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A popular model of legal socialization contends that interactions with authority figures impact the internalization of pro-social values and beliefs, including authority legitimacy. Simultaneously,...

COVID-19 has challenged people worldwide to comply with strict lock-downs and meticulous healthcare instructions. Can states harness enclave communities to comply with the law in such crucial times, even when compliance conflicts with communal sources of authority? We investigated this question through the case of Israeli ultra-Orthodox schools compliance with COVID-19 regulations. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with school principals, documents and media sources, and a field survey, we found that the state has the capacity to quickly internalize new norms and harness the cooperation of previously suspicious communities. At the same time, we found that communal authorities were able to shield widespread communal defiance from legal enforcement. These findings expose the bidirectionality of legal socialization: As the community uses its defiance power to attenuate the law, it socializes public authorities to accede to their bounded authority. As public authorities come to realize that the community cannot be brought to full compliance, they curtail enforcement efforts and socialize the community to operate outside the law. Our findings animate the reciprocity assumption in legal socialization theory and highlight one of the crucial tasks for the next 50 years of research: to examine the bidirectionality of legal socialization and discover its socio-legal effects.

Legal socialization is the study of how individuals develop their perceptions of legal authorities and laws. Studies demonstrate that adolescents with negative perceptions of legal authorities tend to violate the law, yet the literature has not adequately addressed how adolescents develop their perceptions, why their perceptions affect behavior, and, despite being a critical component of legal socialization, how individuals develop their perceptions of law. This dissertation applied a developmental approach to filling these gaps in the literature. The first study demonstrated that the development of perceptions of the justice system through adolescence varies based on both race and experience. Specifically, Black youth report the most negative perceptions, followed by Latino, and then White youth, and racial differences increase as youth age. Further, attitudes become worse over time for youth who remain in the system. The second study showed that youth differentiate between legal authorities, such as law enforcement and the justice system, and socio-cultural authorities, such as schools and religious institutions. Further, across races/ethnicities youths’ perceptions of law enforcement have declined markedly in recent years. The third study demonstrated that the effect of perceptions on delinquency varies based on developmental level. Finally, the fourth study revealed that the obligation to obey the law declines through adolescence and how youth perceive law is strongly associated with how their parents view law.

U radu se analiziraju rezultati anketnog istraživanja o poznavanju izabranih radnih prava među maturantima srednjih strukovnih škola u Hrvatskoj. Istraživanje je provedeno tijekom 2019. u okviru EU projekta Znanjem do prava na uzorku od 1 102 maturanta iz 54 srednje strukovne škole različitih trogodišnjih, četverogodišnjih i petogodišnjih programa. Primjenom deskriptivne statistike i regresijske analize, u radu se nastoji ustanoviti postoje li razlike u pokazanom znanju o radnim pravima i povezanost sociodemografskih i obrazovanih karakteristika ispitanika s razinom pravne pismenosti. Rezultati upućuju na njihovo relativno slabo poznavanje i nisku razinu pravne pismenosti iz područja izabranih radnih prava te povezanost sociodemografskih i obrazovnih obilježja ispitanika s indeksom ukupnog znanja o izabranim radnim pravima. Regresijska analiza pokazuje kako varijabla spola ima najveći utjecaj na razinu pravne pismenosti među ispitanim maturantima srednjih strukovnih škola. Osim u sagledavanju aktualnog stanja u pogledu znanja ispitanih maturanata srednjih strukovnih škola o izabranim radnim pravima, te poticanju akademskih i javnih rasprava, nalazi ovog istraživanja mogu imati aplikativnu vrijednost pri izradama plana i programa građanskog odgoja i obrazovanja na različitim obrazovnim razinama, kao i za razvoj i planiranje sindikalnog djelovanja u Hrvatskoj u pogledu regrutacije novog članstva. Istraživački nalazi potencijalno pridonose i kod nas nedovoljno istraženim temama pravnog znanja, pravne pismenosti, pravne kulture i pravne socijalizacije putem koje se ta znanja usvajaju., This paper analyses the results of a survey about the knowledge of selected labour rights among vocational school graduates in Croatia. The survey was conducted during 2019 as a part of the EU project “With Knowledge to Law” involving 1102 graduates from 54 vocational schools in Croatia, from various three-year, four-year and five-year programmes. Using descriptive statistics and regression analysis, the paper aims to determine potential differences in the demonstrated knowledge of selected labour rights among the respondents and whether the sociodemographic and educational characteristics of the respondents impact the level of their legal literacy. The results indicate a low level of knowledge and legal literacy relating to selected labour rights among respondents, as well as a contribution of their sociodemographic and educational characteristics to the index of overall knowledge about selected labour rights. The regression analysis shows that the gender variable has the most influence on the level of legal literacy among surveyed graduates. In addition to reviewing the current situation in terms of the knowledge of surveyed graduates on selected labour rights and encouraging academic and public debates, the findings of this research may have application value in the development of curricula for civic education at different educational levels. They may also support the development and planning of trade union activities in Croatia, especially regarding the recruitment of new members. The research findings potentially contribute to the insufficiently researched topics of legal knowledge, legal literacy, legal culture and legal socialization through which this knowledge is acquired.

