Closing Gaps in Political Communication and Knowledge

Abstract

A model of family influence that reverses the traditional roles of parents and children is presented to explain the results of a school intervention that narrowed political communication and knowledge gaps between parents of high and low socioeconomic status (SES). Students' exposure to a civics curriculum stimulated adolescent news media use at home and discussions with parents about an ongoing election campaign. These discussions, in turn, stimulated parents to pay more attention to news and to gain political knowledge. Students in Grades 5 through 12 and one parent from each family were interviewed in a quasi-experimental evaluation of the civics curriculum (N = 457 pairs). Parents in low-SES homes had not been strongly socialized to politics in their own youth, but their children's exposure to the school intervention provided them a second chance at citizenship. This study highlights the capacity of the child to stimulate political communication in low-SES families.