The Role of Family in the Intergenerational Transmission of Collective Action

Abstract

The present research demonstrates intergenerational influences on collective action participation, whereby parents’ past and current participation in collective action (descriptive family norms) shape their children’s participation in conventional and radical collective action via injunctive family norms (perception that parents value such participation). Two unique data sets were used: dyads of activist parents and their adult children (Study 1, N = 100 dyads) and student activists who participated in a yearlong, three-wave longitudinal study (Study 2, Ns wave 1 = 1,221, Wave 2 = 960, and Wave 3 = 917). Parents’ past and current participation directly and indirectly predicted children’s protest participation in Study 1, while Study 2 showed a similar pattern longitudinally: Perceptions of parents’ participation (descriptive family norm) and approval (injunctive family norm) predicted change in collective action participation over time. Together, results highlight family environment as a critical setting for the intergenerational transmission of protest.

‘Coming together to awaken our democracy’: Examining precursors of emergent social identity and collective action among activists and non‐activists in the 2019–2020 ‘Chile despertó’ protests

“…Much of the earlier collective action research has long seen moral outrage as a spontaneous reaction at the violation of some shared normative standards (van Zomeren et al, 2012). It is reasonable to argue that in the case of the ‘ Chile despertó ’ social movement, the identification with the cause among both activists and non‐activists may be predicted by their moral outrage at the authorities' decision to increase the tariff on public transportation in the country (e.g., González et al, 2020). It is also possible that in that context, prosocial disobedience attitudes play a crucial role in the formation of shared‐group identities related to social justice cause as well as collective action when democracy is perceived as endangered (e.g., Jiménez‐Moya et al, 2019; Puga, 2016).…”

The intergenerational transmission of participation in collective action: The role of conversation and political practices in the family

“…This study was part of a larger project focused on the psychological consequences of participation in social movements (Carvacho et al, 2020; González et al, 2020). Two hundred people took part in this study, grouped into 100 dyads: 100 parents (60% women, M age = 53.40, SD = 5.83, range = 43–70 years) and 100 children (69% women, M age = 22.83, SD = 2.68, range = 18–31 years).…”

Dilemmas of resistance: How concerns for cultural aspects of identity shape and constrain resistance among minority groups

“…These dilemmas might relate to the communicative and strategic value of specific courses of action, for example, such as the costs and benefits of violent versus non-violent forms of protest when it comes to the success of a movement and how the movement is viewed by broader society (Feinberg et al, 2020;Teixeira et al, 2020). Other dilemmas might relate to the risks posed by resistance in oppressive contexts (Ayanian et al, 2021), or more generally the social costs of resistance in terms of the reactions of close others such as family (Cornejo et al, 2021;González et al, 2021;Klandermans, 1997). While the dilemmas we have reviewed in this paper each relate to the confluence of threats to status and to sociocultural identity, they therefore sit within a much wider array of dilemmas and non-obvious choices faced by disadvantaged groups when it comes to claiming social value and integrity.…”