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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. Click
here to review the key terms for this exercise.
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.
Instructions:
Read the passage and click on the correct answer. If wrong, try
again. Scroll down if you do not see the Answer box. 
