Define Political Socialization Essay Example

Secondary political socialization takes place in a more formal, more structured, and more organized manner. The first agent of secondary political socialization is the school or educational institutions. This is where an individual is made politically conscious. Examples of being taught to be politically aware are by learning the national anthem and about the flag and learning governmental authority and authority in general. The second agency is the church or other religious institution.

Religion is one of the main sources of morality. This is where majority of people in society get their ideas of right or wrong because often religions have rules that define what sin is and what is virtue. This has an impact on politics, how people view politics and how people behave politically. The third agency is the mass media. Radio, television, newspaper, cinema, and in more recent times, talk shows are examples of the mass media. Talk shows are very important in forming people’s attitudes and influencing their values. The fourth agency is the political party.

With Political parties the leadership tries to develop certain attitudes and to strengthen certain attitudes and to strengthen certain hostilities. The political party explicitly tries to socialize members to uphold and to support the party almost regardless of what it does. Also, peer groups for example the work place plays a role in political socialization. It motivates or pressures them to conform to attitudes or behavior accepted by the group. Political Culture means the attitudes, feelings, ideas and values that people have about politics, government, and their own role, and more generally about authority in all its various forms.

Every country has a political culture. According to http://academic.

regis. edu political culture refers to what people believe and feel about government, and how they think people should act towards it. According to http://k-12. pisd. edu there are three Levels of Political Culture. System Level which involves the citizens and leaders views of the values and organizations that hold the political system together. Examples: National Pride, national identity, and legitimacy of government. Process Level are the expectations of how politics should function and individuals relationship to the political process.

Examples: principles of government, role of citizens, perceptions of political rights. The Policy Level deals with citizens and leaders policy expectations from the government. Examples: role of government, government policy priorities. Political behaviour may be defined as any action regarding authority in general and government in particular. This authority includes church, school and any others but in particular governmental authority. An obvious example of an act of political behaviour is the act of voting.

In casting your vote you are, in a democracy, relating to government by voting for whom you feel should form the government. In this act of political behaviour, you also decide who you do not want to form the government. Elements of identity in political culture constitute three elements: The way in which people define themselves (racial, religious, geographic, and political). The extent of attachment to a national identity (Trinidadianness, Jamaicanness). The way in which that national identity is preserved in the food they eat, the music they love and the visits they make to the Caribbean when they have the opportunity.

The basis of that attachment (the basis of identity comes from pride in sporting and cultural achievements and pride in the beauty

of our island (environment). Political socialization and political culture share an inescapable mutual relationship. One cannot do without the other. Through the process of political socialization, the central values of political culture are transmitted from one generation to another. Political socialization is what factors or agents are responsible for an individual’s political ideas or where they learnt them and political culture is what the individual personally feels about politics and their role in it.

Therefore, political culture and political socialization go hand in hand because if the factors or agents of political socialization do not exist then there would be no political culture, because according to www. encyclopedia. com the values and attitudes internalized during the general socialization process are consistent with and reinforced by the attitudes and values stressed in the process of more explicitly political socialization; and the combined socialization processes tend in turn to support and reinforce the current political culture.

Under such conditions the prospects are for the continued existence of a logical and relatively stable political culture. In conclusion political culture and political social have a mutual relationship. Political culture is the attitudes, feelings, ideas and values that people have about politics, government, and their own role in politics and political socialization is the places or the people in which that individual learns political culture.