What Do Citizens Have to Do? Parents’ and Adolescents’ Messages About Civic Duty

Abstract

The current study examined demographic and civic behavior correlates of observed messages concerning civic duty coded from dyadic, semistructured interactions between 160 adolescents (M age = 14.42, range = 12-18) and their parents (144 mothers, 52 fathers). Anecdotal statements are provided to illustrate the eight themes that emerged within parentadolescent civic discussion. Three themes concerned community and political involvement-community service, voting, and other standard political involvement (e.g., keeping up with current events)-and five themes concerned informal civic duties-be productive (e.g., working and becoming educated), follow regulations, help others, respect country, and respect others. In mixed-effect logistic regression models, coding categories were differentially associated with parent and adolescent demographic characteristics and parent-reported civic behavior.

Borgaravitund ungmenna skoðuð í ljósi uppeldissýnar foreldra þeirra

“…In summary: The young people's focus was on participation and policy making aiming at citizens' welfare, as well as on informal civic norms such as following the rules of society, being hard-working and treating other people well. These findings resemble other research conclusions (Oosterhoff et al, 2015) indicating that parent-child discussions about civic duties are more frequently about informal civic participation forms (such as showing respect to other people, being kind to others, being helpful, hard-working, following rules) but less with regard to formal aspects such as political participation. Both Elva's and Þórhallur's parents discussed informal civic norms.…”

“…Umraeður foreldra og barna um pólitík skipta jafnframt máli þegar kemur að þekkingu barna á stjórnmálum (McIntosh, Hart og Youniss, 2007). Fram kom í rannsókn, þar sem athugaðar voru borgaralegar umraeður á heimilum, að ungmenni og foreldrar raeddu gjarnan óformleg borgaraleg viðmið og athafnir (að virða lög, sýna virðingu, koma vel fram við aðra, vera hjálpsamur og vinnusamur) en síður um þátttöku í stjórnmálum eða sjálfboðaliðastarfi (Oosterhoff, Metzger og Babskie, 2015).…”

Historical Trends in Concerns About Social Issues Across Four Decades Among U.S. Adolescents

“…Inconsistent with hypotheses, youth with more educated parents were more concerned about race relations, hunger and poverty, and economic problems relative to youth with less educated parents. Although these effects were relatively small, it is possible that youth with more educated parents spend more time discussing sociopolitical events, thus leading to a heightened awareness of these issues (Oosterhoff, Metzger, & Babskie, ).…”

Observed Mother and Father Rejection and Control: Association With Child Social Anxiety, General Anxiety, and Depression

“…Behaviors were summed across the entire interaction, with higher values representing a greater frequency of a given behavior. Similar to other studies coding behavioral count data (Oosterhoff et al 2015), linearweighted Kappas were calculated using a subset of videotaped sessions (15 %). Kappa coefficients indicated that interrater reliabilities were acceptable for all coding categories (all j [ .90).…”