Intergenerational Continuities in Political Participation: Do Activists’ Children become Activists?

Abstract

This panel asks how the experience of growing up in a home and environment filled with politics influences adult civic orientations and political participation levels. Four basic questions will orient the panel. Answers to these questions are important to understanding (or questioning) the declining civic and political involvement levels of recent generations of young people. (1) Although prior research has demonstrated that children of politically active parents tend to be politically involved as adults, we know little about the mechanism involved. What do the children of activist inherit politically?—a memory of past political events in which their parents participated?; political values and ways of looking and acting in politics?; Political knowledge and skills? (2) Almost no scholarly attention has been given to how the profile of participation on the part of the adult child compares to that of the parent. One issue here is whether children resemble their parents in the mix of activities they engage in. A second issue is the variation across forms of political participation in level of parent-child similarity. Are parents better at producing protesters or voters or contributors or joiners? (3) Research rarely considers implications of changes in family circumstances to the child’s political development. Do major disruptions of family life—changes in economic status, divorce, or death of a family member—alter these transmission patterns and the child’s likelihood of political involvement as an adult? (4) We also know very little about the effects of discontinuities in the parents’ civic orientations or involvement levels. Does it matter to offspring civic orientations if their parents develop a distrust of government during the child’s adolescent years? Does consistent parent political involvement throughout the child’s adolescent years matter more than episodic parent involvement? Contributions to this panel will focus on one (or more) of those topics and will develop an argumentation based on empirical data (quantitative and/or ethnographic material).

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