210143 SE M11: Research Practice (2024S)

Political socialization serves to understand the origins of political preferences as well as political and social change within societies. In this Research Practice we consider the possible "inheritance" or transmission of values, ideologies, and specific political attitudes and behaviour. We focus on the socialization within the family, as the family context is a primary socialization instance for the formation of political values and social behaviour. The parental home not only plays a role in the deliberate discussion of social and political questions by parents or guardians but can also have an indirect impact. In the Research Practice we will also explore the relationship between political socialization and the selection of political communication channels. The resulting selective access to certain information and contacts with the "outside world" due to political socialization may give value to certain political values and attitudes more than others. Eventually, we will also deal with how political differences along social classes may influenced by political socialization and lead to different educational and occupational pathways.

The Research Practice is based on short inputs by the instructor, in-class discussions, group discussion and collaborative work on data collection and analysis. Students will develop their own research proposal in this research area and search for/collect empirical data that allow answering their research questions. This can be done by either using secondary data (e.g., European Social Survey, National Election Studies) or developing and implementing new research instruments (e.g., online survey, text analysis of party programmes or news media reporting).

The goals of the research practice seminar are threefold. First, students become acquainted with theories and recent research on political socialization. Second, they learn how to develop a research proposal. Third, student become familiarized with empirical research methods in political science, both with regards to data collection and data analyses.