Youth, Political Socialisation and Everyday Life

This paper aims to explore the social processes that shape political socialisation of European youth. The theoretical point of departure is the literature of political socialization that sees family and close friends as principal actors in young people’s political socialization process (e.g. Hyman 1959, Jennings et al. 2009). A key question is to what extent parents pass on political values and habits to their offspring, and how upcoming generations differ politically from their predecessors. However, there seems to be a lack of knowledge concerning social dynamics and interaction in the everyday experience of young people’s political life. Especially, whether the development of modern family patterns and increased gender equality might change the classic roles of the parents in the political socialization process.

While we recognize the importance of parental socialisation, we challenge the typical assumption of a “one-directional” intergenerational transmission of political values from parent to child. Therefore, we believe it is essential to scrutinize how young people engage in daily conversations and discussions about politics and society, because young people who engage in political discussions with family and friends tend to be more engaged in political participation than other youth, such as voting at elections, petitions and participation in demonstrations (Gundelach and Levinsen 2011).

Besides outlining relative contributions by different agents of political socialisation, we aim to explore the contexts of political socialisation by asking how political issues are raised and what kind of political issues are discussed? Thereby, it is possible to make a coherent analysis at different levels, which both maps the networks of political socialisation and explores how young people gain and develop information and knowledge.

Methodologically, the paper adopts a mixed methods research model. The paper triangulates survey data (n=936) and in-depth interviews (n=60) of young Danes. Data has been gathered for the MYPLACE project.