Gimpel, Lay & Schuknecht (2003) Cultivating Democracy: Civic environments and Political Socialization

Becoming Political: Local Environments and Political Socialization Chapter 1

The Focus: The effects of local context on political socialization.

Town 1: Dundalk, Maryland
Rustbelt Northeast (like the bible belt, the limousine liberals, Starbucks republicans, MAC users, Dunkin Donuts Democrats)

"A place as distinctive as Dundalk aolso breads an distinctive politics. The population is working class white, hostile to diversity, baffled by sustained immigration in the wake of September 11, pro-union, pro-death penalty, not highly confident that it has a voice in government, generally unsure of the value of its opinion,s, and Democrat by identification but not strongly loyal to either party" (2).

Town 2: Potomac, Maryland
wealthy; racially homogenous; kids are held to high academic standards; many suffer from depression.

"These kids grow up to see government as highly responsive to what few demands their parents make...Students pick up political orientations from their parents...Churchill students express their opinions on virtually any topic, but their views usually are not deeply seated in a hurtful personal experience of threat or injustice" (3).

City 3: Baltimore, Maryland
Black; isolated, insular population; disruptive kids; poor students; low retention among young teachers

"People are political socialized by the information they receive. This information certainly varies over time, but it varies more regularly across space, as communities and their constituent parts structure the content an flow of politically relevant messages in distinctive ways" (7). [individual characteristics + and characteristics of the place you live].

The Framework presented in this book:
(1) children are raised within a specific structural context, a local social environment, that influences the political attitudes and values that they develop---this includes income education, race, political engagement (voter turnout), political leaning (Dem etc). (often an indirect impact on adolescent's political develpoment).
(2) social context-structures quality and flow of information; some are self-selected (neighborhood), yet are constrained (i.e. by your income, and thus which neighborhood you have the option of living in). Work setting, also exposed one to political opinions/information
(3) the direct impact of structural environmental factors is mediated through family and school relationships which are more immediate sources of causal influence on an individual's sense of efficacy, political knowledge, nationalistic sentiment, tolerance of diversity, and other dispositions germane to the political socialization process. "We do not argue that political attitudes and behaviors are completely structurally determined but rather that the range of individual freedom is restricted by the political and social aspects of the nurturing environment in the family and community" (10).

Although much work has been done to uncover which individual characteristics determine political attitudes and activity, politics does not occur in a vacuum. "Instead, cetain social context stimulate interest and mobilize pople for political action better than other [hence the importance of subcultures!]" (8). "non-self selected exposure" (8).

Dependent Variables:
(1) internal efficacy
(2) external efficacy
(3) opposition to diversity
(4) nationalistic feeling
(5) negativity toward local police
(6) support for clinton impeachment
(7) political discussion in the past week
(8) factual knowledge exam score

Independent Variables:
(1) social environment
(2) political environment
(3) media exposure
(4) demographics--gender, race etc
(5) family characteristics
(6) school experience

Chapter 2 Communities and Political Socialization
"Some might argue that social and political contexts do not matter in an era in which people can receive information directly from television or through the internet. Our suggestion is that messages conveyed through broadcast media are refracted through and transfromed by local agents of political socialization, including peers, paresnts and other family members, school authorities, religious authoritise, and local news media" (45).

Gimpel Chapter 2: Communities and Political Socialization

general finding: communities have an impact on political attitudes and behavior independent of the effects of individual characteristics like race, occupation, income, party, etc.

Community Characteristics:

ethnic/immigrant composition:
-percent of community that is of Asian ancestry
-percent African American
-percent Hispanic
-percent foreign born

community resources:
-median family income
-percentage with college degree

political characteristics:
-percent in Democratic Party
-voter turnout

etc.

dependent variables:
-frequency of political discussion
-level of factual political knowledge
-internal and external senses of political chauvinism
-attitudes toward the police and courts
-support for the clinton impeachment

first three categories showed relationships with ethnic diversity, knowledge, efficacy and political discussion (ex: communities with higher Asian populations tended to have high levels of discussion and knowledge)

-community resources didn't have much of an effect on knowledge, efficacy, or discussion

-partisan diversity had larger impact on political knowledge - structures pre-adult socialization heavily

-voter turnout greater associated with support for law enforcement

-ethnically "mixed" communities less tolerant of immigrants...?

-political environment most potent predictor of attitudes toward tolerance - two-party system = greater tolerance (as opposed to a community with homogeneous political attitudes, one-party)

Chapter 3: Racial Group Membership, Neighborhood Context, and Political Socialization

-evaluate individual racial or ethnic traits with community characteristics with a two-level model (HLM)

-major difference between white respondents and minority respondents was level of political discussion (lower for minorities)

-negative attitides toward law enforcement not as context dependent as other socialization indicators

-they basically spent the whole chapter trying to correlate race with their previous measures (knowledge, efficacy, etc...)

their conclusion:
-living within a coethnic enclave is not conducive to a positive socialization experience unless you are white.

