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Popular Participation: Exercise 3 - Political socialization


Instructions: Read the passage and click on the correct answer. If wrong, try again. Scroll down if you do not see the Answer box.
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Political Socialization
          How do people form their political values and opinions? From the time people are born, they are always part of certain groups. They learn about many things, including political issues, from other members of these groups. So, the contact people have with the members of the groups they belong to influences their political ideas and helps them form political values. This process by which people form their political views is called political socialization. The process of political socialization has four important characteristics. First, most people's political values are formed during childhood. Second, what people learn in childhood tends to remain fixed in their minds and influences them throughout their lives. In other words, people tend to hold on to the political values learned in childhood even when exposed to different views and values. The third characteristic of political socialization is that changes in political views usually happen among younger adults. This happens because their values are less deeply rooted (less fixed in their minds), which makes young adults more flexible and their values easier to change. Fourth, political socialization can happen in two ways: through formal instruction or informally. In the U.S., political socialization tends to happen informally. American people are constantly and informally exposed to political views through every medium of communication - TV, movies, radio, books, newspapers and conversations -which helps form their political values.

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