Political Socialization is a particular type of political learning where people develop the attitudes, values, beliefs, opinions and behaviors that are conducive to becoming a good citizen in their country. With political socialization there are many factors that are present when these views are formed, many are very apparent like historical events, and a clear effect such as gender, race, and socio-economics status. My own political views were formed the same way as everybody else were.
Through the first people I came to know, which were my parents. My parents taught me what the difference between a democrat and a republican were, what role the president plays in our government, and about our legislative branches which was based around their own views. When growing up my parents encouraged self-respect and individuality so, this taught me to think about things own my own and how I felt about them. They also taught me how to conduct myself on a day-to-day basis. Being taught these things by my parents made me a very open-minded person and this carries over strongly into how I view politics. I tend to focus on the single issues that are on the forefront and not on which party is proposing them.
This process could be perceived as “Good” because of the many factors
That are involved in our political culture. Family, education, mass media, and religion are just a few of the roles that are used in political socialization.
Family plays the most
The process of political socialization is vital in the developing of how one views politics, the way they act or choose not to act, and how they identify within the political system. Although countless influences sway or attract us to a given political view, party, or identification, there are undoubtedly certain factors that play a bigger role in this process. Some of the most prominent agents of political socialization are as follows; family, media, peers, education, religion, faith, race, gender, age, geography, and socioeconomic status. We know these develop or determine our views of politics but now we’ll look at how and why they have such an impact.
Most people are exposed to the same principals and agents of political socialization. Families spread values that support political authorities and can heavily contribute to children's initial political ideological views, or party preferences. Families influence political knowledge and identification depending on variables such as family demographics, life cycle, parenting style, parental level of political skepticism and frequency of political discussions. Demographics such as gender and age also attribute to political socialization. School is another agent of political socialization. Spending numerous years in school, children in the United States are taught and reinforced a view of the world that their text books tell them to trust. Through primary, secondary and high schools, students are taught key principles such as individual rights and property, personal responsibility and duty to their nation. Another is mass media. Mass media is not only a source of political information; it is an influence on political values and beliefs. Various media outlets, through news coverage and late-night programs, provide different partisan policy stances that are associated with political participation. Religions, beliefs, and practices play a role in political opinion formation and political participation. The perspective offered by religious institutions shape judgement regarding public policy, and political decision
I have not had much interest in politics until recently. Before last year, I did not care for anything related to politics; I thought that it was all boring and had little to no affect on me on a personal level. I am more interested in politics nowadays. I know better now that it does affect me and I should care about it. I had learned about the concepts of political socialization, party identification, political tolerance, political trust, political efficacy in government class and how they affect my political beliefs. My personal political belief has been shaped into what it is today and is still being shaped because of those six concepts.
A lot of things have played a role in my personal political socialization. Political ideology is the places where you have informed your beliefs from. The first example of where I get my personal political socialization is from my family. Second I have influence from my location in the U.S.A. Finally I get influence from Narragansett High School which is the school I currently attend. That is where I received my personal political socialization from.
Political socialization begins early on in life and is an ongoing process affecting individuals throughout. It is how people eventually identify personal beliefs and expectations in American politics. These political views can include our level of patriotism, faith in the democratic system, standards by which we hold governing bodies, and opinions regarding public policies. From the playground to the classroom, the office to the dinner table, much of our lives affect our political opinions. The most easily identified agents of this are family, schooling, peers, mass media, political parties and religious influences. Furthermore, these means indoctrinate us in the political society through four basic
Have you ever thought about why you have the political beliefs and values you do? Where did they come from? Are they simply your own ideas and experiences or have you been influenced by others in your thinking? This process by which individuals acquire their political beliefs and attitudes is called political socialization. In another words, Political socialization is a concept where the study of the developmental processes by which children and adolescents acquire political cognition, attitudes and behaviors. What people think and how they come to think it is of critical importance to the stability of the government. The beliefs and values of the people are the basis for a society's political culture and that culture defines the
Social learning theory, developed by Bandura, discusses how people learn from one another through observation, modeling, and imitation bridging an individual’s attention, memory and motivation. Social learning theory identifies the importance of cognition, observable behavior, individual self-efficacy, and the extent of how the events surrounding an individual affect them; their locus of control. Social learning theory also looks at individual problem behavior being influenced by positive or negative reinforcement (Ashford & LeCroy, 2012).
