The Internet Generation: Engaged Citizens or Political Dropouts

2: Political Socialization, Social Class, and Technological Transformation

2 Political Socialization, Social Class, and Technological Transformation I n the previous chapter, we introduced an approach based on political knowledge to the question of youth political participation—an approach that targets potential political dropouts. In this chapter, we shall try to deepen our understanding of the phenomenon by looking at changes that distinguish the generations reaching maturity in recent years from those that came before. The latest stage, the subject matter of the next chapter, ushers in the revolutionary transformation of communications technology at the end of the twentieth century. Here, we are concerned with the earlier and broader developments that shaped the conditions under which recent generations reached political maturity, the process that specialists label political socialization. Political socialization is “the process by which new generations are inducted into political culture, learning the knowledge, values, and attitudes that contribute to support of the political system” (Gimpel, Lay, and Schuknecht 2003, 13). The intensity of the ongoing debates about declining youth political participation noted in the previous chapter tells us that something new is happening. One indication is the revival of interest in political socialization as a field of research. Whatever Happened to Political Socialization? The intellectual origins of political socialization research lie in debates about teaching civic education. In the 1930s, in the United States, academic emphasis began to shift toward empirical investigations into the development of citizenship orientations. At the time, a main concern of political scientists was to weaken the appeal of machine politics, especially among the growing immigrant population, which meant downplaying the need for active political participation and stressing patriotism, 32 // citizens in the making obedience to the law, and respect for government. In his investigation into the qualities of citizenship being taught in different nations, Charles Merriam noted that the idea that citizens should be able to exercise judgment about political issues was missing. His work, combined with that of John Dewey, proved influential in making critical thinking a skill that American civic education would seek to develop—not only in the school, but also in newspapers, radio, and film (Owen 2004). The development of political socialization as an accepted subfield re- flected the postwar shift in the focus of political science research toward political behavior, and to an understanding that political behavior was learned behavior. Hence the political life of individuals could be understood in the same way as other developmental processes (see, e.g., Hyman 1959). Political socialization tended to be viewed as a natural maturation process in which healthy attitudes toward democracy and participation were developed. As Torney-Purta notes: It appealed specifically to political scientists who sought to trace partisanship from generation to generation, and the various sources of support for the political system. Most of this research posited a straightforward model of process. Socialization agents (families, schools, other authority figures) acting to further their own interests and those of society attempted to inculcate certain values, attitudes, knowledge, or behaviors. Youth then assimilated or incorporated this knowledge or these attitudes . . . If political learning was inadequate, ineffective socialization agents were responsible . . . Rare was the researcher who argued that the young person might resist the socialization message. (2000, 88) However, it gradually emerged that the assumption that political lessons learned early in life persisted was in fact little supported by empirical testing of the relationship between childhood political learning and adult political attitudes and behaviors (Sears 1990). This raised doubts about the value of studying children’s perceptions, which had been the common procedure in the 1960s and 1970s (Dudley and Gitelson 2002), resulting in fewer and fewer social scientists’ seeing youth as an interesting population to study. Torney-Purta notes that “the field was thus left to the developmental and educational psychologists, the result of which was a greater emphasis on children rather than adolescents and, especially , young adults, who served further to distance political science research from the field” (2000, 88–89). What had still been an important socialization and technology // 33 facet of political science in the 1960s and into the 1970s was now relegated to the sidelines. It soon became difficult to locate a literature that provides systematic insight into the political socialization of the young. In retrospect, the absence reflected a change in the context in which political socialization takes place. For the generation reaching maturity in Western countries, these were decades of extraordinary psychological and social...