how children reacted to assassination

Presidential Images before & after Nov. 22
Before assassination: president seen as powerful, competent (Easton-Hess results), authors’ instrument shows some ability of children to be critical, but overall, an idealized notion of the president (although decreases sharply w/ age increase)
After: slight decrease in perception of presidential power; children express worry, but have faith in gov’t stability—shows ability to distinguish bwtn president & gov’t institutions