Political socialization in adulthood - The role of latent political learning in particular view of working life

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The research on political socialization knows little about stability or change of political orientation and behavior in the adulthood in regard to its degree and possible causes. However, two large longitudinal panels, the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and the British Household Panel Survey, are hardly used, although they provide comprehensive and excellent data eligible for studies in political socialization allowing deep insights in the dynamics of political learning.Using these data and based on the hypothesis, that political socialization is a life-long process, the project analyses the long-term development of political orientation as well as behavior patterns and looks for the underlying causes. To achieve two general research aims, stability and causality of political socialization will be analyzed extensively. The first aim is to analyze carefully and in detail the dynamics of the individual political orientation and behavior: Which of the different attributes vary during lifetime and to what degree? And, to what extent is the stability of political orientation dependent on important moderators as personal traits, social and geographic mobility or type and frequency of critical personal events. The second aim investigates the causality of important tertiary agents of socialization on the development of political identity with a special focus on the role of profession and work. In detail four leading questions are asked: (1) What causes a change of occupational position on long-term political identity with respect to direction, intensity and sustainability? (2) How is the impact of occupational conditions on political identity? (3) Is there a reciprocal relationship between occupational conditions and political identity? Does traits of political identity exist which have an impact on occupational situation and conditions? (4) What are the role personal events beside working life?The project affords the excellent opportunity to analyze directly several dimensions of professional experience with respect to the long-term development of political identity on the base of representative longitudinal data. Therefore this project will have a sustainable effect on understanding of long-term political learning in adulthood and its underlying mechanism.