CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2021
| Author | Mitrea, Elena Cristina |
|---|---|
| Title | The Transmission of Ideology across Generations: A Comparative Analysis |
| Summary | Although ideology has generated a considerable amount of research, many of the questions surrounding the role of the family in the development of the ideological position of the youth remain unsolved. Moreover, due to a paucity of suitable data, even less is known about the mechanisms of the family transmission of ideology across different cultural and political contexts. This dissertation seeks to fill this gap by examining levels of intergenerational ideological congruence in Europe. It employs new multigenerational data on family socialization and political attitudes from nine EU member states (Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom) and two associated countries (Switzerland and Turkey). The diversity of the countries included in the study in terms of their socioeconomic, cultural and political configuration makes the data a fertile ground for exploring the cross-national dimension of the family transmission of ideology. Taking advantage of this cultural and socioeconomic variation, this dissertation assesses the strength of the status inheritance and social learning models across different national contexts. The empirical chapters explore the conditions under which parents successfully exert an influence over the political attitudes of their children and the factors that facilitate intergenerational congruence in ideological position. Some of the key results of this dissertation are that young adults who perceive their parents as warm and autonomy supporting during adolescence have a higher likelihood of sharing their ideological position, especially in countries high in individualism. On the other hand, the likelihood of intergenerational congruence decreases for upwardly mobile young adults, who are more likely to lean rightward of their parents' position, especially in countries with high levels of youth unemployment and social spending. Therefore, this dissertation contributes to existing research in the fields of political socialization and political attitudes by enlarging the scope of previous studies and analyzing socialization mechanisms in scarcely researched European countries, different from established democracies in institutional and cultural configuration. |
| Supervisor | Littvay, Levente |
| Department | Political Science PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2021/mitrea_elena-cristina.pdf |
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