During the emergence of the legal socialization field, the obligation to obey the law was central in theoretical and empirical approaches. Scholars in the last 50 years often noted that the obligation to obey the law (OOL) is vital for compliance, yet studies rarely empirically examined factors that promote the OOL. This study used data from 1000 adults stratified sampled to be nationally representative of the United States to examine how personal characteristics (i.e., impulsivity and morality), perceptions of the nonlegal social context (i.e., social bonds, teacher legitimacy, and parent legitimacy), and perceptions of the legal system context (i.e., deterrence and police procedural justice, distributive justice, bias, and legitimacy) are associated with the OOL. The results indicated that impulsivity, teacher legitimacy, deterrence, and perceptions of police legitimacy and bias were associated with the OOL. Implications for the next 50 years of legal socialization research are discussed.

Legal attitudes, such as legal cynicism and perceived legitimacy, develop through an ongoing process of legal socialization involving both legal authorities and non-legal agents of socialization. Most research on the non-legal sources of legal socialization has focused on authorities most relevant to the early stages of the life-course. Few studies have examined the influence of non-legal sources of socialization relevant to adulthood, even though early pioneers of the field anticipated that legal socialization involves a life-long process. In this article, I investigate the influence of changes in intimate relationships and their characteristics on legal cynicism and legitimacy. Using data from a longitudinal study of serious, young offenders, I investigate the extent to which changes in relationship characteristics contribute to within-individual changes in legitimacy and legal cynicism during the transition from adolescence to early adulthood. The results indicate that changes in the characteristics of intimate relationships are associated with changes in legal attitudes, and that these involve both direct and indirect effects. These findings highlight the importance of non-legal sources of legal socialization over the life-course and show that they are not confined to the authority figures traditionally acknowledged in the legal socialization literature.

Police rely on citizens to report crime and victimization. Yet for many people low levels of trust in police and concerns about unjust police treatment impact their willingness to engage proactively with police. For some, defying police authority is common. This can be particularly so for ethnic, racial, and religious minority groups. The personal and vicarious experiences these groups have with police play an important role in the legal socialization process, shaping how they perceive and behave toward police. As a religious minority group Muslims have experienced intense scrutiny from police. As such, the current study examines how and why Muslims defy police authority. Using survey data from 398 Australian Muslims, this study tests whether Muslims’ concerns about procedural justice and bounded-authority violations (i.e., the belief that police overstep the boundaries of acceptable authority) have differential effects on two types of defiance: resistance and disengagement. Findings show that Muslims’ concerns about procedural justice are most important for understanding resistance, while disengagement is dominated by concerns about perceived boundary violations. Further, procedural justice moderates the association between bounded-authority concerns and resistance, but not disengagement. The implications of these findings for the legal socialization process, theory, and police practice are discussed.

The invariance thesis posits that the effects of procedural justice judgments on police legitimacy beliefs are consistent across a variety of contexts, including urban neighborhoods. An alternative argument, one steeped in the relational model of authority, holds that procedural justice effects are weaker in high-crime communities where residents do not identify with the police and where they place more weight on instrumental concerns. This study used survey data from 1,000 adults in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The regression models showed that the association between procedural justice and police legitimacy was stronger in low-risk neighborhoods. In high-risk areas, distributive justice was a stronger correlate of legitimacy. Overall, the findings highlight how neighborhood context can moderate the influence of fairness judgments on supportive beliefs.

