Schools or Pools of Democracy? A Longitudinal Test of the Relation Between Civic Participation and Political Socialization

Abstract

Schools or pools of democracy?A longitudinal test of the relation between civic participation and political socialization van Ingen, E.; van der Meer, T.W.G. General rightsIt is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulationsIf you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: http://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. Abstract In this contribution we demonstrate how the usage of panel data offers possibilities for testing new hypotheses in a research tradition with a long history in political science. Focusing on citizens' transitions in and out of voluntary associations, we tested four possible explanations for the well-documented correlation between civic engagement and political socialization. Two are due to self-selection effects (pools of democracy), and two are due to socialization effects (schools of democracy). Our analyses offer little support for the idea of voluntary associations playing a major role in political socialization processes: our latent growth curve models showed no or very little increase of political discussion, interest, efficacy, and action among those who became actively involved in voluntary associations. In contrast, we found convincing evidence for our pools-of-democracy hypotheses, and the self-selection turns out to be a double-edged sword: politically engaged citizens are more likely to join voluntary associations and less likely to leave them. These findings challenge the conclusions of many studies based on cross-sectional data.

Young People, Digital Media, and Engagement: A Meta-Analysis of Research

“…This is in line with previous findings about off-line environments. Off-line environments with civic or political properties tend to do so, while those with leisure- and self-expressive-oriented properties do not (Quintelier, 2008; van Ingen & van Der Meer, 2016).…”

Compensating or reproducing? Students from different educational tracks and the role of school in experiencing democratic citizenship

“…cultural organisations or youth unions) appears to have a positive effect on democratic attitudes, while participation in other associations (i.e. sport organisations) does not seem to affect democratic attitudes (Fung, 2003;Hooghe & Quintelier, 2013;Nieuwelink et al, 2016b;Van Ingen & Van der Meer, 2015). The highly educated more often take part in activities in civil society (Nie, Junn, & Stehlik-Barry, 1996) and have, therefore, more opportunities to develop democratic attitudes.…”

The Compensation Effect of Civic Education on Political Engagement: How Civics Classes Make Up for Missing Parental Socialization

“…Each respondent has a unique trajectory as they age through the estimation of random slopes and random intercepts (cf. Bollen and Curran, 2006;Preacher et al, 2008;and van Important in the LGC models we present in the next section is the distinction between fixed effects and random effects. The fixed effects explain the intercept, i.e., the starting level of political engagement at the age of 14 when respondents were first interviewed.…”