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Concept Version 7
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Major Life and Political Events

Political socialization takes place throughout the life cycle, but major life or political events can also impact political values.

Learning Objective

  • Explain how parents, social groups and major life events are sources for political socialization


Key Points

    • The life cycle is a key component to political socialization: throughout time, people grow more attached and socialized to particular political values.
    • Certain events during a person's life, such as buying a home or having children, can impact the formation of political values.
    • When a generation experiences a major political event together, such as the Great Depression, a political generation can emerge. This political generation will have political values distinct from other political generations.
    • The primary political generations in American politics include the Depression Era/GI generation, the silent generation, the baby boom generation, generation X, and the millennial generation/generation Y.
    • Conflict usually exists between the younger and older political generations, as the younger generations are more open to new and changing ideas.

Terms

  • life cycle

    The developmental history of an individual or group in society; the course of stages through which a human passes from birth until death.

  • political generation

    A group of individuals, similar in age, who share a general set of political socialization experiences.


Full Text

Sources of Political Socialization

Parents appear to be a primary source of political socialization and partisanship. Much of the theoretical basis for this hypothesis emerged from the fields of child psychology and social learning, which studied the ways in which children are socialized and values inculcated in them. Studies of political partisanship have found that partisanship is strongest when both parents have the same political loyalties, these loyalties are strong, both parents have similarly strong party loyalties, and parental partisanship accords with socio-economic status (for example, the wealthy are Republicans or the poor are Labour supporters).

Social groups are another source of partisanship. Friends, relatives, and neighbors often have the same partisan loyalties and strengths as one's parents. The more homogeneous the social group, the more likely the individual will be to develop strong partisan loyalties. When social group homogeneousness is low, the individual is likely to be less strongly socialized into partisan politics and more likely to seek a different party loyalty (whether by disengaging from partisanship or switching partisan loyalties).

Political socialization takes place throughout the course of a person's life. However, certain major life and political events can interrupt the normal progression of political socialization, causing a person to change his or her opinion and accept other political values and ideologies.

Initially, studies indicated that the most important factor in forming political values was the life cycle. That is, a person's attachment to a specific political ideology naturally grew stronger over time, as weak socialization became strong and strong socialization became stronger. Additionally, theorists suggested that older voters favored certain policy preferences (such as strong government pensions and old-age health insurance) which led them to favor one party over another.

Impact of Major Life Events

Later studies have shown that the initial strong effect of the life cycle variable was mitigated by generational effects. Party identification seemed strongly affected by certain formative generational events, such as the Civil War, the Great Depression or the social upheaval of the 1960s. Several studies concluded that generational effects (major life events) were distinct from life cycle effects, and that both were significant factors in creating (or not creating) partisanship.

Conceding that major "shocks" such as the Great Depression could realign or dealign partisanship, some scholars reasoned that a series of smaller shocks over time could also dramatically influence the direction and strength of partisanship. Many scholars became convinced that partisanship was not bedrock, but shifting sand. Important childhood events, such as becoming aware of a presidential campaign, as well as events in adulthood (such as recessions, war, or shifting racial policies) could also affect one's level of partisanship.

September 11, 2001

Major historical or political events, such as September 11th, can impact the political socialization and the formation of political values for an entire generation.

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