Growing research indicates that police legitimacy is a strong predictor of whether people behave respecting or violating rules. Perceptions of legitimacy are an output of socializing processes through which individuals develop their values and orientations toward authorities and the legal system. Legal socialization studies show that encounters with legal authorities are critical “teachable moments” in this process. The present study verifies whether direct or vicarious negative contacts with police officers affect changes in the perception of the legitimacy of police authority by adolescents over time. The adolescents were classified according to whether or not they had witnessed or experienced any negative contact or experience with the police during the period before the interview, composing two group trajectories at the first wave, four at the second wave, and eight at the third wave. Then the trajectories were compared in terms of the extent to which they agree with statements about police legitimacy, allowing the quantification of changes of opinion after negative contacts with the police. Results show that three main factors diminish the perception of police legitimacy: having negative contact with the police; having more than one negative contact; and having a recent negative contact. These findings have important implications for police patrolling and approach strategies.

The author's comprehensive research on the problem of legal socialization is aimed at studying the theoretical issues of legal socialization, as well as the influence of social institutions on these processes, the relationship of legal socialization with the legitimacy of laws and statebodies. Legal socialization is a process by which people acquire legal knowledge and beliefs about the law, state bodies that are called to observe the legal order, and legal institutions.

Despite surging interest in legal socialization, it is unclear how youth develop legal cynicism. The present study examined two socialization mechanisms for youth legal cynicism: perceptions of pol...

Introduction: the involvement of the citizens’ associations in solving the problems of preventing extremism among young people should become an important trend in the development of partnership relations between the state and civil society. In the context of the problematics, the issues related to increasing the level of legal socialization of Russian youth are of no small importance. The purpose of the study: to characterize the activities of the state and citizens’ associations to prevent extremism among young people in the context of legal socialization. The research objectives: to assess the joint activities of the state and civil institutions engaged in the prevention of extremism among young people in the context of legal socialization; to identify the problems of legal socialization of Russian youth and suggest the ways to solve them; to justify the productivity of network crowdsourcing technologies in the joint activities of the state and civil society in the context of prevention of youth extremism. The methodological framework for this research is represented by a system of methods of scientific knowledge, which should include: general scientific, systemic, institutional and sociological methods. Results: in order to combat the manifestations of extremism among young people and successfully socialize young citizens, a complex systematic work of the state and civil society is necessary, which objectively requires the implementation of certain technologies, such as network crowdsourcing. In the paper, when determining the efficiency of this technology, the projects “Cyberdruzhina”, “MediaGuard” and “STOPTERROR” were evaluated. Conclusions: it is revealed that the network crowdsourcing technologies act as an optimal mechanism for supporting the system of prevention of youth extremism. Their widespread introduction into the Russian social space can “socialize” the system of preventing extremism among young people, provided that its most important subjects are not only the state structures, but also the constructive associations of citizens.

Tanah Merah Dajah Village is not too far from the city of Bangkalan, it does not mean that the community has enough information about many things. Limited access and varying levels of education, economic conditions and a wrong understanding of religion, socially there are quite serious problems in society, namely about violence in the household. Among the community, including in thevillage community, it Tanah Merah Dajah has become a kind of tradition or habit to cover up acts of violence, especially domestic violence (KDRT) experienced by women and children. Until now, the problem of domestic violence is still considered a disgrace. Even if some of the victims asked for help from village officials, this was done secretly and the purpose of reporting to village officials was to make peace. In practice, the village apparatus conducts mediation to bridge these problems, so that the problems do not spread out. The settlement by the Village Head did not end the domestic violence, but it often repeated itself. The understanding residents of Tanah Merah Dajah Village, Tanah Merah Sub-district regarding domestic violence as a form of crime prior to the implementation of the legal socialization program is still low. This can be seen from the perception of society that views domestic violence as a personal matter which is a disgrace and must be kept tightly, even with family.Keywords: Legal Awareness, Domestic, Violent, Crimes

The paper attempts to conduct a comprehensive study of legal education as a legal category. Modern scientific approaches to the definition of the concept of legal education are considered, a distinction is made and the relationship between the legal phenomenon under study and related legal categories is determined. The author comes to the unequivocal conclusion that legal education as a legal category has an independent legal significance. Based on the analysis of modern scientific legal literature and current legislation, the author identifies features of legal education that clarify and supplement the existing concepts. Today, legal education is an independent direction of state policy. The measures implemented in the system of legal education act as a kind of tool for the formation of a legal culture and stimulate the active lawful behavior of individuals. The purpose of legal education is to ensure the full legal socialization of a person, and the final expected result is the formation of a high legal culture of society.

