Search

The paper focuses on political change and assumes that education in Nigeria, as elsewhere in the world, will be expected to contribute to political reconstruction. The limitations of schooling for planned political socialization is analyzed. Although the paper's observations refer particularly to Nigeria, they are meant to apply generally to the relationship between school and society in any nation. It also discusses obstacles from several sources to using the schools as an instrument for political change that also cast serious doubt on their availability for such efforts.

Three perspectives are usually used to explain differences in political beliefs and behavior of men and women: political socialization, structural, and situational. This paper examines evidence bearing and one of these theories, political socialization, and finds relatively minor support for it. A variety of alternative explanations flow from these results, the most radical of which would call for abandoning the political socialization perspective altogether. A more cautious reading of the findings suggest a new interpretation, one that integrates both political socialization and situational theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationships between social studies instruction and political attitudes of high school students. Based on questionnaire responses of a random stratified sample of students, the data confirm previous findings that exposure to social studies classes alone has little apparent relationship to students' political efficacy, cynicism. participation, and sense of citizen duty, although this is not as true for black pupils as it is for their white peers. Two classroom variables—the treatment of controversial social issues and classroom climate—interact so that in an open classroom climate, exposure to controversial issues is inversely related to political cynicism and directly related to political efficacy, participation, and sense of citizen duty. In closed classroom climates, the opposite relationships obtain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the political sociology in Eastern Europe. The term sociology is a newcomer in the official nomenclature of social sciences in most East European countries. Sociology had been left out from the program of social studies, it was not because of any real scientific reasons, but because its name was objected, the present renaissance of sociology in these countries is related to the political changes which have taken place during the last decade; in fact, it is evidence of new political tendencies. Hence the importance of following the changing approach to political phenomena in the theoretical sociological publications in socialist countries. The period between 1957 and 1963, covered by the appended bibliography and referred to in the present paper, provides ample material on the subject. In this sense, the place of political sociology among sociological disciplines is essentially different from that of other branches of detailed sociology. The latter are concerned with some isolated fields of social life, while political sociology investigates social phenomena from the angle of their political aspect, the aspect of power. Hence, if there is any justification for regarding political sociology as a separate discipline, it is on the grounds of the difference in theoretical approach rather than the difference in the subject of study.

Within the past ten years the vocabulary of political sociology has been augmented by the addition of the word 'populism'. Its general acceptance has yet to be achieved; but in the past five years its use has spread enormously. The purpose of the paper is to provide a brief 'biography' of the concept of 'populism', examining the changing way in which the word has come to be used in its lifetime. It is argued that the confusion which has attended the growth in its use is not merely a semantic problem, arising from the inability of various writers to define their terms, but an important indicator of the nature of the phenomenon. The major difficulty is seen as lying in the lack of an acceptable general theoretical framework within which to handle the political development of peasant societies. The notion of such societies as 'part-societies', widespread in current anthropology, is examined as a possible starting point for such a general framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the authors will critically examine a central, though neglected, aspect of political socialization research--the learning concept. Following a discussion of the current status of the learning concept, they propose a research strategy towards the operationalization of the concept in political socialization research and exemplify the approach with a specific learning paradigm adopted from experimental psychology. In a field such as psychology which evidences a long history of research in the study of learning as a general concept, there is a sharp disagreement as to what precisely is meant by "the learning process." Since psychologists differ with regard to the learning process, the unqualified utilization of the concept within political socialization research is highly questionable. Moreover, the failure to explicate clearly the meaning of the learning process in political socialization research has precluded the establishment of the "empirical import" of the concept. Inclusion of the term "political learning" as an integral element in a synthetic mode of discourse requires that the empirical import of the term be established.

