Changing Citizenship Norms among Adolescents: 1999-2009-2016

• In Event: Citizenship Norms and Youth in Times of Rapid Social Change

Abstract

The rapid evolution of citizenship norms over time is considered one of the driving forces behind changing political processes in contemporary democracies. In the literature it is assumed that contemporary democracies are confronted with a rise of self-expressive political values that place less emphasis on traditional norms like political trust or allegiance. Insights from political socialization research (Hess & Torney-Purta, 1967) furthermore allow us to assume that these kinds of values are developed at an early age, partly as a result of parental socialization, and partly as a result of explicit educational efforts. We investigate changing citizenship norms by analyzing newly released data on adolescents’ conceptions of good citizenship from the 2016 International Civic and Citizenship Study (ICCS 2016). These data are uniquely high-quality and comparative and were collected in 24 democracies, including diverse European countries including Central and Eastern Europe, as well as countries in Latin America and Asia. The ICCS study offers high quality representative data for the political attitudes of adolescents in the participating countries.
Drawing on our prior research which analyzed two cross-sectional waves of the ICCS survey implemented in 1999 and 2009 (Oser & Hooghe 2013; Hooghe & Oser 2015), this paper implements newly developed measurement equivalence techniques in latent class analysis (Kankaraš, Vermunt, & Moors 2011; Oser & Hooghe 2018) to investigate the claim that citizenship norms are undergoing rapid change. These changes include the replacement of duty-based citizenship norms by self-expressive and civically engaged notions. More specifically we focus on the way more traditional forms of citizenship norms are gradually being replaced by more self-expressive values. We also try to explain country differences in this process. At a time of increased political disengagement and populist sentiments that challenge democratic legitimacy, the study sheds new light on the increasingly strained relationship between citizens and democratic systems.

References

Hooghe, M., & Oser, J. (2015). The rise of engaged citizenship: The evolution of citizenship norms among adolescents in 21 countries between 1999 and 2009. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 56(1), 29-52. doi:10.1177/0020715215578488
Kankaraš, M., Vermunt, J. K., & Moors, G. (2011). Measurement Equivalence of Ordinal Items: A Comparison of Factor Analytic, Item Response Theory, and Latent Class Approaches. Sociological Methods & Research, 40(2), 279-310. doi:10.1177/0049124111405301
Oser, J., & Hooghe, M. (2013). The evolution of citizenship norms among Scandinavian adolescents, 1999–2009. Scandinavian Political Studies, 36(4), 320-346. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9477.12009
Oser, J., & Hooghe, M. (2018). Democratic ideals and levels of political participation: The role of political and social conceptualisations of democracy. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 20(3), 711-730. doi: 10.1177/1369148118768140



Keywords: Citizenship norms; duty-based; engaged; democratic legitimacy; latent class analysis

Authors

• Jennifer Oser, Ben-Gurion University

• Marc Hooghe, University Leuven