Litt (1970) Civic Education, Community Norms, and Political Indoctrination

educational systems indoctrinate students to be good citizens. But this indoctrination differs from society to society (within the US). how do different socio-economic communities affect indoctrination efforts? i.e. textbooks selected/attitudes and norms differ...

Litt, “Civic Education, Community Norms, and Political Indoctrination.”
Since political indoctrination is not uniform, the author aims at examining the factors influencing political indoctrination.
Sample: Youths from secondary schools in each of three communities in Boston with different socioeconomic and political characteristics.
- Alpha == upper-middle class, high political activities
- Beta == lower middle-class, moderate political activities
- Gamma == working-class, little political activities
Method
- Content analysis of all textbooks used in the civic education program (5 dimensions: emphasis on citizen political participation, political chauvinism, democratic creed, emphasis on political process, and emphasis on politics as the resolution of group conflict).
- Interviews of school administrators and teachers of civic education, and community leaders.
- Questionnaire administered on children before and after taking civic education courses, with a control group.
Findings
- Textbooks: no difference in terms of democratic creed, political chauvinism. Gamma texts had fewer references to norms supporting political participation, and political process. Both Beta and Gamma texts had less emphasis on politics as the resolution of group conflict.
- Community norms: reinforce democratic creed, avoid chauvinism, encourage political participation. Alpha community more supportive to themes of politics as process, power, and of politics as group conflict.
- Changes in political attitudes after taking a civic course: children in the civic education more likely to endorse democratic creed and less likely to hold chauvinistic sentiments than those who did not take a course. But, the exposure to the class did not affect the attitudes toward political participation when compared to a control group. Only children in Alpha community strengthened their perceptions on politics as process of power and politics as the resolution of group conflict.
Conclusions
- Materials, support, and affect differed across three communities. Students in three communities are being trained to play different political roles and respond to political phenomena in different ways. For working-class community, civic education offers training for the basic democratic procedures, no stress on political participation. Lower middle-class community adds emphasis on the responsibilities of citizenship, not political decision-making. Affluent and politically active community provides children with insights to political process, functions of politics, and dynamics of decision-making.

Jaros, Hirsch, & Eleron Jr. (1970) The Malevolent Leader: Political Socialization in an American Sub-Culture

building patriotic citizens in schools? Are these findings in fact, "culturally bound?"
2 problems:
(1) data is all from the U.S. (and white kids)
(2) the findings have not progressed that far


This chapter looks to see if the "benevolent leader" findings transmit to a sub-culture in the US: the Appalachian region of eastern KY; which works bc it is poor, rural, isolated

Two (2) explanations of Children's Authority Orientations:
(1) the family directly transmits positive values about government and political to the child while shielding him from stimuli which have negative connotations...
(2) the fam is an important socializing agent bc the child's experiences with his immediate authority figures (parents) are somehow projected to include more remote agencies, including the political.

Method:
N=2,432
kinds grade 5-12
paper and pencil questionnaires

Measuring affect for political authority:
(1) reports of images of president
(2) political cynicism score--basic orientation toward political actors and activity

Measurement of family authority structure:
(1 )father image
(2) noting whether the father lives at home

Findings:
the subculture has more negative attitudes toward government (571) and it doesnt change with age, unlike the other studies' findings.
Child views remain fairly static
Atypical findings from Knox support the notion of a direct transfer parental values to certain aspects of child political orientations—particularly re: political cynicism & competence of president
Doubt that family authority structure is an effective means of understanding political communication of regime values-look to other factors or other family dynamics
Explanatory relationships are modest
Positive views of political may be culturally bound
Divergent findings help underscore explanations for child political socialization

Conover & Searing (2000) A Political Socialization Perspective

STUDYING THE MAKING OF CITIZENS

The study of the development of "democratic character" among students is weak, and dated. What more, in practice schools' focus on developing democratic character in its students has also slowed--educators have re-centered their focus. This chapter aims to justify the educating of "democratic character" in the first place; determine what bars it; and better understand the social and psychological contexts of political socialization. The implications of this paper shouldeffect formal education, in the form of reform (i enjoy the word form).

at minimum, education should foster strong citizen identities, an understanding of citizens' roles, and hone skills necessary for this realization. (the role, btw, is as an actor, acting to sustain a representative, liberal democracy in a multicultural society). According to the authors, research has not focused on educations'/educators' role in this development. What more, the research has been overly focused on "practices" i.e. voting practices. instead of focusing on the "practices" the focus should be on patterns. The distinction is made here [when studying students]: "In the case of students, the question becomes are they developing lifelong patterns of political discussion, staying informed, and being tolerant in ways that can sustain a full practice of citizenship?" (93).
Other issues? researchers, typically, use determined definitions for topics, like "citizenship," instead of citizen defined definitions. The authors here are interested in the students' understanding of their role as citizens, and the extent to which their definition mirrors the socially prescribed role.

