Sitting in class and looking at Trump, Clinton, and Sanders and I think to myself “Whom do I even want to vote for? Maybe I should not vote this year.” As I continue discussing with my inner voice, I confuse myself even more. Being exposed to politics in this class a tad more than before, has aroused confusion in my decision-making and which political party I belong to. As a child, I remember cheering for the Democratic presidential candidates, when their speeches aired on television. Maybe I was a Democrat only because my parents are Democrats. What better way to analyze my parents’ influence on my political views, than doing my own research and discovering new political ideas? In Erika Patterson’s article, “Do Children Just Take Their Parents' …show more content…
The book: Political Character of Adolescence, specifically in the chapter: Political Knowledge, explains correlations by the usage of statistics. Kent Jennings, in his book, Political Character of Adolescence: The Influence of Families and Schools, confirms that girls of homogeneous families are the children that grow up to be more like their parents, than boys. This is only when one parent reports a party difference and the other does not. In this case, the boys’ perspectives about political parties become independent of their parents’ views. Based on the “Student Reports of Party Differences by Parent Reports,” the similarity between a student and his or her parent increases as the student moves up the education ladder. When the head of household has received some grade school or less for education, views of students and parents are independent (-.01). When they have received a high school diploma or have some high school education, correlations are more positive but still small (.10 and .08). Continually, when the head of the household is college-educated, similarity between child-parents is moderate (.17). By observing this, it is clear that perspectives on politics are most learned by children when their parents are highly politicized. Visibly, children, whose parents are more educated, are highly likely to think like their parents, politically. For instance, my older Armenian cousins’ parents are Republicans and they want Trump to win the presidential race. Their parents are educated, one has a master’s degree and the other has a bachelor’s degree. Their political views are strongly conservative and the fact that Trump is the presumptive nominee is a celebration for them. They raised two children who are now adults with their own political views. They adopted their parents’ political views. This is how political views are
Millions of citizens around the United States, at some point in their lifetime, obtain a political ideology. Typically, their political values are influenced by their parents. Political scientists have identified that around age eleven, children begin to develop political opinion. According to Wilson’s, American Government: Institutions and Policies, 91% of a high school senior class indentified with the same party as their parents (American Government 158). I can attest to this since I in fact have the same party association as my parents. Ever since I was young, I categorized myself as a Democrat due to the fact that my elders were. However, as I have matured I am able to recognize the beliefs and ideologies that followers of certain parties possess. Since I have been more exposed to the political arena I am able analyze the issues more critically and hence I continuously question whether I should classify myself as a Democrat or Republican.
Sean Blanda’s, “The Other Side Is Not Dumb”, uses cultural examples concerning the younger American generation involving, the medias influence and peer pressure vs the actual facts and proof, involved while forming a personal opinion. The author emphasizes how the effects of pressure from our surroundings, such as: friends, media, and more, adjust our view of political and social subjects. He includes multiple cases of where your own ignorance can hinder your learning and interaction with others. If you continue to have a negative outlook on people who disagree with you, you’ll never be able to consider yourself a curious person and participate in social media. “We cannot consider ourselves “empathetic” only to turn around and belittle those that don’t agree with us.”- Mr. Blanda
... Issues and Inheritance in the Formation of Party Identification. American Journal of Political Science, 970-988. Oakes, P., Alexander, H., & John, T. (1994). Stereotyping and social reality.
Scholars have assumed for centuries that people vote based on their household voting or because of the numerous civic classes that he or she had to sit through during school. But this view has finally started to change and develop as the disciplines of psychology and science have grown. Studies are expanding on political orientation and beliefs by looking at genes as a primary influence on political engagement as opposed to just the environment. Resulting findings show that genetic variation plays important role in explaining variation in political behavior (Edsall, 2013).
I’ve only recently became interested in politics, after taking civics and economics in my sophomore year of high school in the 2010-2011 school year. Even then, I still didn’t have a footprint set in the political world, I just grasped more and more knowledge from teachers and peers. While my first political experience, didn’t actually have anything to do with actual governing peoples, Chavaun vividly remembers former president Bill Clinton’s time in office. This is when she really grasped on to politics and learned that her opinion really matters. At this time, I was too young to vote and didn’t really understand how politics worked; I still do not fully understand it. I first said my earliest political memory is when I was in civics and economics, however that’s when I first learned about it. I would now say that my first political memory was when I joined the National History Scholars Society my junior year; I kind of understood politics more and was in charge of several mock elections and also worked at the polls. While I was not old enough to actually vote, I did take part in mock elections and read about several of the candidates and had the opportunity to speak with people of different backgrounds and political
I think that my own political views were formed much the way everyone else's were. My parents taught me about the differences between democrats and republicans, what the president does and even about the legislative branch, mainly based around their own views, but always with quite a bit of objectivity. I grew up on a fairly free rein, my parents encouraged individuality and self reliance, so I really learned to think about things on my own and figure out how I felt about them. Another interesting factor in my upbringing is that I grew up without television, so when I wanted to know what was going on I read the newspaper. The school that I went to was fairly progressive and the teacher that I had for Social Studies taught us a lot about both our local and federal governments.
