The author uses a national sample of high school seniors and utilizes the school as the unit of analysis to study the effects of family background and school characteristics on political orientation. The results indicated parental education to be the most consistent predictor. (DE)

Political socialization and political ideology as sources of educational discontent are analyzed among a national sample of 1,811 academically successful, college-bound high school seniors. The findings indicate a substantial level of student dissatisfaction primarily caused by student alienation and formal curriculum. (Author/DE)

Public relations instructors can begin to develop an appreciation of the social, political and economic (S-P-E) contexts on the part of their students by beginning to integrate this thinking into existing courses and curricula. Social contexts deal with cultural and subcultural beliefs, contacts within a community or organization, and frames of…

During the decade that followed World War II, social studies education in the United States was affected by many societal changes, particularly the new socio-political climate and a widespread discontent with the state of postwar public education. By the mid 1950s there was a crisis atmosphere regarding U.S. education contributed to by limited…

A study examined mass media use and ability to predict public support for two heavily publicized Florida referenda--casino gambling and a statewide lottery. It was hypothesized that (1) voters who read newspapers that publish election public opinion poll stories will be better able to predict support for the issues than voters who rely on friends…

Forty teachers attending a summer institute in East Germany in August of 1987 were given a questionnaire concerning their attitudes towards the German Democratic Republic and their opinions, perceptions, and misperceptions of Canadian students. The questionnaire was applied in Zwickau, East Germany at a small pedagogical college. Teachers were…

Television politics, emphasizing emotions over rational decision making, has been accused of warping the political process, especially in the election of the president. In the incomplete medium--the collection of dots--that is television, the viewer completes the circle of communication, filling in the image with his or her own attitudes. The…

The social work profession endows individual social workers with the mandate to respect and use the democratic processes to help clients achieve their fullest potential as individuals. This study was undertaken to understand and analyze if and how this mandate has been affected by the prescriptive social and political values of the New Right…

Concern for the social psychological effects of military service, particularly its effect on authoritarianism and political conservatism extends to military training programs on university and secondary school campuses. This study examined the relationship between participation in a high school Marine Corps Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps…

To determine people's use of media during the 1984 presidential campaign, telephone interviews were conducted with 630 heads of households in Dane County, Wisconsin. It was hypothesized that persons with different political orientations would have significantly different media use and attention patterns. The data analysis proceeded in two stages.…

A study explored the use of seven political information channels available to eligible voters during the 1986 off-year elections. Specifically examined were (1) the degree to which various political information channels were used during this election, (2) which of these information channels respondents depended upon most for information about the…

"Glasnost" or openness, to many Western observers, is a sign of democratization and a loosening of central control in almost all aspects of Soviet life. However, an analysis of excerpts from "Pravda" shows no evidence of any breaks with Leninist theory or revision in the roles of the government and masses and instead suggests…

This monograph contains five papers concerning political education in Canada. Chapter 1, "Political Education and the Teaching of Politics," considers the historical and philosophical connections between education and politics. Chapter 2, "Civics, Citizenship and Politics: Political Education in the Schools," explores…

A study of non-Hispanic attitudes about bilingual education had two goals: (1) to apply symbolic politics theory to bilingual education and (2) to test the theory's assumption that the symbolic meaning of an attitude object determines which symbolic predisposition it evokes. A national sample of 1,170 non-Hispanics were surveyed via telephone…

The object of this study was to decode the expressive symbol systems attached to broadcasting in the 1920s and to come to an understanding of the significance of the new technology by exploring the utopian dimensions which were tacitly held by the market model, and expressed in a variety of ways by the men and women who were connected in some way…