Graduate Program

Political Science

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Semester of Degree Completion

2005

Thesis Director

Andrew McNitt

Thesis Committee Member

Barbara Poole

Thesis Committee Member

Melinda Mueller

Abstract

Is there a difference in the way students are socialized and the amount of political knowledge they have based on location and socio-economic status? This thesis looks at one rural Illinois high school (East Richland High School, Olney, Illinois) through a 2004 school wide survey and compares results with Richard Niemi's "The Civic Development of9th through 12h-grade students in the United States," a 1996 nationwide survey of students.

To examine the political knowledge level of ERHS, student's overall political knowledge score was related to their parent's political party affiliation, grade level, gender, GPA, involvement in student council, involvement with community service, and participation in groups.

Five main hypotheses are addressed and analyzed. The first hypothesis is that students simply do not care about political factors and this in turns affects their overall political knowledge and socialization. This hypothesis was found to be significant based on student's overall political knowledge and their attention to news media.

The second hypothesis states that students will have increasing political knowledge as they progress through school due to school curriculum. It was found that ERHS students do have higher levels of political knowledge as their grade level increases.

The third hypothesis says that students tend to be of the same political party as their parents. This was found to be significant as most students at ERHS did tend to associate themselves with the same political party as their parents.

The fourth hypothesis states that students are more likely to watch or listen to the news if their parent's have more education. This hypothesis was also proven to be correct at ERHS. While parental education did not affect how much parents discussed the news with their children it was found to affect the amount of news their children watched which in turn led to increased political knowledge and socialization.

The final hypothesis states that students who are more socially active in clubs and organizations will be more knowledgeable politically. This hypothesis was found to be only marginally significant in one test and insignificant in two other tests. Neither involvement in student council or involvement in community service played a role in political knowledge. Involvement in a general group only proved to be marginally significant in relation to political knowledge.

More research is needed in the area of adolescent political socialization to validate the findings presented.

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