Today's society, as a whole, tends to view young people as indifferent and blasé about the world around them. However, students feel that they are tuned out by politics. According to the responses to the survey I gave, college students feel that the issues addresses do not pertain to them, and are not relevant to their lives. Issues such as Medicare, and what to do about social security are not a concern of young people and their lives right now.
The American population’s view on political issues is constantly changing as different circumstances arise each day. There are two sides of the political spectrum that people tend to fall between: liberal and conservative. In order to accurately place oneself on this political spectrum, an individual should be socially aware and always gaining insight on the latest political policies and how they came to be. This is called “political socialization”. Political socialization has three main agents-- family, education, and environment. These three agents have influenced me to fall more toward the liberal side of the political spectrum. I have experienced the instabilities of a single-parent household, the insufficiencies of public schools, and
I come from a VERY apolitical family, so much so that neither of my parents are even registered to vote. As you can imagine, my passion for government doesn’t stem from my parent’s dedication to a political party or candidate and my interest in the subject is relatively new. I had always been fascinated with American History and current events, but prior to the 2016 election I had been out of touch with the government and so politically illiterate that I don’t even like to think about it. Since then, I have done just about everything that I can to educate myself on every aspect of the government, from attending Virginia Girls State to dedicating 30 hours a week during the summer to help get my candidate elected, but I think that the
Study 1. To find a potential relation between the beliefs of a person and the beliefs of that persons’ peers, participants will fill out a political beliefs survey
Many young people think they have the knowledge they need in order to vote. Some of them do. Kids nowadays have there eyes on elections more than ever. In the age of social media teens see everything that's going on in this country. Some kids pay better attention to elections and other news because they’re constantly on social media and see stuff everyday. Social media
Family can influence the political party that people belong to. Family can also influence the way in which a person does or does not vote. If a family has traditionally voted democratic, chances are that the children will vote the same way. There is an emotional attachment to the way in which a family has voted, and that affects the way the new voter will vote. In part, people vote the way their family has because they do not want to be different then their family, there is also the fear of letting their family down. On the other side of the coin, the new voter could go totally against his or her family.
Are students properly informed in political areas? The question abounds while adults worry about weather students will vote for political views or weather they just agree with Bruce Springsteen. Astin says that “A democracy works only to the extent that the voter is well informed”(Astin 97). Astin believes that the only way to have a properly functioning democracy is to have informed voters. This is the question of the day, why people vote, weather its for actual political views or for the sole purpose of agreeing with someone else.
Political socialization is a universal process that is largely an uncontrolled and uncontrollable. All societies must find a way of passing on skills needed for people to perform political roles, varying from voting at an election to governing a country. Political socialization serves to replicate the status quo and as a result, political culture becomes a stabilizing force, providing a major barrier against planned change. Although the bulk of political socialization occurs during childhood, adults continue to be socialized. The process of political socialization is carried out through specific agents that can be divided into two groups; primary and secondary. Primary agents are informal and unstructured, whereas secondary agents are formal and organized. These agents teach us about their political opinions and the workings of the political system. The primary agents of political socialization are the family and the peer group. “Political scientists have long shown that family socialization is closely related to voting preference. Persons are very likely to vote for the party of their parents to the degree that both parents live together, vote and talk about politics”. (“politics in the Caribbean, voting behavior”, nd.) The family plays a major role as an agent for political socialization, because it has the earliest
Why some people send their aging parents to a nursing home? The answer is that some people do not want to take care of their elderly parents and some people think nursing home care gives the elderly a better care. Most people believe that taking care of aging parents is their children’s responsibility. In different countries of the world, people live according to their own cultural values. They have the right to express their own opinion .Some people believe that children should take care of their aging parents; others think children should not take care of their aging parents. I strongly agree that children should take care of their aging parents for some reasons.