The authors here, thus, use an "interpretive model" (more comparative and more qualitative):
-more credible
-more explanatory
-less predictive
-developmental (recognizing that behavior is self-transformative over time; thus this research is sensitive to the ways in which practices of behaviors evolve over a lifetime) (93).

DATA:
US AND Great Britain (GB) school communities (4 types):
(1) suburban community
(2) rural community
(3) urban community
(4) immigrant community


Ind vars:
Sense of Citizenship:
"The key measurement task in determining the presense and centrality of citizens identities is to access whether this identity is apart of the core self, the pary of hte self easily accessible for frequent use" (98). Thus, students were asked "how often, if ever, do you think of yourself as a citizen of the US?" their answer to this question was compared to their answer to the question which substituted "student" "friend," "neighbor," "dem/republican" etc. for citizen.
-strength of citizen identity was highest for immigrants at 71.4%, than students in rural communities (60%), suburban (56%), followed by urban (55.7%). their level of identification for the other words was less strong (friend was strong). Thus students have core citizenship identities.

Question 1: Yet what is their understanding of citizenship? in all by the rural community (2), the meaning of a citizen was a person with rights and duties; for rural comms., the meaning of a citizen wasa member of the community, reflecting the tightknit social fabric of rural communities.

Distinguishing between citizen rights and citizen duties:
Students of each of the four communities were asked to rank:
(1) RIGHTS
civil, political and social
(2) DUTIES
political, communal, social, patriotic

Findings:
Although the communities differ, their is an obvious pattern across communities in their ranking of citizen RIGHTS. The only topic that saw considerable disagreement were topics where we see disagreements, in general--issues of homosexuality (the right to be homosexual) and abortion rights. Urban and Immigrant comms were opposed to both at much higher levels than rural and suburban communities (table on page 100).

citizen DUTIES were also consistent across populations, though the communal duties were ranked much higher by students from rural/farm communities. Also, the immigrant comm students stand out, in that these students stress the importance of social duties (see page 102 for full chart).

Question 2: To what extent are students developing the skills and motivation necessary to sustain regular political discussion?
measure (1) what issues do you talk about and how often [frequency] and (2) where [setting]?

FIndings:
schools, across all communities, are the setting for political discussions had by students (demonstrating the importance of schools in the development of citizens). Where there is considerable difference is in the frequency of discussion--students from immigrant comms rarely engage in political discussion, and neither do urban students; suburban and rural students at least engage in moderate levels of political discussion.

Question 3: How tolerant are students from each community?
Measure: ask students which group they disapprove of most (i.e. racists) and then ask them the number of tolerant acts they would commit toward this group. Urban and immigrant groups' tolerance toward the group they disapprove of most is very low; for sub and rural students, it is much higher (chart on page 107).

Question 4: To what extent does the educational experience help to ameliorate these deficiencies?
School experience broken down into four elements:
(1) the sense of school community
measure: identification with the school community and sense of shared interests.
(2) the students level of civic engagement
number of groups the student is associated with
(3) level of political discussion
asked how often they have serious discussion about political issues a. in school, b. at school, but not in class, c. after school, or d. with teachers (thus, a more concentrated assessment of the "setting" question, that just looks at the setting whilst at school).
(4) curriculum
asked if there are classes that influence their conception of citizenship, beyond american gov courses.

Findings:
(1) half of the students identify with their school--it is lowest among urban students (42%).
(2)sub and rural students are in more groups than urban and immigrant students
(3) political discussion takes place in class
(4) students talk about politics in english classes--though not at a high level or across all communities. it is based on contenentious efforts made by teachers, many of which do not conceive of this role.

Final and key question: To what extent do these four elements contribute to a sense and practice of citizenship?
Findings on page 113:
Civic engagment (membership in groups) is strongly correlated with a sense of citizenship, whereas political discussion, civic engagement, and discussion of politics in a non political class are correlated with a practice of citizenship.

Take home point?
social interaction in schools is key (i.e. group membership).
there is variation within schools (depending upon the teachers' efforts) and between communities
cannot reduce findings to differences in SES; the authors conclude that differences reflect subtle and not so subtle community differences in shared understanding of the meaning of citizenship, the importance of community, and goals of education, stressing the importance of a localized understanding of citizenship.