THEMATIC MEMORY FOR POLITICS IN CHILDREN.

This paper reports on an experiment designed to test the way (fourth grade) children congnitively process various kinds of information about politics. Our findings provide evidence that children integrate symbols from their immediate political environment into "themes." These themes may then serve to organize their political knowledge and mediate receipt of new information. We did not find similar evidence of thematic integration for "adult" political symbols. These findings raise questions about the degree to which events in the adult political world will directly affect children's developing orientations toward that world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]