The Development of Political Knowledge in Adolescence: Which Mediating Institution has the Strongest Influence?

Recent research on the development of political knowledge often focuses on the role of one specific mediating institution in this process. In this paper, we argue that it is important to put the role of different mediating institutions into a comparative perspective. First, we investigate the development of political knowledge by simultaneously analyzing the role of different socialization agents such as schools, peers, friends, parents and mass media. Second, we analyze whether interaction with these socialization agents increases or decreases the knowledge gap between lower and higher educated individuals. In other words, are discussions with family, friends and class mates more effective in increasing political knowledge levels among higher educated individuals, or are they particularly beneficial for lower educated people,so that they decrease this inequality? We focus this research on adolescents, as adolescence is a phase in life in which knowledge on societal issues is strongly being developed. The paper aims to contribute to our current understanding on the development of political knowledge in two ways. First, we will be able to compare the importance of different mediating institutions on this development within one sample. Second, we will put the knowledge gap hypothesis to the test for these different socialization agents. We use data from the Parent-Child Socialization Study 2012-2013, a unique two year panel study among 3400 adolescents and both their parents in Belgium. We use multilevel analysis to control for the clustering of adolescents within schools and to test for the effects of the school environment.