Political Socialization How people acquire their political ideas

Influences Traditionally family and schools are the most powerful ways that children receive their political ideas Recently some political scientists say these factors are weakening and the mass media is becoming more influential Where did you acquire your political ideas? Do you share or oppose your parent’s political ideas?

Demographics Religion, race, geography, social class,age, level of education, gender and peer groups also play an important role in political socialization. These are often called demographic factors. In looking at your own political ideas, which demographic factors do you think have been most influential?

The cohort effect Each generation has defining events such as: The Great Depression, WW II, and Vietnam. This creates a “cohort” effect for each generation. What do you think might be the defining events for your generation?

Public Opinion Public opinion is the aggregate of individual opinions shared by some portion of the adult population. Consensus is when the vast majority of Americans agree with an idea Divisive opinion is when the nation is polarized between two different opinions.

Measuring Public Opinion Public opinion is measured through opinion polls Early in the 20th century magazines used “straw polls” by mailing questionaires to their readers. These were not scientific and often inaccurate Scientific polling techniques begin in the 1930’s with the Gallup and Roper polls.

Scientific Polling Pollsters must use a representative sampling of the population Pollsters must choose people on a random basis Pollsters must ask neutral questions, that do not influence respondents answers.

Problems in Polling Number of people sampled too small or not representative Use only one method of sampling. Eg. Telephone excludes people without phones Biased questions Sample all adults instead of likely voters Push polls - polls that try to persuade voters of an opinion, rather than sample their opinion