The Development of Political Trust Among Adolescents: An Intergenerational Transmission Approach

While political trust is generally considered to be an important resource for the political system, there is less research on the development of this attitude among adolescents. In this article we examine whether parents, who are considered as an important socialization agent for political attitudes, also have an impact on the development of political trust. Additionally, we assume that discussion about politics and political attitudes further strengthen this process of intergenerational transmission. We test our assumptions by performing several multivariate OLS regression analyses. The results show a significant effect of parents on their children’s level of political trust, and this effect is enhanced in families with frequent discussion about politics and for adolescents with a high level of political internal efficacy. The level of political interest and knowledge of the adolescent however does not influence this intergenerational transmission process.status: publishe