Five Decades of Political Socialization Research: Sources of Populist Sentiment

Abstract

Fifty years ago, the subfield of political socialization research became prominent in APSA with publications by political scientists and a few psychologists at Yale University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Michigan. By the mid-1970s there were dissertations and several projects, books and articles on political socialization. The strong attachment that children felt toward their political leaders in the United States (found in those early studies) had echoes in the 2016 U.S. election, when adult voters chose not to vote at all rather than choose a candidate with whom they felt no personal connection. In the early 1990s the collapse of Communism stimulated new interest in conducting research on how young people acquire democratic political orientations. The senior author of this presentation was involved in instrument development and publications in an early project. This researcher also led the large-scale study of young people’s civic knowledge and engagement in 28 countries testing first in 1999 (the IEA Civic Education Study). The data collected in three waves (1999, 2009 and 2016) includes many questions taken from adult studies by political scientists: attitudes toward immigrants, political trust or mistrust, citizenship norms and willingness to participate in conventional and social movement activities. Analyses of these data (especially from 1999 and 2009) can aid in understanding the attitudes of adults currently living in Europe (as well as in the U.S.). The nationally representative samples of 14-year-olds tested in 1999, for example, are now members of the generation in its mid-thirties. In short, these political socialization datasets can shed light on issues of current interest to political scientists. Secondary analysis of existing data sets has become a valuable tool as new data collections face practical obstacles. In recognition of this, there has been an upsurge of respect for secondary analysis. Many of these data sets (including the two listed above – the 1960s Chicago Study and the 1999 IEA CivEd Study, along with its subsequent waves) have been deposited in the recently established CivicLEADS at ICPSR and are freely available to researchers. The co-authors of this paper are from two generations – one a researcher in this field for several decades and the other a researcher in the field for a little more than five years (a period of rapid methodological development). The paper will present an analysis and interpretation of data from the 1999 and 2009 IEA civic education studies using data from the U.S. and several European countries. The purpose will be to illuminate the roots of current trends toward populism among adults. We will present results from person-centered analyses (latent class analyses) that can capture interest among researchers in several subfields of political science (and also among the public and policy makers). Person-centered analysis delineates profile groups of individuals holding particular sets of attitudes and estimates the prevalence of these profile groups. This contrasts with research methodologies that present coefficients with little meaning to non-statisticians (e.g., policy makers, educators). Another advantage of this approach is that one can estimate the percentages of young people who hold particular patterns of attitudes in particular countries or other groups (e.g., among females compared with males or among those with low educational aspirations compared with those who have high aspirations). Using this methodology, we have found that anti-immigrant feeling, negative attitudes toward ethnic groups within the country, and low trust in government characterizes a substantial cluster of young people in the United States, England and Australia (and we are exploring other European countries). It is also possible to identify correlates of membership in these profiles, for example, students’ reports of discussion with parents, educational background of the family, educational expectations of the student, peer group experience, classroom experience as well as the individual’s sense of collective efficacy at school. The existence of a substantial number of respondents who during their mid-adolescence were already expressing a pattern of alienated attitudes is relevant to understanding some recent patterns of political opinion and voting. This group of alienated students expressed sentiments that were highly negative about immigrants and about ethnic minorities; they reported low levels of political trust. This reveals possible precursors of the recent rise of populism among adults. Interestingly when an early version of these results was presented four years ago, audiences often argued that adolescents would “grow out of” these negative views as adults. Few realized that this group would be available for mobilization by political campaigns and could form the core of populist sentiments across the U.S. and in other countries.