In their May 1963 article that appeared in the journal Social forces, Student Rebellion Against Parental Political Beliefs, writers Russell Middleton and Snell Putney discussed one aspect of political socialization, that of reaction of young adults to their parents political beliefs. Testing, as they did, a sample drawn from several public and private institutions in the four geographic regions of the United States, their results reveal this process of political socialization amongst the predominant white group in the society. The present article attempts to compare their results with a similar study undertaken at a primarily Negro institution, in order to suggest any differences that may appear in this process between the subgroup and the predominant group. The data for this study were collected by means of anonymous questionnaires administered to 396 students. The two authors, in their 1963 article, noted the lack of comparable data over time with which to view the direction of any rebellion. Author of this article hopes to help fill such a gap and to suggest some awareness of the political socialization process among students of a minority ethnic group.

This analysis of changes in the party affiliations of American adults between 1952 and 1972 (1) assesses the stability of the relationship between party and a set of causal variables and (2) examines the extent to which the observed changes are attributable to changes in the electorate's demographic composition. We found that indicators of stratification position, race, region, religion, and political socialization have exerted a nearly constant causal influence on party throughout the twenty-year period. A model which assumed constant effects (equal regression slopes) across the six elections explained only 2% less of the variance in party than a model which allowed the dopes to vary across elections. Of the variables in the causal model, socialization-as indicated by father's party preference-has the largest effect on party affiliation. The addition to our model of the demographic variables, age and cohort, revealed that both factors influence individuals' party affiliations. Though age and cohort explain only a small portion of the variance in party, examination of the net differences in mean party affiliation between age groups and between cohorts showed that aging does produce a net shift away from the Democratic party and that the Depression has had lasting effects on the preferences of cohort members formulating their preferences at that time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the role of mass communication in political socialization. Contribution of television to learning about politics and government; Determinants in the formation of political attitudes and in voting behavior; Effects of the media in the socialization of the child.

One parent and a college-age child were interviewed from sixty white upper-middle-class families, in which the parent was highly politically active and identified with either liberal or conservative social causes. The sample contained approximately equal numbers of mothers and fathers and sons and daughters. An analysis of dyadic political attitude agreement suggested that mothers had slightly greater influence on both daughters and sons. An analysis of the association of six independent family variables with parent-child attitude congruence indicated significant association of measures of family political climate with attitude congruence for all dyad$ except mother-son, with father-son dyads showing the greatest association. The reasons for the apparent discrepancies were discussed, along with the suggestion that symbolic interactionist theory provides a useful theoretical framework for political socialization research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the failure of modern political systems imposed in two former British colonies Sri Lanka and British Guiana with regard to the political socialization of marginal groups. It then go on to raise some questions as to how successful the political system in two modern societies the U.S. and Great Britain has in fact been in politically integrating all its groups, particularly the Negro. British Guiana provides some interesting contrasts with Ceylon, despite the similarities in the political system introduced by the British in the latter period of colonialism. In Ceylon economic roles were much more stratified by community, and the traditional society was left untouched in many respects. The majority comprising of Sinhalese was left to pursue their peasant holdings, while Indians were transported to Ceylon to work on the plantations established by the British. The Ceylon Tamils virtually came to control the bureaucracy and the professions. Communalism after independence was inevitable when the vast majority of Sinhalese came into political control and found the monopoly of the bureaucracy and other important jobs by a small minority intolerable. The static nature of the economy, coupled with an ever-increasing population, also increased Sinhalese hostility towards the Indian estate workers.

In recent years there has been a growing body of literature concerning the methodology, concepts and tools of analysis for the study of the political process. It is being argued that for a better grasp of the inner forces of the political system broader concepts and approaches borrowed from allied disciplines like sociology, social anthropology and psychology should be used. Recent writers on the politics of the developing nations have suggested various models and approaches which draw on insights from sociology and psychology, which may be used for the study of the political process of the emerging nations. In this article the author examines critically some of these models and approaches, and then to construct a model of the developed polity. The author remarks that in his introduction to "The Politics of the Developing Areas," writer, Gabriel A. Almond has presented a functional model for the study of politics. Almond categorizes the functions of the political system in political socialization and recruitment, interest articulation, interest aggregation and political communication as input functions and rule-making, rule application, and rule adjudication as output functions.

