Hans Oswald
The base of my contribution is a four-wave longitudinal study of the political socialization (or political identity formation) of a cohort of adolescents. The research project started in 1996 with the first wave of data collection, when the adolescents visited grade 10. The fourth and last wave of data collection took place in 1998/99, when the adolescents were in grade 13 (the last school year in Germany in the "Gymnasium", the highest school track which gives access to the university) and at that time they had the right to vote for the first time in their lives. The study design includes interviews with friends and parents. The data sets of the first three waves are at hand for analyses. For additional comparisons, we have access to the data of a parallel longitudinal study with working youth of the same age cohort conducted by Professor Weiss.
Cross sectional and longitudinal analyses are based on triad data sets (father-mother-adolescent) and on tetrade data sets (father- mother-adolescent-friend). Changes on the aggregate level were calculated by using analyses of variance with repeated measures (GLM). Individual changes were predicted by using multiple regression analyses. For the purpose of the present conference we focus on three points:
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- Under the head line How can politically desinterested groups of adolescents get involved?" we analyse the political interest of girls as compared to boys.According to studies across different countries, the political interest of females is generally lower than that of boys. However, if we differentiate distinct areas of political interest the higher interest of boys refers to an area which we have labelled front page politics (parties, government, economy, army, international affairs and the like). With respect to social policy and foreign immigrants' policies we found no gender difference. And with respect to new politics" (ecology, third world and peace) the interest of girls was significantly higher than that of boys.
- Also, the readiness to participate in politics depends on the kind of participation. More boys than girls answered in the questionnaire that they were ready to vote (attitude). According to preliminary calculations, however, the same proportion of boys and girls actually voted in the real situation of a general election in 1998 (reported behavior). In addition, girls were more ready than boys to participate in forms of legal protest (demonstrations, signing petitions and the like). With respect to civil disobedience we have found no gender difference whereas more boys than girls - especially boys from the lower school tracks - were ready to use violence.
- Parents, mothers more than fathers, and friends predicted the political participation in cross-sectional analyses. However, for those adolescents who changed their attitude during one year, fathers seemed to be more predictive than mothers and friends.
- According to our hypothesis authoritarianism decreased by age. However, due to arising political circumstances xenophobia increased slightly. Authoritarianism and xenophobia were interrelated. Xenophobia was better predicted by parents and peers than authoritarianism. In longitudinal analyses parents and not peers predicted the change in xenophobia.
