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The present study investigates the intensity and nature of children’s political interest based on an ontogenetic theory of interest development. It examines concepts of politics, the degree of general and issue interest, as well as the reasons why children develop political interest. The sample consists of 594 primary and secondary pupils aged 8 to 12 years. A combination of questionnaires and drawing tasks were used to evaluate the children’s interest in politics. The findings demonstrate a high and consistent degree of political interest. Some topics (e.g., war) stand out to be of particular interest to the children. Topic interest is stimulated either by a topic’s perceived relevance or by its attention-drawing potential. Differences among the children suggest that influences on the development of political interest take effect already in childhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study looks at the question of which domain-specific concepts regarding politics children already understand and to what extent a naïve theory of politics can be postulated. It shows that even children in first grade have political knowledge that becomes increasingly differentiated throughout their time in elementary school. Fourth graders’ knowledge is more elaborate than that of first graders. The migrant background of children has a negative influence on political knowledge. No gender-specific differences in knowledge are found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gender gap is one of the main puzzles explored in research on political knowledge. Studies on children have shown that this phenomenon takes root in childhood. Girls score lower than boys on knowledge tests, despite cultural developments promoting greater gender equality. How can the gender gap in children’s political knowledge be explained? This article examines the leading explanations for the gender gap found in the literature in light of the results of an original empirical study conducted with French children in primary school. It suggests that the gender gap in children’s political knowledge does not mainly result from either specific social inequalities or methodological bias, although the study does find that question-answering behavior differs between boys and girls. Rather, the gender gap appears to primarily result from socialization. Children progressively develop different perceptions of politics according to their gender, as well as different approaches to knowledge tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how and why political knowledge varies among young children. The data of the empirical analyses are adapted from the German study “Learning to Live Democracy” and consists of a three-wave panel of 431 young children who were interviewed at the beginning and at the end of their first school year, as well as at the end of their fourth school year. The empirical results show that political knowledge among young children is not equally distributed. Girls, children from Turkish families and/or those from areas with a low socioeconomic status show a tendency to be less politically knowledgeable than boys, children from native German families and/or those from areas with a higher socioeconomic status. These differences do not disappear during the first years in school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the question of children’s relations to the political order. More precisely, it examines the empirical question of children’s appropriation of the left/right cleavage. To do so, we conducted a 2-year study (2010-2012), in two primary schools in Paris, with 336 children aged between 7 and 10 years. This article is based on the analysis of the questionnaire that was administered to all the children at the beginning of the second year, before the beginning of the presidential campaign of 2012. Starting with what could have been taken for survey bias—children preferring “the right” because they are right-handers—we argue that this misunderstanding is indeed meaningful and can be very useful, theoretically and methodologically. It helps us demonstrate that politicization is based on symbolic logics of transposition from one practical domain (the use of the body) to another (politics). On the basis of this misunderstanding, we construct an indicator of the degree of politicization, which allows us to demonstrate that these general symbolic logics are themselves dependent on social logics (of gender and class in particular) that make this transposition more or less difficult, and to occur more or less early. Regarding the qualitative analysis of the open-ended questions for the significations of “right” and “left”, we finally identify four main lexicons of explanation for this dichotomy (corporeal, nominal/descriptive, affective/moral, and argumentative). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue overcomes the still existing reservations to analyze children’s perspectives on politics and society. Dealing with different topics, research questions, and new data, the articles provide new insights and open the discussion for questions of children’s involvement in civil society. The findings of these articles should be relevant for all researchers of childhood sociology, for civic educationalists and students of political learning and behavior. Questions investigated are, among others, how do children think about politics, democracy, and society? How do they express their political attitudes? What do children’s political orientations and behavior look like? How politically knowledgeable are they and what are the reasons for between-group differences? What are important democratic learning contexts and factors that shape these orientations? And, last but not least, what methods can we use to analyze children’s political involvement in an adequate manner? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigates the intensity and nature of children’s political interest based on an ontogenetic theory of interest development. It examines concepts of politics, the degree of general and issue interest, as well as the reasons why children develop political interest. The sample consists of 594 primary and secondary pupils aged 8 to 12 years. A combination of questionnaires and drawing tasks were used to evaluate the children’s interest in politics. The findings demonstrate a high and consistent degree of political interest. Some topics (e.g., war) stand out to be of particular interest to the children. Topic interest is stimulated either by a topic’s perceived relevance or by its attention-drawing potential. Differences among the children suggest that influences on the development of political interest take effect already in childhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]