Growing up, I did not live in a household that was big into politics or political parties. It was never a hardcore democrat or hard core republican, but both of my parents are registered as democrats because of the unions. My mom and dad will vote for whomever they think is the best fit for the position, so naturally, I am not quite sure where I stand politically. So, to better understand, I have decided to interview my grandpa instead. My grandpa is registered as a republican and stands by his viewpoint 100 percent. Growing up, his family, friends, and military service helped to shape his views on how the world should be and why exactly he is a republican. My grandpa is a strong-willed man, who will standby his viewpoints and the viewpoints of other republicans.
Political socialization, as Steffen W. Schmidt has said, is a ' process by which people acquire political beliefs and values(Steffen, Mack, Barbara, American Government and Politics Today, Page117). Americans are very willing to discuss and express their political opinions when they are asked. But how do they get these general political attitudes or political beliefs? In this essay, I will enumerate several ways, like family, education, mass media and religion, to explain how Americans get their political beliefs.
Political Socialization in definition is formed by the ideas and beliefs that individuals develop over time that help mold their attitudes and values about our national government. In fact, most individuals that form their political values are heavily influenced by their family, classmates or coworkers in many cases. Individuals truly only know what they are taught at a young age until they are mature enough to develop and maintain their own thoughts and beliefs about our administration. It would be fair to say that I was molded in to a democrat for most of my young life and that was the extent of my political opinion for a number of years. Nothing more than stating what political party I belonged to and who to vote for when the election took
What single factor do you think had the strongest influence on your political socialization? My family and my culture are huge factors that influences my political socialization. Growing up in an immigrant household was very though. Seeing my parents struggle to put food on the table was difficult to witness. As a little girl I didn’t understand what was going on. Why couldn’t my parents find a decent paying job? Why did my dad have to have two sometimes three job just to pay the bills. It wasn’t until I got older and understood that all that economy suffering my family and I went through could have been prevent with a few numbers called social security.
Total institutions are powerful agents of socialization and have nearly complete authority of the individuals who live beneath them. Most of the individuals who are victims of total institutions have changed their values and beliefs essentially without knowing. Not only do they change some of their values and beliefs, but they undergo a change that erases all previous characteristics of their previous values and beliefs; this change is known as resocialization. Although total institutions sound like a bad thing, they can in fact be used for a good purpose. Many known forms of total institutions include Nazi concentration camps, military boot camps, mental asylums, etc. In all total institutions, the individuals being “worked on” all have relatively
Akers and Sellers (2013) has stated that social learning theory is an expanded theory of differential association processes and improves it with differential reinforcement and other principles of the behavior theory. They added classical conditioning (the sharpening of involuntary reflex behavior); discriminative stimuli (internal stimuli that lead to signals for behavior); schedules of reinforcement (rewards and punishment ratio following behavioral feedback); and other theories of behavior (Akers & Sellers, 2013).
Political socialization is nearly impossible to avoid in today's living with technology in almost every part of our lives and the diversity of our world. The only way to avoid political socialization is to avoid all contact and socialization with the outside world. To fully understand political socialization and how it affects your everyday life it is best to know the definition. “The transmission of political norms via cultural agents, like educational facilities, mothers, fathers, or other caregivers, peers and friends, or the mass media." ("What is POLITICAL SOCIALIZATION? definition of POLITICAL SOCIALIZATION (Psychology Dictionary)," n.d.)Now how do these agents affect my views on politics?
Political socialization is a concept that shows the development of children and adolescents who attain political cognition, attitudes, and behaviors. Political socialization routinely begins in children. There are multiple factors that influence the political socialization of citizens. Research theorizes that family and school teachers are the most influential. Recent research also states that media plays an important role on influence as well.