While empirical studies have observed a robust and positive relationship between parental education and the offspring's political engagement in some countries, including the USA, little work has examined the mechanisms thought to underpin this relationship. Treating intention to vote in early adolescence as a proxy for political engagement, this study examines the family processes that might indirectly link parental education with adolescents' intention to vote in our sample of 30 countries. We find that adolescents' expectations of their own education and political stimulation at home are key factors mediating the link between parental education and adolescents' intention to vote in most countries, although the exact nature of these indirect relations differs across countries. The intergenerational transmission of participatory advantages may well be a universal phenomenon as well as operate through the same pathway in a range of countries.
Can the predisposition to attain education affect the trust adolescents have in their country’s political institutions? Utilizing data from 2009 International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS), this study examines the effect of educational expectations on adolescents’ political trust. My multilevel analyses produced nuanced results. While educational expectations have statistically significant effects on adolescents’ political trust in most countries, the direction and strength of such effects are conditional upon the country’s overall quality of existing democratic governance. Political trust in adolescence may well be a function of one’s predispositions to attain education as well as national democratic conditions.
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