Partisanship on the Playground: Expressive Party Politics Among Children

Abstract

The beliefs and behaviors of U.S. adults are increasingly sorted and polarized along partisan lines. We draw on studies of partisanship and social identity formation to argue that children develop partisanship as a social identity during the political socialization process. For a group of children, their partisan social identity produces an affective (and largely negative) evaluation of the political world. Analyzing survey data collected from 1500+ children ages 6–12 in 2017 and 2018, we show that some children develop a partisan identity as they learn about politics that operates similarly to other social identities like gender and race. Children’s partisanship is associated with negative affective evaluations of politics, particularly leaders of the other political party. Using an innovative measurement tool, we show affective, negative reactions in children’s open-ended responses, including when they are asked to draw a political leader. Other children simply learn about politics without developing partisan identities and thus hold more positive affective evaluations of the political system.

Putting the affect into affective polarisation

“…Second, what does growing up in an affectively polarised society mean? Young children seem to be affectively polarised (Lay et al, 2023 ; Tyler & Iyengar, 2023 ). Children adopt the political attitudes and beliefs of their parents, and these attitudes and beliefs are increasingly hostile.…”

Listen to Me: Quality of Communication and Intergenerational Political Socialization

“…Although political socialization research has experienced a resurgence of late, much of our growing understanding of processes and outcomes rely on somewhat dated samples, including “youth” from the 1970s and 1980s (e.g., Sears and Valentino, 1997) through the 2000s (e.g., Wolak, 2009; Dinas, 2014). Moreover, the preponderance of studies have focused on high school or college students, with some notable exceptions (Sears and Valentino, 1997; McDevitt, 2006; Lay et al, 2022; Tyler and Iyengar, 2023). Our data of 11–14-year-old opinions builds on and is able to interrogate Tyler and Iyengar’s (2023) finding that “adolescent partisan identification is well established by age 11” (349).…”