BOULDER — A study led by a University of Colorado professor and published by the quarterly academic journal Social Science Quarterly has found that civic engagement and heightened attention to news in adolescents leads to increased attention to politics in parenting.
“I became concerned over the years, in doing research on youth political engagement, that there’s been a lot of interest in promoting civic mission of schools,” said Mike McDevitt, professor of media, communication and information and co-author of the paper. “But there’s been very little attention to the civic responsibility of parents.”
When social studies and civics classes in high schools provide discussions on topical issues, students take those conversations home. As teens begin to express their autonomy from their parents through their political identity and opinions, parents start to do things such as paying more attention to the news to maintain their leadership role in the family.
Because of that trickle-up dynamic, the results are more pronounced in low-income and immigrant families who are less likely to pay attention to news media, McDevitt said.
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