Perspectives on Political Awareness: Conceptual, Theoretical and Methodological Issues

Description

This interdisciplinary volume presents a comprehensive framework to understand political awareness. Political awareness has become an important part of research on political attitudes and political behavior since the publication of John Zaller's work on political opinion. The authors elaborate on his theory and present a new conceptualization, which stipulates that political awareness is the attentiveness, knowledge, and understanding of politics.  Hence, the book discusses different aspects, such as the concept of political awareness, its formation, significance, measurement, and exploration. The result is a new framework that addresses conceptual, theoretical, and methodological questions, such as: What does the concept mean? How to study political awareness? How is it connected to other orientations? How do children and youth develop political awareness?  Addressing researchers and graduate students, as well as scholars in political science, sociology, and education, this book is a must-read for everybody interested in a better understanding of political awareness.  Contents Editors and Contributors Introduction 1 Why Political Awareness Today? 2 The Conventional Approach Towards Political Awareness: John R Zaller 2.1 The Concept of Political Awareness 2.2 Measurement of Political Awareness 2.3 The Relevance of Political Awareness 2.4 Political Objects 3 Beyond Zaller: The Contributions of the Anthology 4 Presentation of the Chapters References The Relevance of Political Awareness: A Literature Review with Meta-Analysis 1 Introduction 2 Method 2.1 Conducting Research 2.2 Analyzing Research 2.3 Classifying Analytical Function 2.4 Integrating Results: Meta-Analysis 3 Results 3.1 The Analytical Function of Political Awareness: An Overview 3.2 The Relevance of Political Awareness: A Meta-Analysis 4 Discussion and Conclusions Appendix References Political Awareness, Concept and Measurement 1 Introduction 2 Theory 2.1 What is Political Awareness? 2.2 Dimensionality of Political Awareness 2.3 On ‘the Political’ in ‘Political Awareness’ 2.4 Mechanisms of Political Awareness: ‘Receive, Accept and Sample’ (RAS) Model 2.5 More on Preconditions 2.6 Political Awareness and Its Relation to Other Concepts 2.7 Summary 3 Methodology—Measuring Political Awareness 3.1 Pilot Sample 3.2 Analytical Procedures 4 Results 4.1 Test of Country Differences 5 Discussion and Summary 6 Future Research 7 Limitations 8 Implications for Teaching Appendix References Political Awareness and Identification Among Young Students: Political Identity and Democratic Engagement 1 Introduction—The Study of Youth Political Engagement 2 Theory 2.1 Political Awareness and Political Identity 2.2 Identity as Conflict and Struggle 3 Methodology 3.1 Case Design and Scope 3.2 Sample and Selection of Participants 3.3 Interview Procedures 3.4 Interview Guide/-Themes 3.5 Data Analysis 4 Analysis 4.1 Theme 1: Primary Socialization—Family Influence on Political Awareness 4.2 Theme 2: The Role of School on Political Awareness 4.3 Theme 3: The Role of Gender on Political Awareness 4.4 Theme 4: The Role of Age and Generation on Political Awareness 4.5 Theme 5: Political Engagement and Efficacy 5 Findings and Conclusions References Role of Political Awareness in Complex Societal Matters: The Cases of Health and Climate Change 1 Introduction 2 Broadening the Concept of Political Awareness 3 Refining PA: Distinguishing Awareness from Knowledge and Understanding 4 Measures of Awareness and Knowledge 5 Alternative Avenues for Gauging Awareness 6 Conclusion and Outlook References Accuracy of Self-Assessments of Political Sophistication 1 Introduction 2 The Problem of Asking Knowledge Questions 3 The Difficulty of Objective Self-Assessment 4 Self-Assessing Political Sophistication 5 Identifying Low-Performers in Political Sophistication 6 Data and Variables 7 Analysis 8 Summary and Discussion References Travelling with Political Awareness: A Comparative Approach 1 Introduction 2 The Concept of Comparative Equivalence 3 The Significance of Comparative Equivalence 4 Three Approaches to Comparative Equivalence 5 Strategies to Establish Comparative Equivalence: Concepts and Indicators 5.1 Increasing the Level of Abstraction 5.2 Using a Common Set of Indicators 5.3 Using an Uncommon Set of Indicators 6 Challenges to Comparative Equivalence: Sampling 7 Challenges to Comparative Equivalence: Translation 8 A Summary of Comparative Equivalence Challenges 9 Comparative Equivalence and Sub-National Comparisons 10 Conceptual Frameworks of Political Awareness 11 Conclusion References