The article presents information on the political foundations of the German education. For comparative education, the concepts should be culturally defined and the comparative method should be established and refined, without adjectival qualifications. Two persistent problems faced by the students of German politics is that of political culture and political organization. Political socialization has become a pivotal problem in the East German attempt to establish a change in political culture below the system change and a change in political behavior above it. Specific definitions, means of instruction and expected outcomes vary greatly, not only between East and West Germany, but also among groups and individuals, inside professional education and out. German educators must first come to terms with the problems of political tradition, and must consciously seek to identify the behavioral orientation for a participant political culture which accords with a simultaneous modernization of institutions for an integrative socio-political system.

The article presents a comparative analysis of the current state of education across the world from a political perspective. Today, it is being claimed that political scientists have discovered education. This claim, supposedly, is motivated to direct the attention of political scientists toward the idea that non-political institutions, such as schools, have political consequences. It is also aimed to emphasize on the political socialization of education. The author argues that there is a need for an educational process that serves as an agent of social change. He links the future of all national educational systems with the basic outlooks and values of the political order. In developing countries, particularly, the educational system is viewed as the key to rapid social change. However, students of socialization have made a strategic error in concerning themselves primarily with the manifest content of social studies programs. In advanced industrial societies, especially stable democracies, the important thing about political socialization is not the explicit content of political education programs. The author argues for a centralized attention towards the issue of socialization in schools. He mainly suggests to pay attention to two aspects of the educational process: first, aspects of political life not included in typical social studies courses, and second, techniques of instruction.

The article discusses the problems that theorists of liberalism face when attempting to derive characteristically liberal conclusion from a particular premise. It focuses on dilemma faced by professor John Rawls when in his book he attempted to advance priority of liberty while rejecting the ideal of human character. Moreover, it offers an overview of liberalism in relation to inherent values of society and posits that the dilemma arises when an unscrupulous conclusion is made. The author further contends that although freedom is the tenet of liberalism and majority rules in the society, respect to minorities life, characters and values must be afforded.

Presents a bibliography on political sociology.

The generally accepted definition views the process of socialization as being predominantly if not entirely unidirectional. It holds that the child 'is led to develop,' he is therefore passive and acted upon. The inference to be drawn here is not the reverse, that the child moulds his environment. This is patently false. But there is also something false, even if in a more subtle way with the statement that the environment moulds the child. Instead, this article advances the view that there is a mutual interaction between the child and his environment, in which the child may be quite passive initially but in which the child with increasing years may enjoy a corresponding freedom of response. Not all children may utilize this freedom equally, and it is precisely this possibility of individual differences in the process of political socialization that is the focus of the article. One may object that the very concept of socialization denotes conformity to adult social norms. But this is to confuse the intended aims of the process with its actual practice.

The article focuses on the analytical division of social class. The subtleties of class systems have always presented a challenge to social investigators. New categories have been offered for measuring the stratification of British society. In the U.S., although class is a less obtrusive phenomenon, the variety of empirical approaches has been if anything even greater. The current study of British political attitudes have led to examine the accepted measures of class and in particular the point at which the line is usually drawn between the middle and working classes. Research into the political effects of class is peculiarly dependent on the way in which classes are defined empirically; answers to the simplest questions about, for instance, the relative party solidarity of classes must depend on the operations by which the classes are separated. The publics perceptions of class can also help in selecting the boundary between the classes in analyses based on occupational or other objective measures-and indeed in choosing the best types of measure.

In a stable society one would expect political socialization to be an education in traditionalism. In a society where the political temperature is low, one would expect to find the young being effectively de-politicized, learning to accept and endorse the status quo, to assimilate the orientations to politics of their elders, and in particular to share with them certain consequential perceptions of what are and are not the salient issues of politics. In Great Britain, the majority leave school at 15 years, ignorant of workings of the political system and content to be so. The minority who stay on are carefully inducted into received constitutional orthodoxies and a view of their social environment that wholly inhibits critical thinking a naive pragmatism that assumes that British institutions work and they work as satisfactorily as they could reasonably be. What is striking about British youth in the past decade is the growth of a youth culture that has imposed a socially marginal and distinctively non-adult identity on the young in return for few economic and recreational opportunities.

