B.+Processes+by+which+citizens+learn+about+politics



= Learning About Government =

[|Ben's Guide to the U.S. Government] provides a student-friendly overview of the functions and branches of the government.

[|The Brookings Democracy Dashboard]


 * Displays trends in democracy and governance in seven key areas
 * Elections administration
 * Democratic participation and voting
 * Public opinion
 * Institutional functioning in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches
 * Media capacity


 * Political Socialization **
 * The process of a person becoming part of a political ideology is called political socialization
 * This is a never ending process, it continues throughout life[[image:kennedy family.jpg width="415" height="331" align="right" caption="The Kennedys, a Famous Political Family"]]
 * However, beliefs tend to be consistent
 * Older populations have generally undergone the most political socialization
 * Many different factors influence how someone is socialized
 * Religion, education, family, friends, media, gender, age, etc...
 * These factors are referred to as agents of socialization
 * Primary agents of socialization develop political orientations directly
 * Ex) Family
 * Secondary agents of socialization are less direct and personal
 * Ex) Media
 * Parents play a large role in socializing their children to their beliefs
 * Many children join the same political parties as their parents
 * A 2005 study from Gallup polled teens aged 13-17:
 * 7% identified as more conservative than their parents
 * 21% identified as more liberal than their parents
 * 71% identified as about the same as their parents
 * Click here for more details

For a study on how students and adults view history, see Famous Americans: The Changing Pantheon of American Heroes. Sam Wineburg and Chauncey Monte-Sano. Journal of American History (2008). >
 * Wineburg and Monte-Sano surveyed 2000 11th and 12th graders from all 50 states; they also surveyed 2000 American-born adults.
 * They found remarkable similarities between the lists generated by each group.
 * Importantly, they concluded "the people who come to the fore are those who acted to expand rights, alleviate misery, rectify injustice, and promote freedom."

Source: 1. WFU article. http://imej.wfu.edu/articles/1999/1/02/demo/Glossary/glossaryhtml/psocialization.html