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Fostering Marginalized Youths’ Political Participation: Longitudinal Roles of Parental Political Socialization and Youth Sociopolitical Development
Author(s) -
Diemer Matthew A.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1007/s10464-012-9495-9
Subject(s) - political socialization , socialization , ethnic group , politics , social psychology , health psychology , structural equation modeling , social change , positive youth development , sociology , psychology , developmental psychology , political science , american political science , public health , medicine , statistics , nursing , mathematics , anthropology , law
This study examines the roles of parental political socialization and the moral commitment to change social inequalities in predicting marginalized youths’ (defined here as lower‐SES youth of color) political participation. These issues are examined by applying structural equation modeling to a longitudinal panel of youth. Because tests of measurement invariance suggested racial/ethnic heterogeneity, the structural model was fit separately for three racial/ethnic groups. For each group, parental political socialization: discussion predicted youths’ commitment to produce social change and for two groups, longitudinally predicted political participation. This study contributes to the literature by examining civic/political participation among disparate racial/ethnic groups, addresses an open scholarly question (whether youths’ commitment to create social change predicts their “traditional” participation), and emphasizes parents’ role in fostering marginalized youths’ civic and political participation.