Whether preadolescents perceive their parents’ authority as legitimate or not depends, in part, on the concerns and issues that they have dealt with before and during their preadolescence. Utilizing data from the first and second waves of the São Paulo Legal Socialization Study (SPLSS), we conducted one-way MANOVAs to analyze the role of procedural justice and the impact of victimization on preadolescents’ perceptions of parental legitimacy across domains. Preadolescents were split into four distinct groups based on their perceptions of parental legitimacy and whether the perception shifted across the two waves of data. The study revealed a significant difference across groups in terms of procedural justice and on preadolescents’ reported victimization levels. The latter indicate that suffering some form of victimization may have resulted in delegitimizing parental authority. The findings broaden the literature on parenting practices in preadolescence and make salient an emerging field of victimization impacting parental legitimacy.

Funder: University of Zurich, The Zurich Project on the Social Development from Childhood to Adulthood (z-proso) began in 2004 in response to the need for a better evidence base to support optimal child social development and prevent crime and violence. Since then, the study has tracked the development of a diverse sample of youths (N = 1,675 in the target sample; ~50% female) from age 7 (n = 1,360) to age 20 (n = 1,180), with primary data collection waves at ages 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, and 20. The study uses a multi-method, multi-informant design that combines teacher, youth, and parent reports with observational and behavioural measures, biosampling, functional imaging, and ecological momentary assessment. Analyses of the data have contributed important evidence to a diversity of topics in child and adolescent development, illuminating the developmental roots of crime and aggression, the impacts of exposure to different forms and combinations of victimisation, and trajectories of mental health and neurodevelopmental symptoms.

Resumo: No presente artigo, apresentamos um panorama acerca da teoria da crença no mundo justo e da socialização legal, objetivando expor uma visão geral das perspectivas de estudos e suas aproximações para compreender como crianças e adolescentes legitimam as autoridades e dão sentido ao cumprimento das regras a partir da crença na justiça. O artigo apresenta uma análise da literatura dividida em três eixos: exposição da socialização legal como campo de pesquisa que investiga a internalização de normas e regras sociais, a formação de confiança nas autoridades e o desenvolvimento de atitudes e comportamentos em relação às leis; apresentação da teoria da crença no mundo justo, cujo intuito consiste em identificar os mecanismos pelos quais os indivíduos elaboram as noções de justiça; e discussão sobre como as percepções da justiça podem influenciar as relações das crianças com as autoridades e mobilizar diferentes atitudes diante de normas e leis. Com base nas evidências apresentadas, concluímos que uma elevada crença no mundo justo aumenta o nível de cooperação com as autoridades, uma vez que os indivíduos são motivados pelas expectativas de tratamentos justos e de esforços recompensados. Abstract: In this article, we provide an overview of Just World Theory and legal socialization research and how these explain how youth legitimize authorities and comply with rules based on justice. The article analyzes the literature in three parts: demonstrating legal socialization as a valuable research field to study how people internalize norms and social rules, develop trust in authorities, and shape legal attitudes and behaviors; presenting just world theory as a way to identify the mechanisms that shape justice perceptions; discussing how perceptions of justice can influence the relationships between children and authorities and shape attitudes towards the law. Based on the evidence presented, we conclude that a higher belief in justice can increase the level of cooperation with authorities because individuals are motivated by the expectations of just treatment and just rewards. Resumen: En este artículo, presentamos una visión general de la Teoría del Mundo Justo y de la socialización legal, con el fin de exponer un panorama de las perspectivas de los estudios y sus enfoques para comprender cómo los niños y adolescentes legitiman a las autoridades y dan sentido al cumplimiento de las normas desde la creencia en la justicia. El artículo presenta un análisis de la literatura dividido en tres partes: exposición de la socialización legal como campo de estudio que investiga la interiorización de las normas y reglas sociales, la formación de confianza en las autoridades y el desarrollo de actitudes y comportamientos en relación con las leyes; presentación de los estudios sobre la Teoría del Mundo Justo cuyo fin es identificar los mecanismos por los cuales los individuos desarrollan nociones de justicia; y discusión sobre cómo las percepciones de la justicia pueden influir en las relaciones de los niños con las autoridades y movilizar diferentes actitudes hacia las normas y leyes. Con base en la evidencia presentada, concluimos que una alta creencia en un mundo justo aumenta el nivel de cooperación con las autoridades, ya que las personas están motivadas por expectativas de trato justo y esfuerzos recompensados.