Validating a Measure of Perceived Parent–Child Political Socialization

• Published date: 01 September 2020
• Author: Brittany N. Perry,Francisco I. Pedraza
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912919850632
• Date: 01 September 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912919850632

Political Research Quarterly

2020, Vol. 73(3) 623 –637

© 2019 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912919850632

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Article

Fundamental to behavioral political science research are

processes of political socialization (Flanagan 2004;

Terriquez 2011; Westheimer and Kahne 2004). Following

the so-called “death” of socialization research in the

1970s (Niemi and Hepburn 1995), scholars breathed new

life into the topic, advancing classic “top-down,” parent-

to-child transmission models (Gidengil, Wass, and

Valaste 2016; Jennings, Stoker, and Bowers 2009;

Rosenstone and Hansen 1993; Verba, Schlozman, and

Brady 1995; Verba, Schlozman, and Burns 2005). A core

assumption of classic models is that parents know their

country’s political system and transfer their politics to

their children. However, disparate lines of political

socialization research show that the degree of inculcation

and political sophistication among parents varies by

socioeconomic status (SES) (McDevitt and Chaffee

2000, 2002) and immigration experience (Garcia-

Castanon 2013; Terriquez and Kwon 2015; Wong and

Tseng 2008). Moreover, increasing economic inequality

in America (Gould 2018) and the growing share of

American children born to immigrants (Zong and

Batalova 2017) indicates that “top-down” models may be

less adequate, and offer less accuracy, for understanding

the full range of political socialization experiences in the

twenty-first century. Considering the diversity in baseline

political interest and knowledge among individuals,

scholars developed models of “trickle-up” or child-to-

parent transmission. In these models, children are re-

imagined as influencers in their social networks (McDevitt

and Chaffee 2002; Ojeda and Hatemi 2015; Terriquez and

Kwon 2015; Wong and Tseng 2008). Corroborating the

conceptual model of child-to-parent transmission is evi-

dence that children who live in low-SES households

(McDevitt and Chaffee 2002), as well as those whose

parents are immigrants (Wong and Tseng 2008), perform

critical “brokering” activities that boost their parents’

political knowledge and civic engagement.

The growing recognition of children and younger per-

sons as agents of influence in adult political socialization

processes reflects a broader acceptance in communica-

tion, psychology, and sociology literatures of a bidirec-

tional framework. This framework unifies the traditional

direct-transmission model with processes of child-to-par-

ent influence (Bell 1968; Knafo and Galansky 2008;

Mola and Buysseb 2008). However, the literature remains

theoretically unclear about whether those influences are

complimentary or competitive. Furthermore, efforts to

import the concept of bidirectional influence to models of

political attitudes and behavior have proceeded without a

measure that adequately captures the influence of both

parents and children (Knafo and Galansky 2008; Paschall

and Mastergeorge 2016).

850632PRQXXX10.1177/1065912919850632Political Research QuarterlyPedraza and Perry

research-article2019

1University of California, Riverside, USA

2Texas A&M University, College Station, USA

Corresponding Author:

Brittany N. Perry, Department of Political Science, Texas A&M

University, 2114 Allen Building, College Station, TX 77843, USA.

Email: bnperry@tamu.edu

Validating a Measure of Perceived

Parent–Child Political Socialization

Francisco I. Pedraza1 and Brittany N. Perry2

Abstract

A growing body of research in political science is influenced by conceptual advances in socialization theory which

posit that children can influence adults’ learning across a wide range of topics. The concept of bidirectional influence

describes socialization led by one’s parents and children. One outstanding need in the effort to import this concept

to political socialization research is a measure that captures the influence of both parents and children. We meet this

need with a measure of relative influence from both parents and children as sources for political learning. We provide

evidence of measurement validity using separate samples of Asians, Blacks, Latinos, and Whites. Our findings suggest

that our metric is portable across groups, and that the range of what individuals recall about their familial socialization

experience includes more child-to-parent influence than existing studies suggest.

Keywords

political socialization, bidirectional learning, measurement validation