Three-Wave Political Socialization Panel Survey of Children in the San Francisco East Bay Area, 1968-1969

Résumé 0

This study investigated a number of substantive and methodological questions concerning the political socialization of children. Specifically, the study explored children's images of the American president, political participation, political knowledge, the generalization of nonpolitical experience to political participation and political efficacy, orientations toward political strategies, political system satisfaction, perceived governmental responsiveness, youth politics, party identification, and perceptions of political parties. Due to the timing of the survey -- the first wave was conducted in December 1968, the second in January 1969, and the third in May-June 1969, a period covering the transition from one president to another of a different political party affiliation -- children's changing attitudes toward presidential figures were measured. Also, children's developing images of a newly-elected president over a six-month period were studied. In addition, the data collection provides teachers' responses to questions concerning the political content of the curriculum as well as their views about the appropriateness of discussing such matters in the classroom. The methodological features of this collection allow comparisons of closed- (Parts 1, 3, and 5) and open-ended (Parts 2, 4, and 6) question forms and the study of the cross-time stability of children's political party choices and other opinions, as well as comparisons with political socialization studies in France and the United States, from which exact question wordings were replicated. Parts 7-8 (Waves 1-3, Closed-Form and Open-Form Data, respectively) contain the responses of individuals who participated in all three waves of the survey. A range of background variables were measured, including age, sex, race, intelligence-ability, religion, father's occupation, education, and social interests.