This article presents a critical evaluation of four general hypotheses concerning the sources of university students' political attitudes. The first general hypothesis states that students' political attitudes are determined directly by their parents. The second general hypothesis suggests that a major determinant of students' political attitudes is the extent to which the values emphasized in the students' homes while they were growing up tend to mesh with the values of the dominant occupational sphere. The third general hypothesis stresses the interrelation between students and the government itself. And the fourth general hypothesis is based on an idea popular in circles, namely that there are agents within the university setting who influences the attitudes of the students and create their antigovernmental political attitudes.

Children have very low levels of response stability on many questions commonly used in political socialization studies, particularly those measuring attitudes. This article incorporates evidence from a three-wave panel survey into a discussion of some possible causes of low stability. The findings suggest changes in the established methodology of substantive studies of children's attitudes and a reevaluation of the generalizations arising from these stud. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most studies in the past have found substantial correspondence between the political beliefs of an "offspring" and a "parental" generation--a fact which has led many writers to locate the primary source of political socialization in the family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a new section featuring measurement of public opinion by the "poll" and "panel" techniques. It contains the following departments: (1) British Institute of Public Opinion, reporting selected questions asked British voters by the British Institute; (2) Gallup and "Fortune" Polls, a regular compilation of the poll data released by the American Institute of Public Opinion and by "Fortune" magazine; (3) Analysis of Poll results, containing a general, high-light commentary on the poll data and a detailed analysis of a single important question asked during the preceding quarter; (4) "Panel" Studies; and (5) Problems and Techniques. In considering poll data, certain salient points of reference must be borne in mind. The American Institute and "Fortune" surveys are conducted by separate, independent organizations, similar in that both have a common interest in reporting public opinion by the use of objective, statistical methods, but differing in many details of method. The importance of the time factor must be stressed, particularly in interpreting the standing of political candidates and the trends of party popularity. Secondly, the observer must be aware that poll results can be interpreted only in the light of the specific question asked. The third point to bear in mind is the composition of the sample population covered by each of these surveys. There has been a good deal of discussion lately concerning the reliability of public opinion polls. Much of the criticism concerns the problem of sampling.

This article focuses on the classification of political regions according to electoral behavior in Western mass politics. Analytically, regions derive their integrity from the presence of more or less consistent patterns of economic and social organization, as well as the presence of distinctive political traditions. It has also been commonplace for regional studies to insert the notion of contiguity as an implicit qualification, that is, regions as subnational sociopolitical entities have been defined as being comprised of proximal units, or contiguous blocks of places, with little or no concern for its theoretical justification. While regional classification systems suggest important geographical variations in electoral behavior, based upon a somewhat intuitive notion of the contours of political traditions in their respective systems, the inclusion of departmental or provincial contiguity as a component of regionalization cannot be fully justified on theoretical grounds, and may actually intervene to distort the results by statistically disturbing the variation and range of all of the observed variables.

This article reports some preliminary findings on the role of lawyers in the modernization of Indian society. Lawyers in district towns were interviewed for the purpose of discovering what contribution lawyers make to political socialization appropriate to a democratic polity. The political system can be thought of as a process whereby the desires of the members of society are articulated, aggregated and converted into binding decisions. Law provides the context of relative stability within which this political interaction can occur. Constitutional law is the framework of basic rules for participating in the political process. In a country as unevenly developed economically and politically as India, only some strata of the population identify with the goals of the democratic system and the basic norms of political behavior that support it. The modern legal system in India, from this sociological standpoint, is an instrument of tutelary politics in the hands of the Western-educated elite. The constitution, the apparatus of the courts and the codified Indian common law embody values and norms which support the leadership's conception of a modern democratic welfare state.