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Beliefs About Democracy Among English Adolescents: What Significance Have They?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

David Marsh
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Extract

In the last decade, a large volume of research and speculation concerned with the beliefs and attitudes of the mass and the elite about democracy, has been published.1 Parallel with this trend has been a growing interest in political socialization. It is not surprising, therefore, that some work has concentrated on the attitudes of adolescents towards democracy and the patterns of development of such attitudes.2 The genesis of this interest can be found in the belief that a knowledge of what people in a democracy think about democracy can help us understand its operation and predict its future development. My aim in this Note is to look briefly at two pieces of work which are concerned with English adolescents in order to discuss the intellectual limitations of frameworks devoted to exploring this interest.

Type
Notes and Comments
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , April 1972 , pp. 255 - 259
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

1 See Almond, G. and Verba, S., The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Prothro, J. W. and Grigg, C. M., ‘Fundamental Principles of Democracy: Bases of Agreement and Disagreement’, Journal of Politics, XXII (1960), 276–294CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mcclosky, H., ‘Consensus and Ideology in American Politics’ The American Political Science Review, LVIII (1964), 361–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 See Dennis, J., Lindberg, L., Mccrone, D. and Bold, R. Stief, ‘Political Socialization to Democratic Orientations in Four Western Systems’, Comparative Political Studies, I (1968), 71–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Abramson, P. R. and Hennessey, T. M., ‘Beliefs about Democracy among British Adolescents’, Political Studies, XVII (1970), 239–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Dennis et al., ‘Political Socialization’.

4 Efficacy might be better viewed as a personality variable rather than as an attitude.

5 They find a mixed pattern of development and conclude again rather extravagantly assuming that the dimensions they tap adequately reflect some absolute criteria of democracy: ‘Transmission of democratic values among the youth of these four countries does not proceed in a way that allows one unqualifiedly to rank-order the nations in youthful democratic attainment’, p. 95.

6 Dennis, et al. , ‘Political Socialisation’, p. 73.Google Scholar

7 Marsh, D., ‘Political Socialisation: The Implicit Assumptions Questioned’, British Journal of Political Science, I, Part 4 (1971), 453–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 These points are touched on in Schonfeld, W. R., ‘The Focus of Political Socialisation Research: An Evaluation’, World Politics, XXIII (1971), 544–78, esp. pp. 571–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Dennis, J. et al. , ‘Political Socialization’, p. 77.Google Scholar

10 Abramson and Hennessey, ‘Beliefs about Democracy’.

11 Abramson, and Hennessey, , ‘Beliefs about Democracy’, p. 240.Google Scholar

12 Abramson, and Hennessey, , ‘Beliefs about Democracy’, p. 241.Google Scholar

13 An excellent review of the research in this field can be found in Wicker, A., ‘Attitudes Versus Actions’, Journal of Social Issues, 25 (Selected Papers, Autumn 1969), 41–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Mcclosky, , ‘Consensus and Ideology’, p. 377.Google Scholar

15 See McClosky, ‘Consensus and Ideology’, Prothro and Grigg, ‘Fundamental Principles’, and especially Converse, P., ‘The Nature of Belief Systems’ in Apter, D., ed., Ideology and Discontent (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1964), 206–61.Google Scholar