Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

The Use of Role Theory in Political Socialization Research

The Use of Role Theory in Political Socialization Research The Use of Role Theory in Political Socialization Research A Review, Critique, and Modest Proposal* RONALD G. LANDES Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Canada I N THE past few years the burgeoning volume of political socialization research has been subjected to periodic reviews (Dennis 1968; 1973) and to a growing number of theoretical and methodological criticisms (Marsh 1974; Searing et al. 1973). In particular the use of learning theory, or more precisely, its noticeable absence from the theoretical frameworks of major studies in the political socialization area, has received growing attention from researchers in this subfield of the discipline (Merelman 1971a; 1971b; 1973). In reviewing the existing political socialization literature in relation to its use of learning theory, we have come to the conclusion that this criticism is in many cases unjustified. Explicit in some and implicit in most political socializa- tion studies are various assumptions of role theory, which we view in this paper as a special type of learning theory (Deutsch and Krauss 1965). Thus, the major premise of this article can be directly stated: some of the problems encountered in previous political socialization studies stem not so much from a lack of theory as from a http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png International Journal of Comparative Sociology (in 2002 continued as Comparative Sociology) Brill

The Use of Role Theory in Political Socialization Research

Download PDF
14 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/brill/the-use-of-role-theory-in-political-socialization-research-RkUrFyr01P

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 1976 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0020-7152
eISSN
1745-2554
DOI
10.1163/156854276X00060
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The Use of Role Theory in Political Socialization Research A Review, Critique, and Modest Proposal* RONALD G. LANDES Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Canada I N THE past few years the burgeoning volume of political socialization research has been subjected to periodic reviews (Dennis 1968; 1973) and to a growing number of theoretical and methodological criticisms (Marsh 1974; Searing et al. 1973). In particular the use of learning theory, or more precisely, its noticeable absence from the theoretical frameworks of major studies in the political socialization area, has received growing attention from researchers in this subfield of the discipline (Merelman 1971a; 1971b; 1973). In reviewing the existing political socialization literature in relation to its use of learning theory, we have come to the conclusion that this criticism is in many cases unjustified. Explicit in some and implicit in most political socializa- tion studies are various assumptions of role theory, which we view in this paper as a special type of learning theory (Deutsch and Krauss 1965). Thus, the major premise of this article can be directly stated: some of the problems encountered in previous political socialization studies stem not so much from a lack of theory as from a

Journal

International Journal of Comparative Sociology (in 2002 continued as Comparative Sociology) – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 1976

There are no references for this article.